Father is curled over his knees, a copper-colored lattice of metal pinning him down from his neck to his feet, which are tucked beneath him.
Both of his arms extend outside the lattice, but they’re also tied down, metal chains pinning his wrists to the ground.
Much closer to us, Kori, the white wolf, is caged just like Skirra, their enclosures only paces apart. Both wolves throw themselves against the bars, snarling and trying to bite through the metal. Both of them are facing Father, as if they’re trying to get to him.
Along with Abdiel—the Blacksmith that Thoren killed—another of the Blacksmiths lies dead in the snow near Kori’s cage. That’s the Blacksmith who tried to throw a spear at Thoren in the turret.
The fourth man stands near the trees, holding his left arm where blood runs down it. Father’s sword is dug into the snow, tip first, beside him.
But Kalith is once more the Blacksmith whose choices I fear.
He towers over my father, a sword held in his hands and pointed down at Father’s neck. Kalith’s tunic is torn and his face is bloodied. He has cuts all over his body, but the sneer on his face defies his wounds.
As I run toward them, I search for the final man, the one who was standing in the shadows. I don’t see him and my fear only increases because he could be a significant danger to us.
At my shout, Kalith’s focus snaps to us, distracted from my father for a few valuable seconds.
He spits blood as he shouts across the distance. “Witness your father’s death, Einherjar!”
We aren’t close enough to stop him. Not yet.
Beside me, Thoren raises his bow, nocking an arrow even as he runs.
I’m too far away from Kalith and the other Blacksmith to hit them with my daggers, but the bow and arrows that Father dropped earlier are resting on the snow only five paces away from me.
I will my legs to move faster as I veer toward them. Will my arms to scoop them up in time, to nock the arrow and fire it at one of the unprotected parts of Kalith’s chest now visible through the tears in his tunic. I tell myself I can cut him down while he’s focused on my father’s neck.
At the same moment that Thoren lets his arrow fly, my hand closes around the bow on the ground and I prepare to slide across the snow to snatch the quiver of arrows into my other hand and shoot as fast as I can.
I’m aware of the rush of air around Thoren’s arrow, the bite of the cold snow on my arms, the tension in my muscles, and then?—
There’s aclang, a soft hum of metal, and it’s coming from behind us.
Out of nowhere, a heavy object hits my back, striking my right shoulder and knocking me off course.
Pain explodes through my chest.
I can’t see my back to understand what happened, but as I tumble through the snow, a single, fine line of black metal bursts through my torso, right where my shoulder meets my body.
The line is as thin as a thread, but it rapidly thickens into prongs like claws, forming multiple hooks across my chest that wrench me to a stop.
I land on my side, still facing my father, trying to get my arms under me to push myself back to my feet, but cold metal grips me across my ribs and shoulders and it’s spreading with every desperate breath I take.
Multiple spikes plow into the ground beside me, pulling me down onto my stomach, pushing the air out of my chest, and pinning me to the spot.
There’s athudbeside me and I catch sight of Thoren landing hard in the snow, black metal wrapped all around his body. It’s a spider web of chains. The same kind that must be wound around me. Because of the way he’s landed, I can’t see his head, only his body.
A thin, metal strand drifts at the back of the web imprisoning Thoren, its loose end now floating in the breeze.
I struggle to free myself, roaring against the pain gripping my chest as I try to push at the chains that now bind me, trying to use my back to heave myself upward.
It’s impossible. The prongs have dug deep into the earth as if they’re rooted way down through the snow and into the soil.
I can’t see who took us down, but it has to be the Blacksmith who was hanging back in the shadows.
This metal.
The way it sung in the air and now bites into my body…
