The sweat was breaking across Harad’s brow as the forge burned its blistering heat into the air.

The order was nearly done.

Twelve steak knives for the local inn. An unremarkable capstone to another unremarkable day.

Another day and Harad’s petulant apprentice Trund had not turned up again.

Probably drinking away his meager pay, begging for another crown to spend on ale.

He shrugged away the thought.

The last ingot of metal was ready. He drew it out of the fire and placed it against his anvil. He let his rage build up inside as he drew up his hammer, and struck his blows down into the steel, that his anger seemed to drain out of him, until eventually the steel was calling to him, entreating him to let the next blow fall. Each strike became less and less of an ordeal, and more and more a release.

When the steel was done, quenched, polished, and seated in wooden handles, Harad threw the assembled knives into a basket, and took off down the market road to the Ubiquitous Savior, the local Inn.

It was night out, and a fog had kicked up off the marshes to envelop the town. As he passed the lanterns, gently glowing in the gloom, he thought he heard whispers drifting up from the alleys and back-passages. He redoubled his speed, desperate and afraid. Men were robbed occasionally, and it wouldn’t do to lose the goods, he needed the money too badly.

Eventually he made it to the door of the inn, and the laughter within dispelled his paranoia somewhat. The paired wings of the savior sat proudly above the doorway, and as he pushed the oak door open, light spilled out.

As he entered Harad noticed a gang of surly youths sitting in one of the corner booths. Harad spied Trund in the group. The striplings were tearing into hunks of red, steaming meat and forcing mead down their gullets to wash away the bloody dregs.

Trund had been here the whole time, eating a banquet and drinking, while he’d been grinding himself to the bone so he could afford to keep the forge running.

He struggled to force down his rage, and pretended not to notice them, for none of them noticed Harad enter either.

Making his way to the bar, Harad spotted the proprietor and waved a greeting. At the wooden bar he lifted his basket, and fished out one of the elegant steak knives. The proprietor stepped up to the bar and examined the blade.

It was plain, but sturdy. The steel was polished to a mirror finish on the edge, and the sides of the blade displayed a mesmeric pattern of dark and light, as though darkness had been worked into the blade itself.

“Looks good,” was all the proprietor had to say, as he handed over the agreed payment.

Harad took the money and made his way to exit, shooting one last glare at his wayward ward.

After Harad had been gone for a few minutes, the proprietor handed the basket of knives off to a serving girl, Ryn.

“Make sure the tables are stocked.”

She took the basket, and set to her task. Laying a set at each table, she dutifully made her rounds.

As she approached the table of youths, she caught their eyes and stumbled, dropping the basket. Knives spilled across the floor and she quickly knelt to retrieve them, cramming them desperately back into their carrier. There were jeers, and general amusement from the patrons. One of the youths disdainfully kicked the knives along the floor at her, and she was forced to snatch her hands away to avoid being struck.

One of the boys snapped at his friend and knelt to help. The serving girl recognised him immediately. He had a kind face, with soft eyes and a friendly smile. With his long blonde hair he would have been angelic, except for the large bruises covering his face and neck. Trund, the blacksmith's apprentice.

She would have recognised him from the wounds alone. The blacksmith was a hard man, she knew, for the whole village knew. His choler was often untamed, and he could be violent when provoked. The poor boy must have often been at the receiving end of such poor treatment.

He smiled at her, “Let me help.”

Together they picked up the blades and placed them back in the basket. She grabbed the last, which had become wedged under a chair leg. Holding the knife in her left hand she stood, and looked up briefly into Trund's blue eyes.

Then, suddenly, she was falling forward. She had been shoved from behind, she could only reckon, for she would not ever have intended to move away from that moment, not for any reason in the world.

Then she was caught, Trund’s arms cradling her against his chest.

When she looked up sheepishly at Trund’s face, she found there was no longer any kindness in those eyes. Only astonishment and fear.

She stepped back and found that her hands were slick with blood. Left behind, impaled in Trund's chest, the knife seemed somehow smug and satisfied.

Time slowed.

She could feel her mouth open, as if to speak. If she made a sound, she didn't hear it.

She could only hear faintly, somewhere very far away, a soft chuckle.

"Twenty-one, twenty-two, twenty-three, twenty-four."

The blacksmith finished counting the last spoon in the set, then reverently closed the mahogany wood lid on the new silverware service, dusting the top as he did so.

He sighed heavily, saying to himself, " I should have been a carpenter, easier on the body and more rewarding for the soul. Furniture lasts and is treasured for generations while I watch all my craftsmanship end up dented, rusted, abused and thrown out within a decade. Maybe these beauties will fare better. Or not, the spoon will be pitched out the window by a vengeful baby, the fork will be used to open jars, and the steak knife will end up in evidence for a murder."

He laughed mildly at himself, feeling slightly foolish for speculating on the futures of silverware.

Turning around, he started dousing all the lights in the shop, preparing to close up for the night.

A slight rattle, and then, "Well that sounds like quite the adventure."

The blacksmith pivoted back to the front of the store, certain he had heard no on enter the shop.

"Hello, is someone there? Can I help you?", he called to the dark.

All silence except for the rattle of the cow's bell outside.

"Ah, I must be tired, talking to myself and hearing things." He shook his head at himself.

Then suddenly, a gigantic wrenching noise and the blacksmith looked on in horror as the lid of the silverware box flew off, tearing it in two.

"My Box!" He screeched in despair and pulled at his graying hair, "No! I spent two months carving it!"

On the edge of the catastrophe sat the Steak Knife, swinging its handle back and forth.

"Hello there! How'd I do? It's not a jar, but I think I should get extra points for the box, It was made real strong and I bet old fork couldn't do that. Right fork?" They peered back into the velvet abyss from which it came.

The blacksmith lunged across the room towards the Steak Knife, intent on preventing any more damage from the possessed piece.

The Steak Knife nimbly jumped out of his grasp and onto a high shelf with a shill laugh,"Oh no you don't, the fun's just begun. And I still have to jump out a window and stab something." They laughed again like an out-of-tune bell, making the blacksmith ears start ringing.

The blacksmith put his hands on his hips, quickly deciding to treat Steak Knife like a misbehaving child and give them a beneficial piece of his mind.

"Now listen here young knife, that was very wrong of you to do. If you wanted to get out, you could have called and I'd have opened the lid, but now you've ruined it. That box was meant to last forever and be loved and cherished. And I worked very hard on it." The blacksmith felt he should have left the end off as it didn't sound fearsome enough.

The Steak Knife was silent for a minute then said, " I'm sorry ... I was just so thrilled to be alive and you can't blame me entirely, it was your idea. I'm brand new and impressionable. So can I go jump out the window and stab something now?"

The blacksmith put a hand on the table to steady himself, "No, you can't just run around scaring people like that. How are they supposed to know you won't stab them?"

" I can't? " The Steak Knife managed to give the impression of widened, quizzical eyes despite not having any. Then quickly amended at the blacksmith's flabbergasted face, " I mean of course I can't, I mean I would never scare people like that."

The blacksmith took a deep breath for the shouldering of a realized responsibility, "Look, I made you, so I feel I have to teach you how to live in this world. How about I take you on as an apprentice in my new woodworking shop? You're a sharp Knife and I think you would do great carving all kinds of beautiful things for people to enjoy."

The Knife seemed to consider for a moment, turning from the window to the blacksmith, "Ok," They stuck out their blade for a handshake, " It's a deal."

I'm very new to writing and this is my very first post here. I'd love feedback, but please be kind! Thank you!

“Damn!” Jaxon cursed and ducked as his sledgehammer head snapped off and flew toward his face. The wood of the handle had cracked from the force of his last blow, wood splintering, the head crashing into a pile of scrap metal leaning against the wall. Jaxon pushed himself back up, careful not to lean on any equipment in the doing.

He was still getting used to his hugely muscular, new body after the fateful day that Sorcerer Jerome had stopped by. Jerome had needed a metal sconce fitted to the end of his staff to protect it from the eternal flame he wanted to install to “strike fear into the hearts of my enemies!” Jaxon enjoyed this task and approached it with enthusiasm. It was rare that he was able to design a work of such beauty. His typical customers were poor folk who could only afford the most basic of necessities, like cutlery and pans, though he kept more intricate pieces on display outside his shop in hopes of attracting more wealthy patrons. The piece he designed for the wizard curved up and around as if it and the flame would be locked in a timeless embrace. The mage was so impressed by Jaxon’s craftmanship that he blessed him with the strength of ten men so he would never grow weary in his work. However, Jaxon thought Jerome may not have considered the inconvenience that “the strength of ten men” could cause a blacksmith who was only used to the strength of one. This was the 12th hammer he’d broken in the weeks since the wizard’s visit.

He went to his tool cabinet to grab another, one of the many he’d spent a day making after breaking his 5th. He returned to the butcher knife he was working on without realizing that he’d cut himself in the accident. A single drop of blood fell onto the knife as the blow landed. A blast threw him across the room, extinguishing the lanterns and leaving only the forge for light.

“What in the blazes-“ he sputtered, coughing. He waved dust and smoke away from his face and his mouth dropped open as he saw a blue glimmer around his anvil. As it abated, he pushed himself back up and approached cautiously. The smithy was lit only by the glow of the forge now.

“Normally one would finish hammering and sharpening a blade before imbuing it with life.” A voice spoke from the darkness. He whipped his head around, looking for the speaker.

"Who's there?!"

“Don’t you know your own voice when you hear it? You gave me your own lifeblood, after all.”

“My own – what? Who are you? Show yourself!”

He heard a thunk and the blade he'd been working on stood upright in the firelight.

Jaxon stumbled backward, knocking over a counter, and denting an anvil thereby.

“Who… what are you? How do you speak?”

“Ah, well. Isn’t that the question? It seems you have some magic in your blood. Have you ever been cursed or… blessed? All magic has a price, my friend, didn’t you know?”

Ah. Jaxon’s head began to spin. After his third hammer broke, he’d started to wonder if his blessing might really be a curse, but he’d never really believed it. Now he was forced to consider what other ramifications might come from his association with Sorcerer Jerome. He had never known any magic wielders before and thought the gift to be just that. A gift.

“I thought the price was my work. I didn’t take his gold.” Jaxon was a man of few words and hadn’t asked many questions of the mage. He had never considered regret to be worth his time either. But now, he felt the full force of his mistake.

“Ha. Do you think a bauble is payment enough for a wizard’s spell? Jerome was no fool. There is no such thing as a ‘gift’ when it comes to magic. ‘Blessing’ is a word wizards use on fools. You are indebted to him. To be released only when he claims his payment or meets his end.”

Jaxon considered this. “What kind of payment?”

“Ah, yes. Well, he placed his magic in your blood, so it seems he has named his price already. The question is, what are you going to do about it?”

Jaxon was silent for a moment. Then he rose and gathered his tools and the assorted cutlery he’d already forged. He chose a knife, reopened the cut on his hand, and squeezed a drop of blood onto each blade, fork, spoon, and tong. Then, he lifted his hammer…

“I’m going to build an army.”

"I really ought to have more of an edge," the knife argued. "You should put me in the fire again, hone me, make sure I'll do well for the King's table."

"The last time I tried doing that, you screamed. Said you didn't want to lose yourself, that you couldn't wait to be back and whole again," Biflindi argued, wiping the sweat off his brow. The knife muttered a cure in Dwarvish. Apparently it had been listening to its maker very well. The thick black beard concealed Biflindi's grin, as bright as the heart of his forge. Like all of his creations, he was proud of the knife. It was well weighted, the serrations evenly spaced, the curve just enough to make the glide through meat seamless. That this one spoke aloud rather than hummed (as all his creations did) in his mind was of no importance too the dwarf.

"Maker, please," the knife began. The dwarf crossed his arms over his chest, arcing a single brow, waiting to hear something the knife had argued numerous times since the knife's creation. "I know you are happy with me. I only wish to be the best knife I can be."

"You already are," Biflindi half-sighed. "None of your sisters or brothers have a voice as you do."

"They are sharper. They are keener. They are more likely to be used at feasts," the knife protested.

"That they may be," the Dwarf agreed, picking up the knife, calloused palm cradling it with a master's care and concern. "None of them though will be able to tell stories of my forge, of my work. None of them will remember what it is to be held by my hand, and none of them will be shown by king after king as an example of our family."

"Maker," the knife started, swallowed (as only something without lungs could), exhaled, steel cool air against the dwarf's still smoldering skin, "Father, are we really your children?"

"Aye, any smith who says otherwise is a liar. All things we make are dear to us, part of us, a family of the heart."

"Then I will trust you, Father."

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