Four Horsemen: Chapter 6 Part 2 of 5 (Patreon)

“Only if we can get out of here. We need to learn, to get stronger so we can escape,” Desari said.

“Yeah,” Petor leaned back in his chair and rubbed his face.

“Low profile,” Desari looked into Mya’s eyes as she stood.

“But it’s so boring!”

“Boring keeps us safe. You coming?” She looked at Valter.

“Where are you going?”

“The forge and alchemy stores were open still, they must be working around the clock. I don’t know about you but I’d like to get started before others start piling in.”

“Good idea,” Valter stood and grabbed his waterproof hide.

“And a personal request,” Mya took out a piece of treated hide, rolled up, and pulled him down so she could tuck it into his breast pocket and patted it.

He reached into his pocket.

“Only” Mya raised a warning finger. “When you’re in the forge!”

“Okay,” Valter smiled and pressed his pocket.

“See you here for dinner?” Petor asked.

“Sounds like a plan,” Desari nodded.

Valter followed her out into the rain. “Doesn’t look like its going to let up today.”

“Hopefully it will do help clean the streets and put out some of the fires.”

“This is me, see you later,” Desari checked the sign to the alchemy store again and walked up to the door.

“See you,” Valter pulled the hide around himself more, checking the signs of the different smithies.

The black smoke was the first indication he’d found the right place, then the sound of hammers on metal.

Alan’s Forge was written in hammered metal, nailed into a thick signboard above twin doors that opened like a barn.

He wondered if that was because it was so heavy or to make it impossible for would-be thieves to steal it.

The doors to the forge were open, two men and a woman placed weapons on hooks along the walls behind the counter. Past them a few smiths worked hammers and anvils, stoked fires and checked stock they were heating up.

The woman turned to him as he stepped under the overhang infront of the table.

“Big bastard ain’t yah.” She said, hands on her hips.

“Guild told me to come here.” He pulled out the paper, placing it on the table.

She squinted at it and shrugged.

“Looks right to me. We’ll start you off refining, we got a lot of iron that needs to be turned into steel stock. You know how to do that?”

Valter gave a slow nod.

“Great.” Sarcasm dripped from every word. “Go round the right side, through the alleyway.” She turned back to putting weapons up.

Valter did as she said.

“Ran out of smith hobbyists, now they’re just sending us anything big that can swing a hammer. Fucking guildies.” He overheard her mutter to her co-workers who let out chuckles.

A man smoking in a cloak stood up from his crate as Valter walked down the corridor.

Valter kept his hand hidden in his hide, ready to draw his sword from his storage ring in a second.

“You looking for trouble?”

“Looking to get into the smithy.”

The man studied him, eyes catching on the plate hanging from Valter’s belt.

“Ah, guildy.” He horked and spat on the wall, pointing his pipe at the door opposite, before sliding it between his teeth again.

Valter moved to the door, his shoulder blades itchy having such a man behind him.

“Make sure you don’t add any gear or metal to your devices while you’re in there, or we’ll have a problem.”

Valter walked inside and closed the door, the man’s eyes barely visible under his cloak, a wreathe of smoke spreading from his pipe and mouth.

“Who the hell are you?” a man called out through the smithy.

“Guild sent me over cause I know some smithing.” The man had scars over his bald head, pulling up his lip into a sneer, black goggles hiding his eyes. An apron and a long sleeve shirt and pants covered in sweat didn’t hide his growing gut.

He put the metal he was working on back into the hot coals of his forge.

“Use that forge there, iron is in the black bucket, the coke is in the blacker one.” The man grinned at his own joke, his scars pulling them high above the gum-line.

A few other smiths laughed.

“What kind of steel do you want?”

“The kind that’ll hold an edge and not bend against a maiden’s ass.” He withdrew his red hot metal and started pounding on it, ignoring Valter.

Valter drew the hide off of his shoulders, hanging it up near the forge in the corner. The coals had been allowed to run down.

Sighing Valter checked the tools, pulling on an apron from his storage devices and then cleared out the old ashes, saving the coals he could.

He checked his metal book away from prying eyes. Jotting down notes on a pad of paper.

He used fire bricks to make a circle in the back of the forge, filling it with charcoal, wood and kindle, setting it alight.

He moved to the two buckets checking the broken up iron and coke. Using a screen he separated out the coke into uniform pieces and broke up the remainder to meet with the rest.

He noticed a young man watching him as he moved through the smithy, bringing in metals, charcoal and coke, keeping the smiths well supplied.

He hefted a hammer and chisel pulling out a block of iron.

With powerful blows he cracked the iron into smaller chunks, passing them through a screen again.

Valter used his place in the corner to pull out his metal book, reading through the refining process. Small amounts of iron, little air, lots of coke repeatedly.

The boy hesitated at the edge of Valter’s area, forgetting himself.

“I’m breaking up the iron and the coke to make sure they’re uniform size, that way they’ll burn and heat evenly. I use a large screen ontop to allow through everything the size I need, the second screen takes out all the stuff too small, then whatever is left on the screen I can use,” Valter tipped the screen of metal into a waiting bucket and looked at the boy.”

“Oh.” The boy shrunk in on himself.

“You learning how to smith?”

“I’m just a runner right now, getting material for mister Alan and the other smiths. But I hope one day.” He perked up.

A slow smile spread across Valter’s face.

“I’m Valter.” He reached out.

“Gus,” The boy gave a gap tooth smile and grabbed his hand, firm grip albeit an awkward handshake.

“Well Gus if you can keep the iron and coke coming I’ll let you ask one question each time you give me a refill. How about it?”

“Really?”

“Sure, have to start learning somewhere. I might need to think on your question though.” Or look in my book for an answer.

“Why are you putting the fire bricks that way?”

“It is easier to make a high carbon steel with a smaller hearth, you need focused heat and constant layering of iron and coke. A circle allows the heat to spread equally and being smaller you don’t have to feed it a huge amount of coke and iron.”

“Smaller hearth, more heat, less iron and coke, heats everything equally.” Gus said back, looking at the hearth.

“Gus!”

The boy nearly jumped.

“Catch you later lad,” Valter chuckled.

“Thank you sir.” Gus ran off.

“Alright.” He reached out to his fire brick circle. He closed his eyes, sensing the heat, turning his head from side to side. He grabbed a scoop of coke putting it onto the coals and used the bellows, holding his hand out again he nodded.

“Just right.” He sprinkled the iron chunks onto the coke, with another scoop ontop. So it went, small amount of iron and a scoop of coke every few minutes.

He grabbed tongs and dug into the coke mix, finding a misshapen clump of steel. He pulled it to the anvil, tapping his hammer against it and hit the misshapen clump he had to work quick as the steel cooled.

He got it into a rough square shape and put it off to the side, taking more iron he sprinkled it over the still hot coke and poured another scoop overtop.

The bald-scarred smith walked over, picking up the ingot, he pulled out a small gem and put it on a pedestal, runes glowed and the belt next to the pedestal moved.

The belt spat out sparks and the man snatched the gem away, carefully putting it into a pocket.

“Fifteen copper per ingot this size.” He held it up and walked away.

Valter used other fire bricks to create two more circles and set to repeating the process. If I offset them enough then I can hammer the ingots out between the others being ready.

Gus passed with a cart of ash.

“Lad, could you get me some more fire bricks to make two more small hearths?”

“Can I get my questions.”

“Sure thing,” Valter smiled.

“Coming right up mister Valter!” He pushed his cart faster, disappearing.

Valter reset his hearth pouring in iron and coke.

“Here you are mister Valter.” Gus said, a bit out of breath with sweat working through the ash on his forehead.

“Thank you lad, and what is your question?”

“Why did mister alan put the steel against the sharpener?”

“The higher the carbon content of the steel the more sparks it will make, they’ll be white and they go everywhere. Lower carbon, less sparks. You could also run a file over it to test the strength, some people will slim a piece out and quench it, then hammer on it, if it breaks clean then it is good steel, if it bends then it probably doesn’t have a high enough carbon content,” Valter lifted the bricks into the forge as he talked.