Matthew seemed a little startled, but he joined her on the descent to the path, occasionally stopping to help her when her skirts made walking tricky. Cordelia half wished she’d worn her gear, though it likely wouldn’t have kept her as warm.
“Look,” Matthew said as they reached the path, and indicated a wooden post sunk deep into the earth. A rectangular sign had been nailed to it, proclaiming the path to be THE RIDGEWAY. “So this is the Ridgeway,” Matthew said, sounding subdued. “The oldest road in Britain. Not a Roman road—older than that.”
“I suppose it would be.” Cordelia’s excitement had faded; something more serious gripped her now. As if she were going to the Silent City, or the Hall of Accords. As if this were not a journey but a pilgrimage.
They passed in silence over the next hill, and there it was, unmistakable. A number of slabs of stone, framing the dark entrance to a barrow. The barrow itself seemed little more than a grass-covered swell in the ground, its entrance—a dark hole tunneling into the rise of earth—half the size of an ordinary door.
Cordelia removed her heavy coat. She drew Cortana from the scabbard on her back and laid it on the grass, then took a penny from her pocket and knelt to place it before the barrow’s entrance.
Matthew cleared his throat. “And now what?”
“I’m not sure. According to Lilian Highsmith, the myths say one must leave a penny by the barrow.”
“Perhaps there’s been inflation?” Matthew suggested. “I could lend you a sixpence.”
Cordelia shot him a dark look. “If you cannot stop joking, Matthew…”
He held up his hands innocently, backing away. “All right, all right. I’ll go keep an eye out. There’s a farmer coming over yonder hill, and woe if he finds us trying to catch the attention of ancient smiths on his land.”
He headed back the way they had come, keeping her within eyesight. She saw him stop at the summit of the hill and lean his back against a tree, reaching into his coat for his flask.
Cordelia returned her attention to the matter at hand, looking from the sword to the barrow; the entrance into the barrow’s underground space was black as night. She would have crawled into it anyway, but something told her that that was not what was being asked of her.
She reached out and drew Cortana toward her, laying it across her lap, the blade sparking in the sun.
“Wayland the Smith,” she whispered. “I am a chosen bearer of the sword Cortana. I have borne it always with faith, with courage. I have carried it into battle. I have spilled the blood of demons with it. Bearing it, I have slain even a Prince of Hell.”
“Daisy,” she heard Matthew call, and turned to see a man walking in their direction. It must be the farmer he had mentioned before, she thought, and was about to rise to her feet when she went cold all over.
The man was no farmer. He was a blacksmith.
He was plainly dressed in a rough cotton shirt with a soot-stained leather apron tied over it. He could have been any age—he had the young-old features Cordelia associated with warlocks. He resembled a slab of the barrow’s sarsen stone—broad-shouldered and thick-handed, with a short fair beard and close-cropped hair. Around his neck was a band of twisted metal, set with a deep blue stone.
“You summoned me, bearer of the blade Cortana?” said the man—Wayland the Smith; it could be no one else. “You cannot imagine I would not know a Prince of Hell cannot be truly slain, though your nerve in claiming such a deed is admirable.”
“I slew him in this world,” said Cordelia, raising her chin. “Wounded and weakened, he was driven from our realm.”
“And that wound still bleeds,” said Wayland the Smith, his teeth gleaming in a grin. “A great slash in his side, spilling his demon’s blood. It may be decades before he heals.”
Cordelia tilted her head back. “How do you know all this?”
“I know the actions of every sword I have ever forged. Ah, my children of steel and iron, how they cut pathways through this world.” His voice was a deep rumble. “Now, give me your blade.”
Cordelia swallowed hard and handed Cortana to Wayland. As he took it in his massive hands, the world around her seemed to change. Still kneeling, she looked around in amazement—the sky had darkened, the hills putting on a coat of blue-black ash. Matthew was gone. All around her were the noises of a smithy—the clang of hammer on steel, the crackle of fire. Copper-red sparks sprang to life inside the barrow, rising up like fireflies, claiming the dark.