Chapter 3

The forges were a busy place. Filled with people, and muscular teenagers slamming slamming away at lumps of molten metal certainly was new. There were people from other cabins as well, with pieces of broken junk, scrap metals, and shields and swords. Soon, I went upto the largest guy there. Charles Beckendorf, my mind supplied me. Right, he was the unfortunate casualty at the start of the last book.

"Hey Charlie."

He looked at me, as his eyebrows shot up in surprise.

"Adoneous! What are you doing here? You got that bow of yours fixed just yesterday."

"Nah, man, its not about that. You see, I wanted to learn forging. I was so impressed by how well you did it, and it was art I tell you, art! Will you please teach me?"

I could see his cheeks slowly lifting and the pride on his face.

"Hohoho, ofcourse. There are so few who understand forging. But its hard you know."

And then began the grilling.

One month. For one month, all I did was hammer away at lumps of metal, and then I casted my first sword. In Beckendorf's words, I'm 'Worst among the children of Hephastus' and the 'best among the rest'. Well it was a compliment…I think. It was in the secong month, that we moved onto the more smaller, more delicate things. Screws, springs, triggers, traps, even flexible whips, I learned how to cast it all. All in all, it took me 6 months to completely learn blacksmithing. Well, enough to repair my own equipment and forge small things. At the end of it, Beckendorf gave me a gift, a hammer. It was made of Obsidian, and rimmed with damscus steel. There was even a spike made of celestial bronze at its other end. It was…the first gift I had ever recieved.

"Thanks man."

"No, Adoneous. You have talent, and that is hard to find. Do not give up forging, and it will not give up on you either."

I smiled at him, and exited while being high fived by the other members of the Hephastus cabin. We were all cousins after all. But now was the hardest part.

In the arena, the sounds of metal clanging was heard. It was a bunch of campers, mostly from the Hermes Cabin, training their sword arts. I found Luke on an elevated position, looking down at them. As he saw me entering, he got down, and jogged towards me.

"Hey Adoneous. I don't think you are lost so tell me, why are you here?"

I needed to be ready. Luke was a betrayer. He was dangerous, and I needed to learn swordsmanship. It was very important to confirm my security in close quarters.

"Well, remember how you whooped my ass at capture the flag at last week?"

"Yeah, vividly."

He gave me a grin, his scar seemingly glowing.

"It was awesome."

Whoa man, sadist much? Anyway.

"Yeah, so I wanted to at least make sure I'm not a easy target for you anymore."

He looked at me straight. It seemed like he was boring into my eyes. Unknowingly, a sweat trickled down the back of my neck. This was dangerous! He then walked around me, poking my now bulging muscles, from learning forging, and then poked his foot at my shin, and then said,

"Your upper body is stable enough, but your lower body, its well, uh, trash. So ust run laps for now. After you run 50 laps, we'll start."

"Aye aye sir."

I only breathed a sigh of relief as I started to run. Now that I looked around the arena, wasn't 50 laps a bit too much!