Borin Ironforge's Arc

Chapter 12 of 20

The new fire had proven itself. Finn could smelt ore, shape steel, forge a blade from raw stone. Borin watched the boy sweep ash from the anvil and felt an old fear tighten. He had taught Finn everything. Nail, blade, ore, fire. Nothing was left to teach. But teaching was not the same as knowing. Borin needed one last test, one true trial, to see if the boy could stand alone. He had no idea what that trial should be. He searched the forge that night. His eyes found the broken warhammer on a high shelf. Its head was split. Its haft was cracked through. Finn had named both flaws the day he first walked in. Borin had forbidden the boy from touching it. It would break his spirit, he'd said. That was years of skill ago. At dawn Borin set the warhammer on the anvil. He said nothing. He gathered his cloak and stopped at the door. "I'm going to the inn for the day," Borin said. "The forge is yours." Finn looked at the ruined hammer, then at the old dwarf. "You never let me touch that." "I'm not letting you now. I'm leaving." Borin stepped out and shut the door. He walked to the inn and sat where the warm windows let no soot in. He drank one ale and did not taste it. He counted the hours by the light. He did not go back to check. If he watched, it was his hand guiding the work, not the boy's. He had to leave Finn wholly alone or learn nothing. At dusk Borin returned. Smoke still rose from the chimney. He pushed the door open. The warhammer lay on the anvil, whole. The split head was welded clean, the seam faint as a hair. A fresh haft ran straight and true through the eye, wrapped tight in leather. Finn stood beside it, soot to the elbows, arms shaking. Borin lifted the hammer. He turned it in the low light. He swung it once. The head held. The haft held. He struck the anvil hard. The ring came back clean, no rattle, no give. "Where did you find good steel for the weld?" Borin asked. "I smelted it," Finn said. "From the last ore. Ran the fire myself." Borin set the hammer down. His chest ached in a way that was not grief. The broken thing that started it all was fixed by the boy's own hand, with the boy's own metal, from stone the boy had freed. There was nothing left to teach. Finn had passed. "This is my hammer," Borin said. "The one I carried before you were born." He pressed it into Finn's hands. "Now it's yours to carry." Finn gripped the haft. He could not speak. Borin looked at the boy holding his life's tool. The last gap had closed. Only one thing remained undone, and it would not wait much longer: telling Finn why he had to leave.