Chapter 145: Rask’s Axes
Three mornings after the ironwood delivery, on the ninety-first day, Rask returned with a wagon full of broken axes.
No timber this time.
No sledges. No haulers dragging dark trunks through the yard. No ground-shaking warning from the southern slope.
Just one low Timber-Mane cart with iron-rimmed wheels, two broad-shouldered pullers, and a heap of ruined steel that clattered with every rut.
Barnaby heard it first.
His head came over the paddock rail, ears forward, mouth already curling with judgment.
Metal illness. Poor edge discipline. Cart smells of sap, blood, and excuses.
Elian looked up from the Yard Exchange tally. He had been trying to reconcile three barter columns, two coin columns, and one Timber-Mane notation Rask had carved into a strip of bark rather than write on paper. The bark strip sat beside the inkpot like a threat to civilized accounting.
Bruna leaned over his shoulder with a tray of oat-cakes balanced on one hip.
“Is that your cat-wood problem again?”
“Likely.”
“Tell him breakfast is not included unless he says please.”
“He will not say please.”
“Then charge him for silence.”
The cart rolled into the yard with a groan and stopped beside the new freight lane stakes. Dorvik, who had been crouched near Bay One inspecting a cracked plank, looked up at the sound of steel scraping steel.
His face changed.
Elian had known Dorvik to be angry, offended, smug, wet, mud-streaked, underpaid, overworked, and briefly sentimental while drunk.
This was different.
This was a craftsman hearing insult arrive by wheel.
Rask stepped down from the cart. His mane was tied back with red cord, and the hooked axe over his shoulder looked clean, sharp, and not part of the pile. Behind him, one Timber-Mane worker sat on the cart’s rear bench with a wrapped lower leg stretched stiffly in front of him. The cloth around the wound had been tied badly. Red-brown seepage marked the lower edge.
Merren appeared on the porch beam before Elian had time to call for him.
Rask saw the forager.
His lip lifted.
Merren looked at the worker’s leg, not Rask.
“Rot starting,” he said.
The injured Timber-Mane’s ears flattened.
Rask’s claws flexed once on the cart rail. “We came for axes.”
“You brought a leg,” Merren said.
Dorvik reached the cart and stared into the heap.
Bent heads. Chipped edges. Split hafts. One axe with the eye stretched out of true. Three with cracked collars. Two with dark stains dried into the grip wrapping. A broad felling axe lay across the top with half its edge curled over like a peeled coin.
Dorvik picked it up with both hands.
For one breath, he said nothing.
Then he turned the axe slowly enough that everyone nearby had time to see the damage.
“City-forged sadness,” he said.
Rask’s tail struck the cart wheel. “Insult later. Repair first.”
“This is not repair.” Dorvik held the axe out as if presenting a corpse. “This is grief with a handle.”
The Timber-Mane puller nearest the cart gave a low growl.
Rylia came out of the common room behind Elian. Her morning braid was not yet fully tied, and one claw still held the leather thong she had been using. Sif followed her with a mug in one hand. Varg appeared from the stable-side door, already looking for whatever problem had reached numbers before breakfast. Heda slipped out behind Varg with a piece of bread in her mouth.
Torra came from the southern path, dust on her boots and her glaive across her shoulder.
“Axes?” she asked.
“Broken ones,” Elian said.
Torra looked into the cart. “Those were axes.”
Dorvik pointed at her without looking away from the steel. “Correct.”
Rask’s patience was a short rope fraying at both ends.
“My clan cuts again in nine days,” he said. “Next stand is old ironwood. Wet lower grain. Hard knots. We need blades that bite and live. Your contract says tool repair.”
Elian opened the ledger to the Timber-Mane page. “It says claw-fit tool repair, market stall access, and canopy medicine allotment.”
Rask’s eyes moved toward Merren at the word medicine.
Merren was already on the cart’s rear wheel, crouched near the injured worker’s leg.
The worker snarled at him.
Merren did not blink. “Keep growling. Fever likes warm mouths.”
Rask stepped toward the wheel.
Rylia’s hand settled on the cart rail between them.
A placed fact.
“Your worker bleeds in the Hearth yard,” she said. “Our healer looks.”
“He is not ours.”
“He is the house’s.”
Merren glanced up for half a breath, then untied the bandage.
The smell reached Bruna first.
Her nose wrinkled. The tray of oat-cakes went onto the nearest barrel.
“Absolutely not near my kitchen door,” she said. “Heda, clean cloth. Sif, hot water. Varg, vinegar. Elian, do not stand there looking useful unless you intend to become useful.”
“I have the ledger.”
“Then write faster.”
The injured Timber-Mane hissed as Merren peeled the last strip of cloth away. The wound ran along the outside of his calf, a long cut from slipping bark or a glancing blade. The edges had swollen. Dark sap had dried in the fur around it. Someone had packed it with crushed leaves that smelled bitter and wrong.
Merren’s face did not move.
“Who put swamp-bind in this?”
The worker looked away.
Rask said, “Camp healer was gone.”
“Swamp-bind closes skin over dirt.” Merren took a small bone knife from his belt. “Good for shallow claw split. Bad for this.”
Rask’s jaw tightened. “Fix it.”
Merren looked at him then. “Ask.”
The yard stilled.
Dorvik had both hands full of damaged axe, and even he stopped scowling at the steel long enough to watch.
Rask’s eyes narrowed. “Fix it.”
Merren folded the bone knife back into his belt.
The injured worker’s ears went low.
Elian closed the ledger with one finger holding the page.
“Rask,” he said. “The contract covers medicine allotment. It does not cover orders given to house staff like pack servants.”
Rask’s claws bit into the cart rail.
Torra shifted beside the freight stakes, not forward. Just enough that Harak’s riders, still grazing on the east slope, looked up from their breakfast.
Rylia kept her hand on the cart rail.
Rask looked from her to Torra, then to Elian, then down at his worker’s leg.
The worker’s breath came through his teeth.
Rask swallowed whatever had tried to come out first.
“He is named Vorr,” he said. “He cuts clean. He feeds four kits and a mother with no teeth. The camp healer is two ridges away. Treat him.”
Merren watched him.
Rask’s tail lashed once. “Please.”
Bruna pointed at Heda with one finger as Heda arrived carrying cloth. “You heard it. Write the date down. A Timber-Mane said please before breakfast.”
Heda grinned around the bread.
Rask growled.
Vorr made a wet sound that might have been pain and might have been laughter.
Merren opened his kit.
That settled the first fight. The axes started the second.
Dorvik had dragged three of the worst heads onto a work plank. He set them in a row, wiped one thumb across a cracked bit, and held up the blackened edge to the light.
“These were sharpened with river stones.”
Rask crossed his arms. “They cut wood.”
“So does lightning. I do not recommend it for joinery.”
“Timber-Mane blades need bite, not mirror shine.”
“Bite without edge support becomes this.” Dorvik dropped the curled axe head onto the plank. It landed with a flat, ugly sound. “This axe struck dense grain, skated, twisted, and pulled the collar. See that? No? Of course not. You were too busy murdering trees with farm tools.”
One of the haulers snarled.
Rask said, “Careful, dwarf.”
Dorvik leaned over the plank. “Good. Finally. Care. Let us introduce it to the metal.”
Elian stepped between them before the morning gained a corpse.
“Dorvik. Rask.” He set the ledger on the cart rail. “You are solving different problems.”
Dorvik pointed at the axes. “Their problem is bad steel.”
Rask pointed at the south. “Our problem is wood that does not care about dwarf pride.”
“Exactly,” Elian said.
Both of them looked at him with distrust.
He took the least damaged axe from the plank and weighed it. The handle was thick for human hands but narrow for Timber-Mane grip. The wrapping had been layered until it bulged near the palm but left the lower haft slick. The head was heavy near the beard, badly balanced for a long swing, and the blade had not chipped evenly. One side had torn. The other had folded.
Elian turned to Rask. “Show the cut.”
Rask frowned. “What?”
“Do not describe the axe. Use it.”
Dorvik made a wounded sound. “On what? My floor?”
Elian pointed toward the scrap ironwood left beside the freight lane. “There.”
Rask picked up another axe. Not the worst one. Pride had sense in it. He walked to the scrap log and rolled his shoulders. The yard cleared around him. Even Barnaby watched with ears pricked.
Rask set his feet.
The first swing came hard and downward at a slight angle. The blade bit, skidded across the dense grain, and caught near a knot. Rask pulled it free with a twist that made the haft creak.
Dorvik hissed through his teeth.
“Again,” Elian said.
Rask swung again. This time lower. The axe struck, bit deeper, then twisted in his grip where the wrapped handle had gone smooth with old sap.
Elian watched his wrists. The shoulder. The way his claws wanted purchase lower than the grip allowed. The recoil when the edge met knot. The shift of weight through hip and knee.
“Stop.”
Rask lowered the axe.
Elian turned to Dorvik. “He is not cutting like a dwarf miner or a human woodsman.”
Dorvik’s eyes were still on the haft. “I noticed.”
“His grip wants a longer lower ridge. Claw clearance here.” Elian tapped the handle just below the head. “The head needs less side bite near the beard or it twists when it skids. The collar needs reinforcement because they pull free with a twist, not a straight draw.”
Rask stared at him.
Dorvik grunted once.
Elian looked back at Rask. “How wet is the lower grain?”
“Wet enough to suck edges.”
“Knots?”
“Hard. Black. Some iron-veined.”
“How often does the blade skid?”
“Every third strike if the cutter is tired.”
“Then the axe must survive a tired strike. Not an ideal one.”
Dorvik’s beard twitched.
That landed where Elian wanted it.
The dwarf took the axe from Rask without asking and examined the haft. “Claw ridge. Deep collar. Wider eye. Shorter beard. Reinforced back. Edge not too fine.”
Rask’s ears angled forward despite himself.
Dorvik looked angry about being interested.
“I can make one prototype,” the dwarf said. “If the Hearth pays for fuel.”
Elian opened the ledger.
Bruna’s voice came from near the cart. “The Hearth pays for fuel from Timber-Mane tool credit, not kitchen margin.”
“I was going to write that.”
“You were breathing near the wrong column.”
Merren worked through the argument.
He had cleaned Vorr’s wound with boiled water, vinegar, and a bitter wash that made the Timber-Mane’s claws gouge the cart bench. The old swamp-bind came away in dark threads. Heda held the clean cloth and looked less amused now. Sif stood behind Vorr, one hand on his shoulder, not forcing him down. Letting him push against something that would not move.
Vorr’s breathing grew rough.
Merren packed the wound with pale green pulp and wrapped it in fresh cloth.
“Do not cut for five days,” he said.
Vorr’s head snapped up. “Five?”
“Seven if you snarl at me.”
Rask stepped close. “He cuts in nine.”
“He stands in three. Walks in four if fever does not climb. Cuts in five and opens it again. Cuts in nine and maybe keeps the leg.”
Vorr looked at Rask.
Rask looked at the bandage.
Bruna pushed a bowl into Vorr’s hands. Thick barley, smoked meat, bitter greens, and enough salt to wake the tongue.
“Eat,” she said.
Vorr stared at it.
Bruna put a spoon into the bowl. “Do not make me explain the tool.”
He ate.
Merren began cleaning his bone knife.
Rask’s gaze lingered on the bandage. “What did you use?”
“Painroot. Narrowleaf. Ash-salt. No swamp-bind.”
“Timber-Mane use swamp-bind.”
“Timber-Mane limp.”
Rask’s lips peeled back.
Merren did not look up.
Elian wrote: swamp-bind prohibited for deep leg cuts. Timber-Mane medicine note. Ask Merren for wound categories.
Rask saw the note. “You write our medicine now?”
“I write what keeps your workers alive long enough to pay for axes.”
Bruna nodded toward Vorr. “And eat second bowls.”
Vorr was already scraping the first one.
Dorvik claimed the forge shed after breakfast and turned it into an argument with heat.
The Hearth’s forge was not a grand thing. It had begun as a repair corner for hinges, hooks, nails, and Barnaby-proof latch plates. Dorvik had expanded it twice, each time claiming the previous layout had been an insult to fire. The bellows wheezed. The coal bin needed refilling. A bucket of quench water sat near the anvil with iron flakes floating on top like dead beetles.
Rask stood just outside the forge opening because the ceiling had been built by people without Timber-Mane shoulders in mind. Dorvik stood inside with his sleeves rolled up and the prototype axe head held in tongs.
Elian stood at the workbench with the ledger open, sketching changes in the margin.
“Stop drawing it like a door hinge,” Dorvik snapped.
“I am drawing stress points.”
“You are drawing rectangles.”
“They are labeled rectangles.”
Rask leaned down to peer at the page. “Head shorter. Back thicker. Grip longer.”
Dorvik pointed the hot axe head at him. “I know all three. If you say them again, I will make it decorative.”
Rask folded his arms and hit his head on the door beam.
The thud was satisfying.
Heda, sitting on an upturned bucket outside the forge with a piece of charcoal and a stolen scrap of paper, whispered, “Beam wins.”
Sif stood nearby with Vorr’s second bowl, making sure the injured Timber-Mane did not attempt to limp toward the forge and prove stupidity was contagious.
Torra guarded the forge lane. The moment hot steel came out, three merchants had drifted closer with the expression of people who believed watching work was the same as contributing to it.
Rylia stood under the shade of the porch, arms folded, eyes moving from Elian’s page to Dorvik’s hammer to Rask’s tense hands. She had not stepped in once.
The first heat was for the eye.
Dorvik worked the metal around a thicker drift, widening the opening where the haft would seat. Hammer blows rang through the yard. Not frantic. Not showy. Hard, measured strikes that drove the stretched metal back into discipline. Every few blows he turned the head, checked the angle, and cursed at the original smith.
“Who made this?” he demanded.
Rask said, “South road trader.”
“That is not an answer. That is a warning label.”
The second heat was for the back reinforcement.
Dorvik scarfed a deep-iron strip along the rear of the axe head and forge-welded it under a rain of sparks. Elian stepped back when a spark landed on the ledger page and left a black pinhole near the word collar.
Bruna appeared at his shoulder and slapped the ember out with two fingers.
“You brought paper beside sparks.”
“It was necessary.”
“So is skin. You keep misplacing priorities.”
The third heat reshaped the beard.
Dorvik shortened the lower sweep enough to reduce the twist but left enough hook for Timber-Mane work. Rask watched that part with open suspicion.
“You cut too much.”
“I cut what was trying to kill your wrists.”
“We hook with that edge.”
“You hooked too much. That is why three collars tore.”
Rask growled.
Dorvik held the hot metal out between them. “Argue with the broken pile.”
Rask looked back toward the cart.
The broken pile sat in the sun, ugly and quiet.
He said nothing.
The haft took longer.
Elian had assumed the head would be the hard part. The handle proved worse.
Timber-Mane hands were not human hands scaled larger. Their palms were broad, claws curved forward, and the lower grip needed space for a pull-twist after a strike lodged in grain. Too smooth, and sap made it treacherous. Too ridged, and it tore the hand raw over a long cutting day. Too thick near the head, and the swing lost bite. Too narrow below, and the axe rolled.
Rask brought three cutters to test grip size. Vorr tried to stand and was ordered back down by Bruna, Merren, Sif, and Rylia in a chain of escalating authority that ended with Barnaby braying from his paddock.
Wounded hauler attempts unauthorized mobility. Recommend hoof-based medical enforcement.
“Denied,” Elian called without looking up.
Soft regime.
The haft was ash reinforced with ironwood strips, because Rask insisted full ironwood hafts punished the arms over long days. Dorvik argued, tested the flex, and admitted nothing aloud. Elian wrapped the grip with layered rawhide over carved ridges, then cut claw clearance grooves lower than human tools ever used.
Rask took the unfinished haft and closed his hand around it.
His claws fit.
He did not say anything.
He handed it back.
Dorvik saw anyway.
By late afternoon, the prototype axe was ugly in a way that pleased everyone except Dorvik.
The head was shorter and thicker-backed, with a reinforced collar and less sweeping beard. The edge was not polished fine. It had a brutal working bite, honed for dense wet grain rather than display. The haft looked overbuilt until Rask held it. Then it looked as if the previous axes had been made by people guessing from far away.
Dorvik carried it to the scrap ironwood.
“Test,” he said.
Rask reached for it.
Dorvik pulled it back. “Not you.”
Rask’s eyes narrowed.
Dorvik pointed to the lead hauler who had eaten Bruna’s oat-cake first. “Her. She pulled the first sledge. Her shoulder line is cleaner.”
The hauler blinked.
Rask looked offended for half a breath, then glanced at her stance and shut his mouth.
She stepped forward and took the axe.
Her name, Elian had learned, was Mavra. She was shorter than Rask and wider through the shoulders, with one ear notched and a scar along her forearm where old bark had opened her. She tested the grip. Shifted her lower hand. Dug her claws into the new grooves. Rolled her wrist once.
Dorvik watched like a priest at a bad wedding.
Mavra set her feet before the scrap log.
The yard had gathered again despite Torra’s best efforts. Bruna stood in the kitchen doorway with a bowl under one arm. Heda sat on the fence. Sif stood beside Vorr, who had been dragged into shade and forbidden from cheering too hard. Varg held the slate. Merren crouched above the porch beam with another strip of bandage between his fingers. Rylia watched Elian watching all of it.
Mavra swung.
The axe hit ironwood with a crack that slapped across the yard.
The blade bit.
It did not skate. It did not twist. It buried a clean notch into the dense grain and stopped with the haft still true in Mavra’s hands.
Dorvik’s face went blank.
Mavra pulled.
The axe came free with a wet wooden sound.
She swung again.
Second strike. Deeper. The reinforced collar held. Her claws did not slip. The haft flexed, took the force, and returned without complaint.
The third strike knocked a chip of ironwood the size of Elian’s palm into the dirt.
No one spoke for a breath.
Then Barnaby brayed.
Tool demonstrates acceptable violence against timber. Recommend apple-adjacent applications be explored.
“No,” Elian said.
Mavra turned the axe in her hands and looked at Rask.
Rask looked at Dorvik.
Dorvik looked at the axe head, then at the broken pile in the cart, then at the gouge in the ironwood.
He sniffed. “Adequate.”
Heda threw both hands up. “He means he loves it.”
“I mean adequate,” Dorvik snapped.
Mavra held the axe out to Rask.
Rask did not take it at once. He looked at Elian.
“How many before nine days?”
Dorvik made a choking sound. “Before nine days? You brought a wagon of butchered scrap and one miracle and now you want a forest’s worth of tools by next week?”
Rask said, “My clan cuts in nine days.”
“Your clan can learn patience.”
“Our wood does not.”
Elian opened the ledger.
“Count needed,” he said.
Rask answered too quickly. “Twelve felling axes. Six splitting. Four hook axes. Repair the rest if worth saving.”
Dorvik looked ready to bite the anvil.
Elian wrote the numbers. “Priorities?”
Rask paused.
That pause mattered. Yesterday, he would have said all.
“Four felling first,” he said. “Two splitting. One hook. Enough to keep one crew cutting. Then the rest.”
Dorvik’s shoulders lowered by a finger’s width.
“Fuel?” Elian asked.
“Timber-Mane pays in ironwood offcut and resin,” Rask said. “Plus the tool credit.”
“Medicine?”
Rask’s gaze moved to Vorr, who had finished a second bowl and was pretending not to look tired.
“Medicine allotment stands,” Rask said. “More if legs are stupid.”
Merren said from above, “Legs are often stupid.”
Vorr growled weakly.
Bruna pointed a spoon at him. “You are currently a leg with teeth. Be grateful.”
Elian made the columns.
Tool repair.
Forge fuel.
Medicine reserve.
Food ration.
Stall access.
The last one caught Rask’s eye.
He tapped one claw beside it. “Which stall?”
Elian looked up.
“What?”
“Timber-Mane stall. Yard Exchange. You promised market access.”
“For timber contracts and tool exchange.”
“And resin. Offcuts. Bark strips. Axe repair. Medicine return. Food packs.” Rask’s whiskers shifted. “We need a place.”
Bruna muttered, “They always need a place after they eat.”
Dorvik wiped his hands on a rag. “If they sell offcuts loose in the lane, I will throw them into the drainage ditch.”
Merren dropped lightly from the porch beam. “Not near canopy descent.”
Torra said, “Not near grazing lots. Timber-Mane tails and southern mounts will start something.”
Rylia said, “Not by the front door. Too much body weight near crowd flow.”
Heda pointed toward the north edge of the Yard Exchange, where the freight lane met the new stone pad. “There. Heavy things already go there. Also far enough from Barnaby that he can insult them without acting on it.”
Barnaby’s head came up.
I reserve the right to revise insult distance.
Elian stared at the north edge.
The ground there was scarred from the ironwood delivery, but firm after Dorvik’s planking. Near enough to the freight lane. Far enough from the canopy descent. Close to the forge without blocking the kitchen. Visible from the porch. Watchable by Rylia, Torra, and anyone with sense.
A stall there would not be temporary.
Not really.
A table could be moved. A cart could roll away. A Timber-Mane tool-and-timber bay with reinforced hooks, axe racks, offcut storage, and medicine return shelf would become part of the Yard Exchange’s bones.
Rask waited.
Dorvik waited too, though he pretended to inspect the prototype.
Merren watched the ground instead of Rask.
Bruna watched Elian.
Elian turned to a fresh page.
“Temporary Timber-Mane stall,” he said.
Rask’s ear flicked.
“Seasonal,” Elian corrected. “Subject to freight lane clearance, tool-safety rules, medicine shelf separation, no open blades unattended, no resin storage near food, and no cutting demonstrations without posted warning.”
Dorvik added, “And no one calls that axe finished until I make the next six better.”
Rask’s mouth spread.
It was not quite a smile. Too many teeth.
“Seasonal,” he said.
Elian wrote it down before the word could grow claws.
The prototype axe lay on the scrap ironwood beside its clean notch. Vorr sat in the shade with a bandaged leg and an empty bowl. Mavra stood with both hands still near the new grip, as if reluctant to let anyone take it far. Merren marked a small medicine tally on a strip of bark. Bruna added three more bowls to the Timber-Mane account. Dorvik began sorting the broken steel into piles with names like salvageable, insulting, and who allowed this.
Elian drew a box at the north edge of the Yard Exchange map.
Timber-Mane seasonal stall.
He looked at the size of the box.
Then at the forge.
Then at the growing line of people pretending they did not want to ask about claw-fit tools.
He made the box wider.