Three months passed.
The last of the damaged houses was repaired. The pyres became a bad but fading memory, though the memory still hurt those affected. The gates stood solid with Mark's alloy holding them together. The guards settled back into their rotations.
Hunters went out and came back. The bakery opened before dawn and closed after dark.
Life returned to something that looked like normal, or at least a semblance of it.
But the mountain stayed quiet, although some might say it was a little too quiet. And rumors began to circulate around the village about curses, witches, and the like coming after the villagers, plotting their demise.
Regardless, Mark kept working. Rumors scarcely reached his ears, and those he did hear went in one ear and out the other. The things of the village and worries of its villagers were not important to Mark unless their lives were truly at stake.
The orders slowed after the reconstruction finished, but there was always something for him to do in his forge; someone always brought something for him to work on. A cracked plow blade. Bent hinges that needed straightening. Spear tips that had dulled from overuse.
And the monthly caravans brought in outside work. The guards knew now that his work and even what he re-worked was well worth the coin.
He took the work, filled the orders, hardened metal with reinforcements, and spent the extra time on the sword.
Every night, he went through the same pattern as he reached for perfection in his craft.
He would heat the blade until it glowed that strange, dark color. Then, he would prepare the alloy until it was molten and ready within its crucible. Next was to notch a test groove along the spine or the edge and then add the material.
Set it to cool just enough to work.
Strike.
And watch it fail.
Sometimes the crack came immediately, splitting the black metal before he could even finish the first pass. Other times, it held for a few strikes, letting him think he had figured it out, before the stress showed itself.
Once, the blade warped so badly that he had to spend two days hammering it back into shape with the third and fourth steps.
Every failure taught him something, but the lesson seemed to drag on too far for him to draw any useful conclusions.
The blade did not want his alloy or to be reinforced. It fought him like it had a will of its own, and no matter how carefully he prepared, no matter how precise his heat or his timing, the result was always the same.
Rejection.
Mark set the blade back on its rack after another failed attempt and wiped the sweat from his face.
His hands ached. His shoulders were tight from hours of careful, deliberate hammering. The forge was still hot, and coals were glowing red in the dim light.
He stared at the sword.
"What do you want?" he muttered.
The blade did not answer.
He banked the coals and went home.
Annabel noticed.
She did not say anything at first. She brought him food when he worked late, left it on the workbench, and kissed him on the way out. She asked how the work was going, and he told her it was fine, and she did not press.
But after a few weeks of the same routine, she stopped pretending not to notice.
Mark was at the anvil one evening, heating the blade for another attempt, when she stepped into the forge. She had flour on her hands and ash smudged across her cheek. Her eyes were tired, but her expression was firm.
"You have been at this every night for months," she said.
Mark looked up from the coals. "It's not done."
"It looks done." She replied with a worried look.
Mark shook his head, "But it's not."
She crossed her arms and leaned against the doorframe. "What is it missing?"
He turned back to the blade, watching the way the heat moved across the black surface. "I'm not sure, but I know it's not perfect. It needs to be stronger. It needs to be unbreakable. Right now it is just very good."
"And you think you will break it trying to make it perfect."
"I know I will," he said. "I have broken it dozens of times already. I'm just getting better at putting it back together. I'm hoping that I will eventually find the inspiration I need through its destruction and re-creation."
Annabel stepped closer and looked at the blade on the anvil. She did not touch it, but her gaze lingered on the edge, the spine, the way the metal seemed to absorb the forge light instead of reflecting it.
It caused her to knit he perfect brows and form a small frown on her face that made Mark feel as if his heart had melted as if it were a slice of butter sitting next to his forge.
"Why does it matter so much?" she asked.
Mark opened his mouth, then closed it as he made a line with his lips. He did not have an answer that made sense, not one he could say out loud. It just did.
He was unable to put it into words, but he knew the sword was important. The village needed it, and he needed it. The feeling sat in his chest like a stone, a crushing weight that made its presence known, but its purpose was elusive.
"I don't know," he said finally. "But it does," and he looked into her eyes. "I can feel it, and that might not make sense, but I do."
She studied his face for a moment, then nodded.
"Alright," she said. She knew that he was a master of his craft, and if he said there really was something to the blade that she was unable to see, then she would trust him.
"Just don't burn yourself out before you realize the true potential of this sword of yours."
She kissed him on the cheek and left.
Mark watched her go, longing to go with her, but then he turned back to the blade.
He heated it again. Prepared the alloy. Notched the groove. Added the material.
Strike.
Crack.
He sighed and reached for the carving tool. He knew this was going to be a long time of trial and error.
At least it looks like a sword instead of some rainbow ribbons of metal now. He thought to himself in relief.
He had to bring in some mental relief, as he knew the blade was not going to provide that any time soon.
By the time six months had passed, the village had stopped pretending the silence of the mountain was normal. They knew they should have had at least a minor growth or at least a little rumble by now.
People talked about it in the square. At the gates. In the bakery, while they waited for bread.
The older villagers, the ones who remembered stories from their parents and grandparents, started saying the word out loud.
Legend.
Mark heard it first from one of the guards at the North Gate. He had gone up to check on a set of hinges he had replaced the week before, and the man was leaning against the wall, staring out at the trees with a look that was somewhere between bored and nervous.
"It's been six months," the guard said when Mark walked up. "No Growths. No tremors. Not even a little shake. Got people on edge around here."
"That's good, isn't it? Why would they be worried?" Mark asked.
The guard snorted. "You would think. But my grandfather used to tell a story. Said there was a year once, way back, when the mountain went quiet for a whole turn of the seasons. No noise or beasts. People thought maybe it was over, that whatever made the mountain angry had finally settled."
Mark waited.
"Then the year turned," the guard continued. "And the mountain woke up all at once. Biggest Growth anyone had ever seen. Wiped out half the villagers. The ones that survived only did so due to pure luck."
"I've heard the stories. My dad told them to us when my brothers and I were still kids. You think that's what this is?" Mark asked.
The guard shrugged. "I don't know. But six months is a long time. And the old folks are starting to mutter. That's never a good sign."
Mark looked out at the trees, at the quiet slope beyond the gate. Nothing moved. There was no hint of monsters lurking, and even the birds seemed to steer clear of their village.
"How long until people start panicking?" he asked.
"Another few months, maybe," the guard said. "Once we hit nine or ten, people will stop asking if it is coming and start asking when."
Mark nodded and went back to his forge.
That night, he heated the blade again.
Strike.
Crack.
He was running out of time. Whatever purpose he needed the blade for, it was coming, and he could tell that this mountain was coming with it.