Hefting his heavy, blunt headed hammer Master Jestin lifted one of the iron rods from the stack next to the anvil. “A sword blade of the Asraelin pattern is fashioned from three rods,” he told them. “A thick central rod and two thinner rods for the edge. This,” he held up the rod in his hand, “is one of the edge rods. It must be shaped before it is melded with the others. The edge is the hardest part of the sword to forge, it must be fine but strong, it must cut but also withstand a blow from another blade. Look at the metal, look closely.” He held the rod out to each of them in turn, his rough, uneven voice oddly hypnotic. “See the flecks of black there?”
Vaelin peered at the rod, picking out the small black fragments amidst the dark grey of the iron.
“ It’s called star silver because it glows brighter than the heavens when it’s put to the flame,” Jestin went on. “But it’s not silver, it’s a form of iron, rare iron that comes from the earth like all metals, there’s nothing Dark about it. But it’s this that makes swords of the Order stronger than others. With this your blades will withstand blows that would shatter others and, if wielded with skill, will cut through mail and armour. This is our secret. Guard it well.”
He motioned for Vaelin and Nortah to begin pumping the bellows and watched as their efforts were rewarded by the gradual appearance of a deep red-orange glow in the mass of coke. “Now,” he said, hefting his hammer. “Watch closely, try and learn.”
Vaelin and Nortah started to sweat profusely as they heaved at the heavy wooden handle of the bellows, the heat in the smithy rising with every flush of air they forced into the forge. The atmosphere seemed to thicken with it, drawing a breath becoming an effort in itself.
Get on with it for Faith’s sake, Vaelin groaned inwardly, his sweat slicked arms aching, as Master Jestin waited… and waited.
Finally satisfied the smith took hold of the rod with a pair of iron tongs and plunged it into the forge, waiting until the red-orange glow flowed into the metal and along its length before taking it out and placing it on the anvil. The first blow was light, little more than a tap, scattering a small cloud of sparks. Then he began to work in earnest, the hammer rising and falling with drumbeat precision, sparks fountaining around him, the hammer sometimes blurring with the speed of his swing. Oddly there seemed to be scant change in the glowing rod at first, although it may have got a little longer by the time Master Jestin plunged it into the forge again, gesturing irritably for Vaelin and Nortah to pump harder.
It wore on for what seemed like an hour but could only have been about ten minutes, Master Jestin hammering at the rod, returning it to the forge, hammering again. Vaelin found himself longing for the bruising comforts of the practice field, hand to hand combat on icy ground was better than this. When Master Jestin signalled them to stop they both staggered away from the bellows and leaned their heads out of the door, heaving great gulps of sweet tasting air into their lungs.
“ The bastard’s trying to kill us,” Nortah gasped.
“ Get back here,” Master Jestin growled and they hurried inside. “You need to get used to real work. Look here.” He held up the rod, its original rounded shape had changed to a three sided strip of metal about a yard long. “This is an edge. It seems rough now, but melded with it’s brothers it will be keen and bright with purpose.”
Dentos and Caenis were told to take over the bellows and Master Jestin started on the other edge, the toll of the hammer a ringing counterpoint to the rasp of their breath as they worked. When the second edge was complete he began on the thick central rod, his blows becoming harder and more rapid, extending the rod’s length to match the edges then tempering the blade to form a raised spine along the middle. By the time he was finished Caenis and Dentos were ready to drop and Barkus partnered Vaelin at the bellows. The smith took a bracket to bind the three rods together at the base and made ready to meld them.
“ The melding is the test of a sword smith,” he informed them. “It is the hardest skill to learn. Too hard a blow will spoil the blade, too light and the rods won’t meld.” He glanced over at Vaelin and Barkus. “Heave hard, keep the fire hot. No slacking.”
As they worked, Vaelin praying for an end, he noticed Barkus’s gaze was fixed on Master Jestin, his arms rising and falling without pause, seeming oblivious to the pain, his whole attention riveted on the process unfolding on the anvil. At first Vaelin wondered what was so interesting, it was a man hitting a piece of metal with a hammer. He saw no spectacle in it, no mystery. But as he followed Barkus's gaze he found himself increasingly absorbed by the sight of the blade taking shape, the three rods fusing together under the force of the hammer. Occasionally the flecks of star silver in the edge rods would flare as Master Jestin took the blade from the forge, glowing so brightly he had to look away. He believed what the smith had said about the star silver being just another metal but still it was unnerving.
“ You,” Master Jestin nodded at Nortah as he finished shaping the point. “Fetch the bucket closer.”
Nortah obediently dragged the heavy wooden bucket closer to the anvil, it was nearly full to the brim and water sloshed over his feet as he heaved it into place. “This is salt water,” Jestin told them. “A blade quenched in brine will always be stronger than one quenched in fresh water. Stand back, it’ll boil.”
He took a firm grip on the tang at the base of the blade and plunged it into the bucket, making it steam and roil as the heat seeped into the water. He held it there until the boil subsided then withdrew the steaming blade, holding it up for inspection. It was black, the metal stained with soot, but Master Jestin seemed content with it. The edges were straight and the point perfectly symmetrical.
“ Now,” he said. “The real work begins. You,” he turned to Caenis. “Since you lit the forge you can have this one.”
“ Um,” Caenis said, clearly wondering if this was an honour or a curse. “Thank you master.”
Jestin carried the blade to the far end of the smithy, laying it on a bench next to a large pedal-driven grindstone. “A new forged blade is only half born,” he informed them. “It must be sharpened, polished, honed.” He had Caenis stand at the grindstone and set it turning with the pedal, demonstrating how to get a good rhythm going by counting “one two, one two” before telling him to increase the speed and hold the blade to the stone. The instant fountain of sparks made Caenis step back in alarm but Jestin ordered him to keep at it, guiding his hands to get the correct angle then showing him how to move the blade across the stone so that its whole length was honed. “That’s it,” he grunted after a while when Caenis grew confident enough to move the blade on his own. “Ten minutes for each edge then show me what you’ve done. The rest of you back to the forge. You and you on the bellows…”
And so they worked and sweated in the forge, seven long days of heaving bellows, grinding edges and working polish into the blades so that the soot disappeared and they gleamed like silver. None of them escaped unscathed, Vaelin bore a livid scar on the back of his hand where a speck of molten metal landed, the pain and the smell of his own skin burning was uniquely sickening. The others suffered similar injury, Dentos coming off worse with a scattering of sparks into his eyes during a careless moment on the grinder. The sparks left a cluster of blackened scars around his left eye but luckily there was no damage to his vision.
Despite the exhaustion, the risk of disfiguring injury and the tedium of the work Vaelin couldn’t resist a certain fascination with the process. There was a beauty to it; the gradual birth of the blades under Master Jestin’s hammer, the feel of the edge against the grindstone, the pattern that emerged in the blade as he polished it, dark swirls in the blue-grey of the steel, as if the flames of the forge had been frozen in the metal somehow.