*** Chapter 20 Day 51 Santos ***

Time was like an illusion to me, I could only register the crack of dawn and the darkening of night as any indicator. If not for Maira or Solfrid bringing me food, I may have not eaten in these past days.

Several times they attempted to get me to rest, but I couldn’t, I needed to work, I needed to hammer. The metal obeyed my every blow, it was as if it too wanted to be forged. Spearheads, arrowheads, swords, shields, armor parts, tools, etc. Anything I put my hammer to make I made with ease and the more I made the better they turned out.

Everyone that helped took care of all the other parts leaving me to only forge and forge I did. Piece after piece.

I did not know I was exhausting myself until the day of my collapse, I had been forging a whole line of swords, they were products to fulfill the order of the horseman tribe. As I was hammering away at a bar of steel turning it into what would become a blade, my vision suddenly became blurry and the next thing I knew I was waking in the middle of the living room.

“Hey!” someone called out, my senses too dulled to distinguish the wonder of the voice. “He’s awake!”

Immediately I felt myself surrounded by my family.

“Mijo…,” the crowd made space for my mother as she knelt beside me and touched my face with her cool hand. “How are you feeling?”

“I feel fine,” I replied. “Just a little tired. What happened?”

“You suddenly collapsed,” Maira replied. She was standing behind my mother and was wiping away some tears from her eyes. “We thought you had a heart attack or something, it's been two days.”

Two days? I grimaced, that was a lot of time lost. I looked at my hand and felt the soreness in my limbs, I needed to get back to forging. If only others could forge as fast as I could I would have someone to leave the work to, but I was the only one. Others had tried helping before, they attempted to mold the steel as I did with the hammer, but none had produced even mildly acceptable products. I would need to ramp up production to make up for the lost days, I was already far ahead of all of the trade deals, but I needed to rush the work. The more steel there was in the world, the more of a chance we would stand against the night creatures.

So far the defense of the home consisted of killing the regular beasts, a big one had not appeared so far, but if it did it could mean casualties. The only way to mitigate that was to make the people of forest a viable fighting force so that they too could thin out the horde. With the tribes of the east also now receiving my steel they too could ramp up their nightly kills.

It is to the east that the monsters appear to be coming from, that is why I was giving them full support. As long as the family could be protected, then that was all that mattered.

I tried to stand, but my mother put her hands on my shoulder.

“No,” she shook her head. “You are going to have to rest. You can’t go back to work after just waking up from what just happened. You are going to work yourself to death, I haven’t seen you rest at all.”

“I have to finish my work, mother,” I said, my mind going towards the swords I had left undone and the forge and smelter that surely would be useless now and would have to be repaired. More things slowing him down.

“Not today,” she said, firmly. “Today you will rest.”

“The forge and furnace need to be repaired,” I said, thinking of the entire day I would lose working on both.

“Your cousins will work on it,” she said. “Some of them have already cleaned them out and started working on them. Moses found some clay in the mountains, they’ve been using that to remake the forge.”

Clay? That would be a very good upgrade for the forge and smelter, it would lessen the cracks and the need for maintenance and construction of new smelters after every few days.

“Fine,” I said. “I’ll rest.”

“Santos,” another voice cut through the crowd. It was Solfrid, she had a plate of fruits and a mug. I didn’t realize how parched I was until I took the mug and down the first sip, it was plain water, but it tasted so got dang delicious right then.

“Are you well?” she asked, there was genuine worry in her eyes. She might have been frightened by the idea of my dying as I was the only connection between her and my family. I doubt that my family would shunn them away, but their lives here would likely become more awkward and difficult, especially without me around as the only one who can talk to them.

“Tired,” I replied. “But, otherwise well.”

“You burden yourself too much,” Solfrid said.

“We all have burdens to bare,” I said, motioning towards Eirunn, the oldest of the three sisters who stood behind her. Solfrid had taken it upon herself to adopt the children as her own, she was no more than twenty one winters old and she was already a step mother to five.

“Yes,” she nodded. “But, not all of us collapse from them.”

“I will be fine,” I said.

The crowd around me started to disperse as they congratulated me on not dying as some said stuff about me resting and taking it easy.

Only Solfrid and Maira remained by my side, Eirunn had been sent back to inform the others that I had not in fact died.

“So are you both going to stand as my sentries?” I asked, looking at the two girls.

“Yeah,” Maira grinned.

“Yes,” Solfrid replied at the same time.

It was interesting, whatever gift allowed me to understand different languages also allowed others to hear that language spoken back. I could even direct it, if I only wanted one person to hear my words in their language and not the other, then only that person would understand me. In this case I had directed my words with intent at the both of them and both had understood me.

“Well,” I said, straining to get up. It was as if all my exhaustion had hit me at once, my muscles were sore and screamed from the effort of standing. Each of the girls took an arm and helped me get to my feet, it took me a few seconds for my legs to find the strength to keep me upright.

“Where are you going?” Maira asked, letting me place an arm on her shoulder as support, while my legs found their strength. Solfrid did the same on the other side. While Solfrid was a solid warrior and even with the both of them supporting me, I was by no means a featherweight.

“I’ve been sleeping in my own sweat and grime for two days,” I replied. “I think I’mma go take a shower.”

After a couple of steps I could walk on my own and started making my way towards the shower, two gates were built leading to the outside, one to the east and one to the south. It was through the eastern gate that I headed for, that gate opens up to the lake and to where the shower was built.

I noticed that even though Solfrid had headed out first, she met up with me and Maira holding a spare change of my clothing.

“Thank you,” I said, hand extended.

“I’ll carry it,” she said, and did not wait for me to reply. Instead she continued on to the way, Maira followed beside me.

Both of them followed me towards the shower, I guess someone put Maira up to watching me, as for Solfrid, she was probably still worried about me collapsing again or something. I decided to pay it no mind, it helped that they followed me, for in all honesty I didn’t feel all that recovered yet. It would suck if they watched me fall, but worse it would be if I injured myself and had no one around to help me out. Just thinking of having to crawl back to the house if I twisted an ankle or something made my ego shudder.

I got into the shower, the girls went in with me to light a couple of candles and helped me start up the water. When they left I undressed and entered the raining water, as always, the cold water hit me with a shock. I shuddered as I let the water shower over my body letting me acclimate to the cold, there was no way around it.

With my strength still drained, I just stood there letting my body soak.

I sighed, resigned myself and started to scrub my body with a soap lathered sponge. As I stretched around trying to get every nook and cranny, I felt a hand on my shoulder, my eyes instantly opened in alarm.

It was Maira.

My heart began to pound hard, as confusion overwhelmed me, what was she doing in here. My eyes darted around and discovered that Solfrid was beside me as well, they did not have any clothes on. They had entered the shower in their birthday suits revealing everything to me now, my eyes could not help but wander about their bodies.

“What are you two doing?” I asked, addressing both of them.

“Are you intimidated?” Solfrid challenged, she rested her hand on my pecks and then slowly grazed her fingers against my skin, before I could respond to her I felt Maira take my arm and pressed it against her body. I could feel her breasts against my skin, they were not much more than a handful, half as much as Solfrid’s own, but that did not stop the sensation from stirring my blood.

“Maira,” I said, my voice nearly failing me. “If we get caught, I’m the one the family will hang.”

“The family can’t do anything to you,” she said, interlacing her fingers with my own as she pressed the back of my hand against the tuft of her womanhood. “Not anymore.”

The last she said with such conviction and force that it was almost as if it was something she had been waiting for.

“Don’t just look at her,” Solfrid said, her hand made her way up to my face, turning it towards her, her fingers played with my lips.

I was so entranced, I became nothing more than their plaything.