Borin Ironforge's Arc

Chapter 6 of 20

The mended sword rode off to the coast, but Borin could not sleep that night. Finn's hands were ready for small work and even a broken blade. Yet the boy had never seen a true masterwork take shape. Borin knew the truth. A smith who never watches a master forge has nothing to reach for. He himself had learned that way, long ago, standing at his own teacher's shoulder. He decided to show the boy what a hammer could really do. At dawn he set out his best iron and the old worn hammer. Finn came in rubbing sleep from his eyes. "What are we fixing today?" he asked. "Nothing," Borin said. "Today you only watch." He nodded at the coals in the forge. "I'm going to forge a blade the way it should be forged. Watch my hands. Watch the color of the steel. Every part of it." Finn sat on a stool by the anvil. Borin buried the iron in the fire and worked the bellows. The coals climbed from red to yellow to white. He drew the metal out and struck. His arm moved without waste. Each blow fell where the last one led. He folded the steel and heated it again, over and over, building layers no repair job ever needed. Hours passed. Borin did not speak. He did not need to. The boy leaned closer with each heat. Borin drew the edge thin and true. He shaped the tang. He watched the color hold exactly where it should. When the blade cooled in the trough, the steam rose and cleared. A pattern rippled down the steel like water. Finn stood without a word. He touched the flat of the blade with one finger. "You've never fixed anything like this," Borin said. "Because it was never broken. It was made whole from the start. That's the difference." Finn's eyes moved along the blade, then up to Borin's hands. "My work looks nothing like this," he said. His voice was low. Not defeated. Hungry. "Not yet," Borin said. "But now you know the mark. Now you know how far you have to go." That was what Borin wanted. The boy had a benchmark at last. He could see the peak and measure himself against it. Borin's grin broke wide across his gray beard. Then Finn spoke again, and the grin faded. "Teach me to make one," the boy said. "Not fix. Make. A whole blade, start to finish. Mine." Borin's stomach dropped. He had shown the boy the mountain. Now the boy wanted to climb it. A first masterwork took more iron than Borin had, more steel than his thin stock held. He looked at the empty racks along the wall. He had spent his best iron on this one blade to teach the lesson. Now the lesson demanded a price he could not yet pay.