Tender-Hearted

Once we were settled back in Alderheart, Crispin decided it was finally time for him to do a bit of shopping for better armour. He was working at Alexander’s Soup Kitchen down in the Roots when he got into conversation with a hench Hedge called Millard.

“Half plate, eh?” asked Millard. He flexed his muscles. “I used to be a blacksmith. I’d need a hammer and a forge, and the materials of course, but I could do the work for you.”

Crispin spent his nights scouring the Roots trying to scrounge up the right materials. His days were already filled with shifts at the soup kitchen, but he spent his breaks scurrying around the Canopy and Trunk markets trying to persuade any of the smiths there to share their forge. Each time he was met with a resounding, “No”.

Eventually he was spending an evening with Deadstu in the Undercroft when he mentioned his troubles to the toad.

“You know,” whispered Deadstu. “I’ve got an anvil in the back.”

“And a forge?” asked Crispin eagerly.

“It gets pretty hot back there,” said Deadstu. “And I have a friend who knows magic. We could probably heat some metal.”

A plan formed in Crispin’s mind. The next night he invited Millard to come with him for a drink at Deadstu’s and introduced them. He made sure to stress this meeting as a rare opportunity of a partnership. Millard took the bait.

Soon there was the sound of clanging and fire spells from the back of the shop. Millard took Crispin’s existing scale mail and scrounged materials. He hammered on large shoulder pads and Deadstu decorated it with rings and belts. The result was functional, but unfashionable, half plate.

Of course Crispin didn’t have enough money to pay for the work, but I gave him the five-hundred gold pieces he needed from the Bag of Holding after he wrote us an IOU.

---

The next day we were out in the Canopy market when we came across two Birdfolk trying to catch the attention of passersby. One was a young Huden Gallus, quite weedy in comparison to my physique.

“The fires are spreading! We need help to quell the blaze!” he squawked. “Please, lend some aid to the Tenders so we can protect the Wood!”

Beside him stood a shy Luma who looked imploringly at the crowd. But nobody seemed to take any interest in their appeals for help, and worse it seemed that some citizens felt it was acceptable to openly mock these Tenders.

I bristled. “Olive, surely we can do something here to sway public opinion,” I suggested. I couldn’t bear the thought of my own family being subject to ridicule like this. “We are the Defenders of Alderheart, after all. Can we lend them some of our credibility?”

Olive winked. “I have just the song.”

Won’t you come one and all?
Come and heed the call
Of the heroes walking among you

Through the night while you sleep
It’s their mothers who weep
And wait for their children to come home

But they will not come
Til the Tending is done
And fires in the Wood are defeated

Let us all come clean
Has there ever been seen
Any Birdfolk like Tevor and Havel?

It wasn’t her best performance, possibly because she was trying to build people up with her words rather than tear them down, but at least passersby stopped challenging the Tenders directly.

I invited Tevor and Havel back to Eliza’s Emporium for dinner. Crispin fussed that he had to cook for our guests but he made an excellent meal of fish fingers in a delightful Hollandaise sauce. We talked of the fires over dinner and the state of the Wood.

Tevor, the Luma, told us that even the most skilled Tenders were having trouble keeping the fires at bay, and that there had been an alarming increase in the number of fire-aligned creatures. Where once there were small groups of fire bats, now they were attacking in huge swarms and reigniting areas which the Tenders had already cleared.

“Surely it’s not as bad as all that,” said Havel. “We’ll have this cleared up in no time.”

Tevor shrugged and fell quiet.

When it was time for them to leave they thanked Crispin profusely for his food and Olive for her support earlier that day. I watched them leave and for the first time in years I wondered about my family.

---

Olive tagged along with Crispin the next day when he returned to the Undercroft. They walked through the familiar half-tunnels, avoiding the smelly water that dripped from above, and soon arrived outside Deadstu’s shop. The proprietor met them outside.

“Your armour is ready, Crispin,” Deadstu announced and held up the creation. “We’ve added the finishing touches. Remember you need to sleep in it the first night for it to fit properly.”

Millard worked hard to conceal a laugh but Crispin didn’t notice.

“You should get some new armour too,” Crispin suggested to Olive, full of enthusiasm about to going to bed in his armour tonight. “How about some studded leather?”

The prospect of another sale caught Deadstu’s attention. “And who will we be fitting today?”

“Me,” said Olive in a defeated voice.

“Stand there next to the door.” Deadstu examined Olive’s height against some marks scratched in the wood of the door. “Looks like: turbo small.”

Olive looked at him quizzically.

“Everything in this shop is sized relative to me,” Deadstu explained and slapped his expansive chest. “I think I have something in the basement from when I was but a tadpole.”

True to his word, Deadstu did find something after rummaging around in the shop basement. It was like no leather armour we had seen before. The studs were seemingly randomly placed and the leather seemed unnecessarily tight.

“Is this going to help at all in battle?” asked Olive. Deadstu didn’t seem to hear.

“Normally I’d say thirty-three gold pieces, but this is sentimental,” said Deadstu. He closed his eyes and licked his lips as he calculated. “Everyone has a price, and mine is fifty gold pieces. But you can do some work for me to bring the price down if you like.”

“What sort of work?”

“Ever consider a career in modelling?” asked Deadstu.

Olive spent the rest of the day trying on everything Deadstu had in turbo small. She wore suits, skirts, a wedding dress, some strange clingy material Deadstu said he had invented himself. She tried on every hat in the place and all the armour. All the while Deadstu shouted encouragement about “working it” and a grubby Cervan artist took feverish sketches of each one.

As the sun began to set over Alderheart, Olive peeled off the last costume.

“Here,” said Deadstu, handing Olive the studded leather armour. “You’ve earned this. Come back any time, Turbo Small.”

“You’ve got it,” said Olive. “Turbo Big.”