"It has come time for you to choose a weapon, and to forge it." Baba spoke across our small, rough table, her sightless eyes staring off into the shadows cast by the flickering hearth. I finished chewing the piece of bread in my mouth and swallowed slowly, my mind already working to consider. "Choose well, for a man's weapon is his worth in this strange world."
"Do you have any advice?" I asked. It was important, in this conversation, for her to understand that I was not asking her to choose for me, but rather offering her the respect as a smith and as a veteran of war that she deserved. Her laughter was dry, cracked with her great age, and full of genuine mirth.
"After so many years, I am full of advice, boy," she rasped. Her enormous hands tore a piece of bread and toyed with it, rolling the bread between callouses so thick that even the heat of the forge could not penetrate them. "You are big, but not so large as to be the biggest man you will ever face by a long margin. You are stronger than most, and so it could be guessed that you will face few who are more powerful. I have taught you to fight with your mind rather than your cock, and so you will be smarter than most that you face. You are a hunter, efficient, clean, and quick.
"All of these will serve you well with any weapon you choose. You are not arrogant, nor brazen, and so I think not an axe. You have the strength and the speed, but there is little finesse with an axe, little room for ingenuity.
"You are good with a mace, but again, I think it would limit you. You are not so brutal as to relish the sound of breaking bone.
"Your hands are strong, your balance impeccable. For most men you would not even need a weapon. You are quick and strong enough to take theirs with your hands. You need nothing overlarge, nothing so messy as a hammer. A blade, I think. The length an breadth and style are up to you. Remember what you have learned about the art and dance of killing men, and you will know what to forge."
The ancient woman stood and walked away, tottering off to her bed, leaving me to think. I sat in silence, unmoving, my food neglected before me. Part of my mind raced with the possibilities, part of it reeled at what had been the single largest number of compliments that Baba had ever paid me in my entire life. Part of it drifted to Lila, and the grotto.
We had explored each other again and again, learning the ways of each other's bodies until the next midday. She had told me of her farm, and where it was in relation to the grain market, and I had led her home, stopping just out of sight of her father's door for one more deep, longing kiss.
"One week," she whispered, and broke away, running through the snow to keep the chill away, leaving the bearskin that had been our first bed and her makeshift coat behind.
My mind pulled away, back to the task at hand. I needed to choose a weapon, to forge it of my own free will, that I would carry for the rest of my days. Baba's words echoed in my mind, the value of her experience something that I could never discount.
I finished my food slowly, my mind passing through the memories of weapons made and trained with. I knew all of them well, and knew that I could fight well with most of them. Baba had taught me the vulnerabilities of men, the places that would hurt, injure, cripple, and kill. She had told me over and over that the way to fight was to seize every advantage. She had driven the point home again and again in lessons both effective and incredibly painful.
She was right, of course. A blade would be best, most versatile, most efficient. I was a smith, but I was also a hunter. I wanted nothing too heavy, nothing too large. I knew the blades we made, but felt that none of them would be quite perfect for what I knew, what Baba had taught me.
I left the table and walked to the forge, the freezing air biting at my skin, my mind too far gone toward my own thoughts and the slowly forming image within to pay much heed. The forge was cold, the fire gone out hours before, some small amount of residual heat lending the work space just enough warmth to keep my fingers from trembling as I lit it once again. A few quick pumps of the bellows had a roaring fire going that sank to a pleasant, warm glow.
I walked past the fire to the store room, where racks of steel greeted me silently. I ran my hands across the tempered metal, feeling the texture, my mind trying to emulate Baba's perfect touch. She could tell by brushing her fingers across steel what it should become, what it was suited for. I felt an axe, a plow, a bailing hook, a sword for a boy, a knife. Nothing was quite what I wanted.
At the back of the store room was a box, full to the brim with chunks of raw iron ore. I took my selection seriously, gathering small pieces, weighing them in my hands. I needed around two pounds of steel for what I wanted, and that meant more like seven pounds of raw ore. I took the ore to the sturdy table in the center of the store room and put it in a pile, where it would stay until I was ready for it.
I gathered the tools I would need, and set to work, the fire from the forge driving away the cold darkness of night and replacing it with a dull glow and stifling heat. Sweat poured from me as I roasted and broke apart the ore, taking it from large, rusty rocks to something closer to a fine, rusty gravel. Once it was fine enough, I started the bloomery furnace and began the long, slow process of smelting. Dawn came before the ore had become blooms of iron, ready to be melted into a pure, strong ingot of steel.
It took five long hours to build a small brick furnace and a crucible, just outside the back door of the smithy, and another five of hard, sweaty work with a pair of bellows to melt the iron together with charcoal made from the burnt bones of a bear. Baba came and went, observing, never speaking, her approval apparent in her silent gaze.
When at last I had my chunk of steel, cooling slowly on the anvil, I allowed myself to sleep, resting against the wall of the smithy. The midday sun was high overhead when I woke to the sound of Baba placing a small bowl and tiny, sharp knife beside me.
"For the quench," she said.
I took the knife and placed it to my wrist, making a tiny cut over the bowl. My blood flowed freely, filling the bowl after a few short moments, and I took the poultice of herbs that Baba offered, stopping the cut with it and wrapping a clean strip of linen over top. Baba took the bowl and began to mix it slowly with oil, adding a little at a time as I walked to the anvil and took up my tongs and hammer.
I worked the steel for many hours, thinning and elongating it, pounding out the rough shape of what I wanted. By the time I had it the right length and thickness, the sun had gone to rest and the moon watched the world outside. I knew none of that, only that the steel was as long as my arm from shoulder to outstretched fingertips, and that it would be strong and flexible by the time I was finished. Sleep came again, this time on the strong table in the store room, the steel beside me, sharing in my dreams of what it would become.
The hairs on my arms began to rise whenever I held it, the energy of this newborn thing already coming to interact with my own. I dreamt of its final shape, the wrapping I would place on its grip, the shape of the pommel and crossguard. As I dreamt, so dreamt the steel; a cold, ancient, dawning presence in my dreams. I hailed it, and it responded, greeting me as a friend, a father, and a master.
