“Not that, silly. I didn’t call you half-blood.”
“Why’s that, then?” What is it you want?
She shrugged. “I prayed about it.”
A likely story. “And Menselas answered, did he?”
“Maybe.”
Anskar pretended to take an interest in the familiar surroundings of the smithing hall. Whatever had been in the hall in the Niyandrians’ time had been stripped out long ago and replaced with slatted vents built into the walls, and flues that exited the ceiling above each of the twelve forges dotted about the space. There were slack-tubs for the cooling of hot metal, grindstones, and an iron quench press for holding large pieces of metalwork that needed to be plunged into water in a sunken trough big enough to swim in. Tools hung from every wall—hammers, mallets, pincers, tongs, chisels, fine-toothed metal saws. Cupboards were filled with thick leather gloves, aprons, and the wax balls the smiths used as earplugs.
The other novices stood in a group, feet shuffling, casting nervous glances at each other. Sareya had her back to Anskar now and was in whispered conversation with Naul.
Smoke hung thick in the air; with so many forges in use at one time, the vents couldn’t clear it fast enough. Six forges had been allocated to the novices, each banked with charcoal in various stages of heat from red to white. At the other forges, knight-smiths were hard at work on orders from the mainland; the smithing of tools and weapons was a mainstay of the Burg’s income.
The tang of hot metal bit into Anskar’s nostrils above the stench of coal smoke and sweat. Water within a slack-tub sizzled and steamed as the glowing iron of an axe head was plunged into it. Sparks flew from an anvil where a knight-smith was drawing out the spine of a short sword, making it thinner and longer, but delivering his hammer strikes with great precision to keep the width even.
Despite the heat and the noise, this was an atmosphere Anskar had come to love. For several years, all the novices had received daily instruction and practice in the craft of smithing, but none had put in long hours after the evening meal like he had. Sometimes the only reason he left the smithing hall for his bed was because the Forge Master, Sned Jethryn, dragged him out by his ear.
The novices hadn’t only been taught basic techniques, hammering out weapons of bronze, then iron, then steel; they had also learned the Order’s secrets for bonding hard and soft metals together by heating and quenching them at just the right temperature and for the right amount of time. Then they had moved on to more complex techniques, such as folding one metal into another, and heat welding—but many had not fully mastered these. Even Anskar, who obsessively practiced his designs and the exacting methods he’d been taught, had only achieved limited success.
To pass the trial, the trainees must craft a functional sword, though the appearance of the weapon and the care that had gone into its design would also be factors. For many trainees, the safe option was to make a serviceable blade from iron, which was softer and easier to work with. Better a simple weapon well made, they reasoned, than a complex one made poorly. Anskar had wrestled with which approach to take for weeks but had known all along he had no real choice. He wasn’t given to half measures.
“Right, then,” Sned yelled above the din. “Let’s get you started.”
The Forge Master gave the impression of being broader than he was tall. His shoulders were so huge he seemed to have no neck, and his forearms—scarred white from metal burns—were as thick as thighs. Sweat glistened from his bald head, and his mustache was slick with it. His left eye permanently squinted—he’d caught a red-hot splinter in it years ago.
Sned assigned each of the trainees to a forge—two to each—then told them to face him at the center of the hall so he could go over the rules.
“Now, you should already know them,” the Forge Master said, “but like as not, half of you probably weren’t listening. Am I right?” He raised a wooden mallet he kept on him to ensure people paid attention. One or two novices flinched.
“Five days you’ve got to finish the trial,” Sned said. “But if you want to finish early, be my guest. Just don’t blame me when you fail.”
Orix raised his hand.
“Yes?” Sned said.
“Sir, is it only steel we can use?”
Sned raised his mallet and Orix ducked behind his raised arms.
“Use what you like. Use wood, if you don’t care about passing. Use horse shit. So long as you make a sword out of it, I don’t care.
“But just to clarify for the rest of you cloth-eared wasters: there’s no restriction on the number and types of metal you can use. There’s a variety of woods and leathers for hilts, along with sea-ray skin, which is a bastard to work with but gives the best grip. Wax earplugs are in the cupboard for those who want them—and only a fool wouldn’t. There’s more than enough charcoal. My folks”—by which he meant the old men and women among the knights who helped out with Branil’s Burg’s principal industry—“have been slow-burning wood in piles for weeks, just for you. There’s plenty of ingots too. Just don’t waste any, because if you do,” he said, hefting his mallet, “I can hit you in the back of the head at twenty paces.
“Any questions? Good. Because if you don’t know the answers by now, you never will.”
When Anskar took out the folded piece of parchment upon which he’d sketched his design, he caught Orix watching him from the adjacent forge.
“What’s that?” the Orix asked, as the knight-smiths pulled hot steel from their forges and renewed hammering.
Anskar held up the parchment to show him. He’d drawn a long, slightly curved blade with a grip that could be held with one or both hands. The bow in the steel was a risk he’d decided to take; up to one third of swords made this way were ruined during the quenching and tempering process. There was a single, narrow fuller running along the center of the blade, and around the picture he’d written out the dimensions and listed the materials he planned to use: iron; steel; ash for the handle; sea-ray skin for the grip. Anskar had painstakingly copied out the instructions on what was known of Jargalan smithing and committed them to memory. He’d practiced the techniques time and again during his night sessions at the smithing hall.
“I didn’t know we were meant to make a design,” Orix said.
Even for a Traguh-raj savage, Orix was slow. Their smithing tutor, Adsila, had urged them for weeks on end to come prepared. She’d even gone so far as to show them the designs she’d made for her own trial more than a decade ago—and the finished weapon.
“You’ll just have to do your best,” Anskar said, heading for one of the cupboards to get himself some earplugs.
When he returned, Sned was with Orix, asking him what materials he planned to use. When Orix shrugged, Sned asked to see his design. Orix swallowed thickly and looked miserable.
Shaking his head, Sned turned his back on him and caught Anskar’s eye. “What about you, Assling? Surely if anyone has a clue what they’re doing, it’s you.”
If anyone else had called him Assling, Anskar would have broken their nose, but with Sned the nickname was a term of affection.
The Forge Master took the parchment from Anskar and held it above the glow of the forge to examine it. He handed it back with a sniff.