Borin Ironforge's Arc

Chapter 2 of 20

The next morning Finn stood at the anvil with the broken hammer in his hands. Borin watched the boy's shoulders. Finn wanted to fix the great warhammer today. Borin knew the truth. That work would break the boy's spirit before it built his skill. A first lesson had to be small enough to finish and hard enough to matter. Borin's forge held no such task ready. Borin took the hammer from Finn's hands and set it on a high shelf. "Not yet," he said. "You'd ruin it, and yourself." Finn's face fell. "Then what do I do?" Borin looked around the smithy for an answer. Tongs. Files. A bucket of scrap iron by the coal. His eye stopped on a bent nail in the dirt. He picked it up and held it to the light. "Make me a nail," Borin said. "A straight one. Square head. Sharp point." Finn stared. "A nail? That's all?" "That's all," Borin said. "Every hammer starts as one plain thing done right." He showed the boy how to stoke the coals until they glowed white. He set a thin iron rod in the fire and waited. When the tip turned orange, he laid it on the anvil and struck. Three blows drew the point. He turned the rod, cut it, and shaped the head with quick taps. Then he dropped the finished nail hissing into water. "Now you," Borin said. Finn's first try bent under the hammer. His second cooled too fast and cracked. Sweat ran down his face. He gripped the tongs too tight and burned his knuckle on the hot iron. He hissed but did not quit. Borin said nothing. He only watched the boy's hands learn the rhythm. On the sixth try Finn drew the point clean. He turned the rod the way Borin had shown him. He tapped the head square. He dropped the nail into the water and lifted it out. The nail was straight. The head was even. The point would bite wood. Finn held it up. His hand shook, and this time not from fear. "I made it," he said. "I really made it." Borin took the nail and tested the point against his thumb. It was true work. Not perfect, but honest. The boy could learn. The craft would hold. "You did," Borin said. His smile broke wide. "Tomorrow you make ten more." But Borin's ease did not last. He watched Finn set the nail on the bench like a treasure and knew a plain nail could not feed the boy. Finn had no coin and no home. He had slept in a stable last night. A first lesson was won, but the boy needed food, a bed, and a reason for the town to accept a smith raising an orphan under his roof.