Into the Forest of Steel

1587-10-24
Edge of the Blackwood

I left the city cobbles for pine roots and needles. Rumor said a hermit lived here who read steel like script. The trunks held the wind in long notes and the ground smelled of resin.

By a small clearing an old man split logs with a rhythm that needed no drum. His cuts were square, his recovery clean, his stance exactly where the weight asked to be. He asked my name, then waved it away and watched how I stood. When he lifted a stick his lines matched the plates I had spoken of as stories. I had not met von Lychenar, but I knew the look of his school.

We talked little. He pointed once at my shoulders, once at my feet, and let the silence do the rest. Far off a tower beat the hour and the trees answered with their own soft time. He said steel is a verse and you learn it by reading out loud until the mouth knows it.

Tomorrow he will begin the first true strike. I feel the road behind me and the work ahead.