Borin Ironforge's Arc

Chapter 16 of 20

Borin heard Finn's question and had no clean answer. He would leave soon. He wanted to leave the boy Gray one lesson that lasted longer than any spoken word. Borin had taught Finn from a broken warhammer. He needed a broken thing now, something simple enough for a hand that could barely swing straight. He searched the forge with his eyes. Every tool held true. Nothing on the bench was worthy of a first test. Gray stood by the anvil, gripping the crooked bar he had made. His blue eyes tracked Borin around the room. "You need something broken," Gray said. It was not a question. He held out the bar. "This is broken. I made it wrong." Borin took the bent iron and turned it in his thick fingers. The boy was right. He had been hunting for a ruined object when one already sat in Gray's fist. A first test did not need to come from someone else's failure. It could come from the boy's own. "Sit," Borin said. He set the bar on the anvil. "You named your mistakes this morning. Hit too hard. Turned too late. Now you fix them." Gray's grin dropped. "Fix my own bar?" "Every smith does. You don't throw bad iron away. You heat it and answer it." Borin pushed the bar into the coals. He waited until it glowed orange. Then he pulled it out and handed Gray the small hammer. Gray struck. Soft this time. He turned the bar before the bend could set. He worked slow, reading each blow, the way he had read his errors that morning. The crooked line eased straight. Sweat ran into his red hair. When the iron cooled, he held up a bar that was nearly true. "It's better," Gray said, breathless. "It's yours," Borin said. "You broke it. You mended it. That's the whole craft in one bar." Finn watched from the doorway. He understood before Borin spoke it. "He teaches himself," Finn said slowly. "His own mistakes are the lesson." Borin nodded. This was the tool he had wanted to leave behind. Not a hammer. Not a broken hammer waiting on the bench. A method. Gray would ruin iron for years. Each ruined piece was now a lesson he could fix alone, without stealing Finn's hours from the order stack. "You don't sit over him," Borin told Finn. "You let him break things. Then you make him mend them. He learns while you work the notes." Finn's shoulders loosened. The winter stack no longer meant choosing between eating and teaching. The boy could grow between his blows. Borin stepped back from the anvil. The lesson was planted. But he saw Gray glance at the order stack, then at Finn, and heard the boy ask the next hard thing. "What if I mend it wrong twice? What if I waste your good iron and you can't sell enough?"