Borin Ironforge's Arc

Chapter 15 of 20

Finn brought the mill boy to the forge the next morning. Borin knew he had days left, no more. He wanted to judge the boy before he left, so Finn would not train the wrong hand. The mill boy stood in the doorway. Red hair, a farm apron, bright blue eyes fixed on the coals. His name was Gray Emberwright, and he had never touched a forge in his life. "He asked good questions," Finn said. "About the flue. About the air." Borin grunted. Questions were not hands. He had picked Finn from a broken hammer in one afternoon. But that trial rested on judgment a boy could show cold. Craft was different. It lived in the fingers, and fingers took years to read. He had a morning. "Come here, boy," Borin said. Gray crossed the floor too fast and stopped short of the anvil. His hands hung open, ready. Borin heated a bar of iron until it glowed. He set it on the anvil and gave Gray the small hammer, the one sized for a young grip. "Draw it thin," Borin said. "Even along its length." Gray struck. The first blow landed flat and true. The second bent the bar sideways. He froze, eyes wide, then looked to Finn. "Don't look at him," Borin said. "Look at the iron." Gray looked at the iron. He turned the bar himself, the way no one had shown him, and struck the high side down. The bend eased. He kept working, wrong and slow, but he read each mistake and answered it. The bar cooled. He stopped and looked at the crooked thing he had made. "It's bad," Gray said. "It is," Borin agreed. "You know why?" "I hit too hard. And I didn't turn it soon enough." Borin said nothing. That was the whole test. Not the bar. The boy had named his own flaws without help, the way Finn once named the cracked haft and split head. A hand that sees its own error can be taught. A hand that hides it cannot. Borin set the hammer down. "He'll do," he told Finn. "He can't smith yet. But he can learn. That's the only thing worth judging." Finn let out a breath he'd held all morning. Gray grinned wide, the crooked bar still in his fist. "Then he's mine to teach," Finn said. He said it slow, testing the weight of it. "He's yours," Borin said. And there it was. The forge had a master. The master had an apprentice. The chain held one more link. But Borin watched Finn's face fall as the truth landed. Teaching Gray meant hours at the fire, and the orders still stacked on the bench. Finn could not train a raw boy and fill every note by winter. He had gained a student and lost his last free hands at once. "How," Finn said quietly, "do I teach him and still eat?"