The big man shook his head, smiled, and shrugged. “Ah, well. If it will get you out of my life, I will make you your sword.”
They talked until late into the night of what was needed to undertake the forging. Urprox would have to bring in fuel to fire the furnace and metals to mix the alloy. It would take several days to bring the temperature up to the level necessary to begin the process. The forging itself could be done fairly quickly if Bremen’s magic was sufficient to raise the heat beyond that. The mold for the sword was already cast, and only small modifications were needed to give it the shape that Bremen required.
Bremen showed him the medallion he had hidden within his robes, showed him the strange, compelling image of the hand clenched about the burning torch. It was called the Eilt Druin, the Druid told him, and it must be embedded in the hilt of the sword when it was cast. Urprox shook his head. It would melt from the heat, he advised, the workmanship too fine to survive the tempering. But the old man shook his head and told him not to worry. The Eilt Druin was forged of magic, and the magic would protect it. The magic, he intoned, would give the sword the power necessary to destroy the Warlock Lord.
Urprox Screl didn’t know if he believed this or not, but he accepted it at face value. It was not his problem, after all, to decide if the sword would do what the Druid intended. It was his job to forge it in accordance with the formula provided and the science he possessed, so that it would emerge from the firings as strong as possible. Three days, then, to prepare. But there were other considerations as well. Everyone knew that he was out of business. The moment materials began to arrive, there would be questions. The moment the furnace was fired, the questions would increase. And what of the attention that the forging of the sword itself would draw?
But the old man seemed unconcerned with this, telling Urprox Screl not to worry, simply to go about his business and to concentrate on readying himself and his forge for the task at hand. While preparations were under way, he and his companions would remain close at hand and deal with whatever interest the population of the city might evince.
So it began. They separated that night with a handshake to bind their agreement, the three outlanders more satisfied with the result than Urprox Screl, but the smith was excited and intrigued by the task set to him in spite of his misgivings. He went home to his family and in the slow hours of the early morning sat with Mina at the kitchen table and told her of his decision. As it always was between them, he held nothing back. She listened to him and questioned him, but she did not advise him to change his mind. It was for him to make the choice, she said, because he understood better than she what was being asked of him and how he would live with it afterward. For her part, it seemed as if he had been shown good reason to accept the work offered him, and judgment of the men and the girl should be based on his own evaluation of their character and not on the rumors and gossip of others.
Mina, as always, understood better than anyone.
Hard coal, mined in the Eastland borders and shipped west, filled the fire pit and the fuel bins of the forge by midday next. The doors to the building were thrown open, and the first firing began.
The forge was lit and the heat brought up. Metals arrived, requisitioned in accordance with Cogline’s formula. Molds were uncovered and brought out for cleaning. Disdaining help, Urprox worked alone in the shadowy, hot interior of the building. Help was not necessary. He had constructed his forge so that winches and pulleys guided by a single hand could move everything required from one comer to the other. As for the inevitable crowds that gathered to see what he was about, they did not intrude as much as he had feared. Instead, they contented themselves simply with watching. There was a rumor given out—from where, it was not certain—that Urprox Screl was firing the furnace not because he was back in business as a smith, but because he had a buyer for the forge who wanted to make certain that it would work as advertised before he laid down his money. The owner, it was whispered, was from the deep Southland, a man who was visiting with his young wife and aged father. They could be seen from time to time at Screl’s side, or by the entry to the forge, or about the streets of the city, coming and going in pursuit of further information concerning their intended acquisition, trying to determine if the purchase they sought was a reasonable one.
For Urprox, the time passed swiftly. His doubts, so strong that first night, vanished with the unexpected exhilaration he experienced at preparing for the challenge of this unusual firing. No smith living had ever worked with magic in the Four Lands—at least not to anyone’s knowledge— and it was impossible not to be excited by the prospect. He knew in his heart, just as Kinson Ravenlock had acknowledged, that he was the best at his trade, that he had mastered the skill of shaping metal into blades as no one else had. Now he was being asked to go beyond what he had ever attempted, to create a weapon that would be better than his best, and he was enough of a craftsman to appreciate the extent of the confidence being placed in his talent. He still did not know if the blade would accomplish the task that Bremen had set for it, if it would forestall in some way the invasion the old man had warned against, if it could in any way protect against the threat of the Warlock Lord. These were questions for others. For Urprox Screl, there was only the challenge of applying his skills in a way he had never dreamed possible.
So wrapped up was he in his preparations that he was two days into them before he remembered that there had been no mention at all of payment—and in the next instant realized that it made no difference, that payment in this case was not important.
He had forgotten nothing in the two years since he had closed down the forge, and it was rewarding to discover that he still knew exactly what to do. He went about his business with confidence and determination, building the heat in the fuel pit, measuring its potency with small tests that melted metals of varying hardness and consistency. Additional fuels and materials that he had requisitioned arrived and were stored. The Druid, the Borderman, and the girl stopped by to study his progress and disappeared again. He did not know where they went when they left him. He did not know how closely they monitored his progress. They spoke to him only occasionally, and then it was the old man who did most of the talking. Now and then he would question his commitment to this task, to his belief in the old man’s tale of the destruction that threatened. But the questions were momentary and fleeting. By now he was like a runaway wagon, rolling ahead with such speed that nothing could slow him. The work itself was all that mattered.
He was surprised at how much he had missed it. The acrid smell of fuel as it was consumed in the flames, the clanging of raw metals on their way to the crucible, the sear of the fire against his skin, the rise of ash and smoke from the furnace chimney—they were old friends come to greet him on his return. It frightened him to think how easily he had abandoned his vow not to go back into his trade. It frightened him even more to think that this time he might not be able to walk away.
On the third night, late into the evening, the three came to him for the last time—the Druid Bremen, the Borderman Kinson Ravenlock, and the girl whose name he never did learn. The forge was ready, and they seemed to know this without being told, arriving after sunset and greeting him in a manner that indicated they had come to witness the fulfillment of his promise. The metals they needed for the firing were laid out, the molds set open and ready for the pour, and the winches, pulleys, chains, and crucibles that would guide the raw material through the various stages of preparation carefully set in place. Urprox knew the old man’s formula by heart. Everything was ready.