The wind runner book 10.., p.87
The Wind Runner: Book 10 (The Wandering Inn), page 87
It took him two heatings in the forge, and the second one was only to pound the rest of the horseshoe into shape. Erin watched as the [Farrier] took the spike and hammered more holes along the horseshoe’s rim as it cooled.
“And…done! A horseshoe, like many you’ve seen no doubt. If you check a shod horse in any part of the world, this is what you’ll see. Nothing to it.”
Bealt presented the horseshoe to Erin after it had cooled. She ran her fingers across the still-warm metal, marveling at how fast he’d worked. She stared at the bar of metal he’d used and shook her head.
“Just like that! It’s amazing!”
“You’re too kind. But as I said, that’s [Farrier] work for you. Proper speed, proper quality. I can have your knife done, although it won’t be this quick. Horseshoes are simple.”
“But you make it look so…what level are you? Really high? I’d never be able to get the rod-thing to bend like that! This is so cool!”
Erin was genuinely excited. There was something about watching a piece of metal bend like that with only a hammer to shape it that no hydraulic press could match. But she must have raised her voice a bit too loudly, because a loud snort came from the forge next to them.
“That’s enough to make a Human excited? I suppose you’ve never seen a master working, then, brat.”
Pelt glared over the top of his anvil at Erin and Bealt. The Gnoll raised his eyebrows, but Erin stuck her tongue out at Pelt.
“Bleh. Big talk for a guy who can’t finish his metal-thing.”
She pointed at the piece of metal Pelt was working on. The Dwarf’s eye twitched. He picked up the metal and tossed it onto the ground. His apprentice scrambled after it, but Pelt snatched up a bar of metal like the one Bealt had used. He inspected it for a moment, then looked at Erin with a sneer in his face and voice.
“You call that expert work? You can make a horseshoe in a single heat. Watch.”
So saying, he stuck the metal in the furnace. There were a few minutes of awkward staring in which Erin folded her arms and Bealt, chuckling, heated up another piece of metal himself. But then Pelt’s metal was hot. He pulled it out and called to Erin.
“Watch.”
He placed it on the anvil as Erin rolled her eyes. Pelt raised his hammer, angled the metal to make the bend like Bealt had done. And his hammer moved. Erin saw it strike once, twice, and suddenly the metal was bent into a U-shape!
The Dwarf flipped it around the horn of the anvil, and his hammer blurred. Strike, strike, strike! The clanging of metal was a quick melody of beats, over in a second. He held up a horseshoe, the twin of the one that the [Farrier] had just made, and held out a palm.
“Fuller.”
His Drake apprentice scrambled to get it to him. Pelt angled the spike and drove in the holes into the horseshoe with a single blow each time. It was still glowing red, still cooling when he held up the horseshoe.
“Done.”
Erin gaped. It was a proper jaw-drop. Pelt had done it! In half the time it had taken Bealt! The [Farrier] looked up from his second horseshoe and stared at the horseshoe the Dwarf had made as he placed it on his anvil. He straightened and called out to Pelt.
“Fancy. And fancy-quick, sir. But can you do that twice? I’ve sixty horseshoes to make, and I dare say that was a skillful trick you pulled off, but can you swear you’ll only heat once when doing work like this? My horseshoes always fit with no mistakes to their curve.”
He gestured to his first horseshoe. Now Erin saw that Maughin was looking over, again obviously eavesdropping with his detached head. And some of the other smiths behind Bealt were listening as he called out to Pelt.
“A [Farrier] can take one of my shoes and fit it to any horse’s hooves wherever they may be. And I do that work in two heats. I could do it in one, but then mine might not be perfect. Would you wager you could cast thirty shoes in one heat and have them all come out perfect?”
Pelt had a sneer that could out sneer even Pisces. The Dwarf folded his arms.
“On my hammer, I could make you a hundred horseshoes and not one would be different from the other! Don’t mistake me, boy. I’ve made more horseshoes than you’ve dreamed of. I could make them in my sleep. If you want to test that, buy me drinks for the night and I’ll forge you thirty horseshoes as perfect as you like.”
Erin glanced at Bealt. The Gnoll smith was still for a second. Then he grinned that wide, slightly scary Gnoll smile with teeth. It didn’t always mean they were happy to see you.
“Drinks, then. My horseshoes made in two heats each, yours the one. Thirty horseshoes apiece, and if either Gnoll or Dwarf slips up, they pay for the other’s night. And if you can make thirty perfect, I’ll pay your drinks until you stop.”
Erin held her breath, but Pelt spat on the ground.
“Done!”
He reached for his hammer, but a rumbling voice interrupted him. Maughin walked out of his forge, huge hammer in hand, fitting his head on his shoulders. He stared at both Pelt and Bealt with a challenge in his eyes.
“Make it twenty each. Twenty perfect, and the fastest done is the winner if no one else errs.”
Bealt glanced up, and Pelt turned his head.
“You think you can keep up, Maughin?”
“I wouldn’t offer to pay if I wasn’t sure. And the winner drinks in Tails and Scales. Is that enough of a wager for you, Pelt?”
The Dwarf licked his lips. His eyes lit up. Erin looked from smith to smith. Maughin’s apprentices crowded around behind him, and some other smiths abandoned their work at their forges to watch.
Suddenly, it was a competition. Erin cleared her throat, and the smiths broke off their staring contest to look at her.
“Uh, well, I suppose if we’re doing this, it's twenty horseshoes? And you’ve all got your own forges? So…ready, set, go?”
Instantly, the three broke up. Bealt swung himself back to his ready forge and tossed another piece of metal into the furnace, discarding his half-finished horseshoe for later. Maughin hurried over to his furnaces as his apprentices cleared the space of their work, grabbing metal for him to use. Pelt tore back into his forge, shouting at his Drake apprentice for his metal. And Erin watched.
What skill, what speed! Okay, it was just horseshoes, but it was still fascinating to watch! Erin saw other smiths and apprentices gather, and a few of the Street Runners and other people walking on the ninth floor gathered to see as well. Because even if they were just horseshoes, it was fascinating to see a master make them.
And how they did it! Maughin was the first Erin focused on. The giant Dullahan was as strong as he looked. He only needed to hit a piece of metal once to make it bend. In fact, he was so strong that Erin saw he had to pace himself not to wreck the shape of the horseshoe. He had to focus to get the right bend in place, let alone angle the fuller to poke the holes in the horseshoes. But the Dullahan was crafty and had a strategy to make up for his lack of speed.
He was using all the forges in his shop! Maughin had three in the space he’d rented, and he walked from one to the other. The instant one of his horseshoes was at the right temperature, he took it out, hammered it, and as it cooled, stuck it back into the forge to be heated again. But was that enough?
Erin looked at Bealt and saw the [Farrier]’s hammer flashing. He had a fast rhythm to all his motions, and while he had only one forge, he knew how to make a horseshoe with the most economical of movements. True to his word, he only needed two heats each time. And somehow, his metal was heating up faster than Pelt’s or Maughin’s! The Gnoll laughed as he took another orange-yellow piece of metal out of the furnace.
“A [Farrier] must work quick! And the quicker the metal heats, the quicker it can be struck! Some smiths have Skills to move their metal faster or make the end result tougher! But the [Farrier] must be done soonest!”
His hammer sang on the anvil as Maughin labored to catch up. Bealt was as skillful and fast as he claimed. But it was Pelt who was the master of the three. Erin saw that, and so did the audience. You could just see it. The Dwarf used one forge, and his metal didn’t heat as fast, but when he took it out, his hammer flew, and the horseshoe was done before the metal was red.
Not even Bealt could match that speed or indeed the flawless precision by which the Dwarf fullered the holes in the horseshoes each time. And yet, he was still slower, and not just because of his forge.
The Dwarf had the bars of steel ready to be turned into horseshoes lined up next to his anvil. His apprentice would hand him each one, ready to be heated up. But before the Dwarf put them in the furnace, he’d lift each bar of steel up, stare at it. Tap it against the anvil and listen to the sound it made. Each time, he’d inspect the bar of metal he was given, as meticulous as could be, despite the competition.
That struck Erin as odd, because the precious seconds or even minutes it cost Pelt to inspect each bar of steel was giving Bealt a chance to move past him. A Drake [Smith] shook his head as he stared at the Dwarf inspecting his sixteenth horseshoe as his apprentice hopped from one foot to another, practically begging him to put it in the furnace. Bealt was on his seventeenth shoe, and Maughin his fourteenth and fifteenth simultaneously.
“That’s Pelt for you. Miserable drunk he might be, but he won’t accept any imperfection in his metal. Pallass churns out the steel some of the smiths buy, but he refuses to use it. Forges his own steel himself out of iron with his apprentice; and even then he’ll discard anything that has impurity. Not that I know how you’d be able to tell by just looking.”
“Maybe it’s a Skill?”
Erin suggested. The Drake shrugged.
“It’s probably a Dwarf thing. A Skill should be faster, shouldn’t it? Either way, he’s going to lose if he doesn’t hurry up.”
He was right. Pelt was on the eighteenth horseshoe when Bealt threw down his hammer and raised his paws in the air. There was a groan from Maughin’s apprentices, and Pelt just scowled, but both smiths kept working. After all, they had promised to make twenty perfect horseshoes each.
And then they were done. All three collected their twenty shoes and placed them on their anvils, Pelt’s in a mess, Bealt and Maughin’s neat and stacked. Somehow, it fell to Erin to be the judge.
“Oh wow. Yep. Those are identical. Ahem. Looks like good…steel? These are made of steel, right? Nice sound they make. I bet if I was a horse I’d love these on my feet. Wait. You hammer these in with nails, right? Maybe not.”
Erin wandered from anvil to anvil, lamely inspecting the horseshoes in front of the audience. The thing was…the thing was…they were identical. Each one. Even Pelt’s, when she organized them. She could even see through the holes on Pelt’s when she stacked them all together, he’d hammered in the holes that perfectly. And Maughin and Bealt’s, if not that flawless, were too close for anyone to object to.
Erin came to a stop in front of the three waiting smiths. Pelt was scowling, and Maughin looked disappointed. Bealt was smiling. Erin cleared her throat awkwardly.
“Well, these look really good. So…I guess Bealt wins?”
There was a ripple through the audience. No one looked happy, although that had been the nature of the bet. Pelt kicked over his stack of horseshoes, growling.
“So the damn Gnoll can heat his horseshoes faster. So what? Mine are flawless! Not a hole out of place! Can he make anything else better, or is shaping a bar of metal all he can do?”
“I can do better. But no one challenged me to more. And I think I’ve proved a [Farrier]’s worth.”
Bealt smiled as he looked at the other two. Maughin frowned.
“Speed at least. But if I this was a matter of decoration or of a more complex shape—”
“Sour grapes, Smith Maughin. Or do you have another task in mind?”
“I wouldn’t shy away from another wager. Say, drinks and food?”
“But what would we forge?”
Pelt growled at the two. Bealt blinked. He looked at Erin.
“Well…I do have one more promise to fulfill. A certain knife for Miss Solstice. Which the two of you were too busy for, weren’t you?”
He looked at Pelt and Maughin. The two smiths turned to Erin. She grinned weakly.
“Oh, that? Well, I need a knife, sure. But is that really—”
“That settles it! A knife, and not just made fast, but made well! We’ll test them, and the sharpest, the strongest—”
“And the most beautiful.”
“Yes, all those win! Let the [Innkeeper] judge! Not just us three! Any [Smith] that wins we’ll pay for as the master of blades! Who’ll join?”
Bealt turned. Half the smiths shouted agreement and strode to their forges.
“Wow. A competition? Er—this is like one of those game shows. Only, with knives instead of food. Is there something like that? Iron Blacksmith? Um—”
Erin looked around. The smiths weren’t listening. Maughin was already calling for his best steel billet. Pelt grunted as he hurried over to his forge, hunting for his best metal. And Bealt was likewise pulling steel billets out as he sketched a knife that looked more like a hunting weapon on a piece of parchment with charcoal. He caught Erin’s eye as she approached.
“Sorry for making this a huge thing.”
“Ah, what of it? This is fun!”
The [Farrier] grinned at Erin’s apprehensive face. He laughed as he turned up his furnace, then nodded at Pelt.
“It may end with me paying for someone else’s food, but this is more fun than I’ve had all week! And as for Pelt—I’ve never seen that Dwarf participate in any competition. Someone’s riled him up, and the other smiths for that matter. And me. And it occurs to me you had something to do with that, Miss Solstice.”
He stared at Erin. The young woman gave him a wide-eyed look.
“Me? But I mean, I guess…”
She looked doubtful. Bealt shook his head.
“You have a way about you. Intentional or not. I wonder if half the stories I hear from my kin in Liscor are true.”
He bent over his parchment, chuckling, and heard a light chuckle in return. The young woman sat next to him.
“Well, some of them are. And I’ll say sorry again. But I really wanted to see how good Pelt was. And everyone likes a good competition, don’t they?”
Bealt glanced up sharply. He saw Erin smiling at him, and the wide-eyed look in her eyes was gone. His jaw fell open, and she gave him a wink.
“What can I say? It’s a knack. Better get to work! I like the curvy thing on that knife. Ooh, but I’m a judge aren’t I? Impartiality! Hey, you know, this would be great if I had something to sell for the audience…”
——
The forge sang with sound. It was a competition between sounds. Between ways of life. On one side, Daiton was forging, loudly swearing, ordering his apprentices about, talking as he waited for his metal to heat. On the other side, Nawal existed in a world of silence. The only sound was the slow tracing of her footsteps around the magic circle.
It was a contest, although Trey thought the outcome rested on Nawal, not Daiton. The [Blacksmith] had forged a sword, but it had been done out of an existing piece of metal already worked on for days. He held up the sword, and Trey had to admit, it looked quite good. Daiton had smoothed the hammer marks in the metal and given it an edge that only needed a grindstone to make sharper. It was a traditional longsword, and now he held it up for his audience to see.
His apprentices looked properly impressed, if accustomed to the sight. The Tannousin clan watched silently. Daiton showed the sword to Trey, who was the only one who showed any real interest in the blade. He wiped sweat from his brow and nodded to the furnace.
“I’m done. Time to quench it.”
That was the process Trey had yet to see. He watched as Daiton heated the blade in the forge again, like he would do before hammering on it. But this time, he inserted the sword hilt-first. One of the apprentices explained why to Trey as Daiton gently pulled the sword back and forth, heating the handle and lower part of the blade until it was white-hot.
“The tang—that’s the hilt part without the handle, Sir Trey—that heats first. You can get it nice and hot, but the edge you heat last. Master Daiton’s taking care with the sword. Overheat the delicate edge and you could ruin the hardness of it.”
“And when it’s all hot? What does he do, toss it into one of the barrels?”
Trey had seen the barrels of liquid. He assumed they were water, but the apprentice looked shocked at the idea.
“Oh no! For a sword? The water would make the edge far too brittle! Master Daiton will put it in oil. And he won’t keep it in there. If he dropped it, the sword might break at the bottom. See?”
He pointed. Daiton had lifted the glowing blade. He marched over to the barrel and without hesitation stuck the sword into the deep barrel. There was a gout of flame, but Daiton was wearing gloves. He held the blade in the oil, then pulled it out. Trey saw the [Smith] hold the sword up to eye-level and inspect the length of the blade. Then Daiton’s face twisted into a grimace. He lowered the sword with a look of disgust and grabbed a file.
A metal file. Daiton rubbed it against the edge of the longsword, then hurled the file to the ground with a curse. The apprentice and Trey watched as he carried it back to the furnace and plunged it back in. Then he turned and, almost shamefaced, addressed the forge.
“I misjudged the heat. It’s too soft and there’s a warp. I’ll have to requench it.”
The other smiths sighed, but they didn’t look too upset. Trey didn’t understand what had happened, so asked the helpful apprentice again what had gone wrong. The apprentice pointed to the reheating blade again as Daiton grumbled about having to straighten the metal.
“The heat is crucial. When you quench a blade—and you can do it many ways, sir, and the liquid matters—it must be at the right temperature. Master Daiton was quenching his blade in oil, but the quench went wrong for whatever reason and the blade isn’t hard. The file bites into the edge where it should glide across if it were properly heated.”
