Wood, Trees

 

 

12 months ago this was a subscriber exclusive on my Patreon site. Now it has cut its way free from the paywall!

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Wood, Trees

Throwing an axe is easy. The trick is in catching it.

My hand reached out and just touched the head, closing around the shaft. My arm was swinging in an arc, meeting the axe as it spun, converting the movement – the movements – around. I spun on the spot to ease the strain on my wrist. It had been thrown to miss – just. “Which one of you fools… Weston! What is this about?”

He took a step forward from the row of woodsmen-ordinary, empty hands dangling awkwardly at his side. “Rumour says you have a magic axe Ms Poulder. That you took it from a wolf-lord in’t war and that’s how you do, do all that…”

I swap axes, the darkly burnished one at my hip coming into my hand and I toss it underarm, half speed to Weston. He snatches it out of the air confidently, turning it over in his hands. My legendary axe. The others are taken by surprise, no one has ever seen it in anyone else’s hands.

“Just honest steel in the head Mr Weston. Well then. Is it the axe that makes the woodsman, or the woodsman that makes the axe?” A trick question of course. I gestured with my axe – his axe – towards the chopping area. “Shall we?”

It’s an unfair challenge but then so is throwing an axe at someone without warning. The others watched as we selected equivalent logs. At a blast on the whistle we began to chop.

I lift the axe easily, then let the weight and edge do the cutting work. One blow to cut, the next to clear. No tricks, keep it simple, keep it fast.

Weston was young with strength to spare. Longer arms, each cut digging deeper and cutting as fast by spending effort. Why he might even be ahead…

There was a cry and I flicked a glance aside as my axe came up; somehow he had slipped and the blade had bounced out, burying itself in the ground, just kissing his boot. Then attention back as my own blade came down and I cut through with a mighty heave while he was cleaning off the axe.

I took it off him and sent them off down the path. “A magic axe,” I scoffed.

The axe handle snorted, handle caressing my palm. “The very idea,” it whispered.