Fall of Angels

XCVIII

A FAINT LINE of sunlight crossed Nylan’s face as he loaded more charcoal onto the forge coals started from wood. The basic planks for the smithy roof were in place, set almost clinker fashion, but in one or two places, thin beams of sunlight shone through.

There were no shutters, nor doors, nor a real floor. The only reason he had a roof was that Ryba and Fierral needed weapons, and that meant the ability to forge in poor weather. Would Westwind always rest on weapons?

The engineer-smith picked up the heavy iron/steel blade and extended his senses, studying the metal, following thegrain. His lips curled as he felt the weakness that ran up what he would have called the spine of the blade. Not only did he not know smithing-he didn’t even know the right terms.

He had no real tools, no real idea of how iron should be forged-just a basic understanding that a sort of waffled forging and reforging of steel and iron, combined with a quench that he developed more by feel than by physics, might improve the local product.

He laughed. Might improve? It also might turn a dull and serviceable crowbar of a weapon into scrap metal. But the marshal of Westwind needed better weapons for the new recruits, blades sharper, tougher, and lighter than the huge metal bars favored by the locals.

There was another difference. The locals seemed to want to beat each other to death. It almost seemed that the equivalent of cavalry sabres were looked down on, as though it were a badge of honor to carry the biggest and heaviest weapon possible. Ryba just wanted to find the quickest and most efficient way to win.

“Are you ready for this?” he asked Huldran as he set the blade aside on the brick forge shelf to the right side of the forge proper. He picked up a thin strip of alloy with the tongs, setting it on the coals.

Huldran pumped the bellows slowly and without comment. The alloy began to heat, more slowly than the local blade would. After a bit, Nylan eased the blade into the coals, almost next to the alloy, and waited for it to heat.

Once the crude steel blade had heated, he laid it on his makeshift forge. Then he eased the hot alloy strip on top of the cherry-red blade, and lifted the hammer, his senses extended as he tried to feel how he would meld the two.

Three blows later, he knew he was in trouble. The alloy went right into the local steel like a chisel through wood.

“Frigging alloy,” he mumbled under his breath. “Of course it wouldn’t work the simple way.”

“It never does, ser,” pointed out Huldran.

“Unfortunately.”

It took Nylan longer to separate the barely hammered pieces than it had to half join them.

“If that doesn’t work …” He walked to the unfinished smithy door. High cumulus clouds-with dark centers that promised lightning, thunder, and high winds-filled the sky. Too bad he couldn’t harness lightning bolts into an electric furnace. “Right!” he snorted as he walked back to the forge.

What if he flattened the alloy into a paper-thin sheet and then smoothed the local steel over it? Then if he heated the sheets and folded them back and flattened them together-always with a layer of the alloy on the bottom-would that work?

He set aside the mangled blade and used the tongs to put the alloy into the forge.

“You think you can make this work?” asked Huldran, pumping the bellows, sweat running out of her short blond hair.

“For a while. We’re just about out of the thin alloy sheets from partitions and the like. I don’t have the tools to take apart the lander hulls. If I had the tools and talents of a good local smith, I might be able to, but I don’t.”

After a time, he eased the alloy from the forge and began to hammer it into a flatter sheet. The alloy lost heat quickly, and he had to reheat it before he was even a third of the way down the narrow strip.

It took until mid-morning just for Nylan to flatten the alloy and the blade, and to hammer-fold the two together once. His arms ached. His shoulders were sore; his hands were tired; and he understood why the old pictures showed smiths as men with arms like tree trunks.

He eased the once-folded metal onto the side of the forge.

“Now what?” asked Huldran.

“We take a break. Then we go back to work.”

“You mean this works?”

“Oh, it’s working. It’s slow, like everything in a low-tech culture.” Nylan stood and stretched, trying not to wince too much. “Why do you think that even a terrible blade is worthalmost a gold?” He took a deep breath and lifted and lowered his shoulders, trying to loosen them. “I read somewhere that a good smith might have to fold and refold iron and steel together dozens of times to get the right kind of blade.”

“Dozens of times. It took half the morning for once.”

“That’s what I meant,” pointed out Nylan dryly. “Lasers and lots of energy make that sort of thing a lot easier. Now all we’ve got is charcoal and hammers and muscles. It takes longer.” He walked toward the tower.

After a moment, Huldran followed.