Flashback The Travels of Eanos Swifthand - The Holding

[Eanos]

48 Fall, 509AV

The first sign that he had of the trail station, a grandoise name perhaps for a cave where a caravan might shelter, he sought was a wide and open entrance off the road and into the side of the mountain. Aside from the road itself this was the first real sign of civilisation he’d seen on his journey. No mere cave or mine shaft either, this entrance had been carefully designed and carved. But it was old too, very old and was considerably damaged too, that was obvious from the most casual of glances.

He walked over and dumped his pack, grateful for the chance of a break of carrying the weight, a weight which though considerably reduced by becoming burdensome. Rubble from the ruined doorway had been cleared to allow access in, but it had been done a very long time ago for grasses had lived for many generations such that most of the rock was buried in soil and long dead vegetation. Ignoring it, he ran his fingers along the carvings which decorated the doorway.

A voice from behind him made him jump, seeming to whisper in his ear, “Kladil work, yes.” The voice was unexpected; both because he’d not heard anyone approach and because it seemed an age since he’d heard anyone speak. He controlled the impulse to jerk around and finished running his fingers down it before turning around slowly to see his companion.

The woman was tall, at least to his eyes, though most races would seem tall to him, but most startling to his eye was the bright red hair which tumbled artlessly across her shoulders. He stared at it for a moment before he was drawn to her face and the soft green eyes which nestled above her amused lips.

“Indeed,” he replied, deciding that arguing over it might be impolitic, and gave her a short bow of respect. ”My name is Eanos Swifthand,” it seemed only polite to give her his name, “and it is a pleasure to meet you in this wilderness.” It was perhaps the last thing he expected to say to another of the races, especially the first one he had really met face to face, but the words tumbled out before he could think to edit them. He realised now how much he had missed company, and a quiet desperation now filled him as a strong feeling of homesickness gripped him.

“You are welcome here, Eanos Swifthand,” she gave him her reply with a smile which did not hide her serious expression. “What brings you to my abode?” He noticed that she did not introduce herself and from overhead came the cry of an eagle, a sound which he did not doubt its origin and one which concreted his understanding that she was Inarta. He realised too that Isur did not often come this way alone, and of those who did, like as not some of them did not come of their own accord but because they had been expelled. Her caution became understandable so he replied as honestly as he could.

“I have come to find out more about the races who fill this world, and to seek out the knowledge which they have kept in regards the subjects which interest me. I am aiming eventually to reach Syliras.” He hoped that mention of the city dedicated to the god who had saved the Inarta might weigh in his favour.

“And what might be those things, that are so important that they have driven you from your comfortable fortress of the Pitreus clan and out into the inhospitable mountains?” It seemed that he had yet to pass the test, which he could understand, for it was no small thing to distinguish between truth and the shadings of truth which an exile would like use to justify their exclusion. That she knew his clan meant too that she had some knowledge of the fortresses, a knowledge she would doubtless use to judge him. Of course, he realised belatedly she might know of him already for she was not restricted to merely plodding along the road, subject to the vagaries of wind and weather.

“My training so far has been dedicated to smithing, for all that it is not my clans speciality. Yet it is not to be my lifes work, it is merely the foundation for what I wish to learn. Metal to me is the container for my arcane manipulations. My clan is the best in the world when it comes to the study of djed manipulations, yet I think that even for us, there was knowledge lost in the fall. It is that knowledge which I seek before I return home to spend my life perfecting my craft.”

She seemed to consider his words for a while before nodding slowly. “Then welcome indeed to my home Eanos Swifthand. My name is Aurelisa and my companion of the winds sends her welcome too.”

He bent his head in return to her acceptance and welcome then followed her as she walked into the entrance. Inside the place was in not much better condition than the entrance had promised though it showed the same rough clearing up of rubble and here and there some of the roof was propped with heavy timbers. He caught her watching him with amusement. “Not much is it?” she said with a smile, “the caravans have done some repair work but it’s never been more than a shelter against bad weather.” She nodded towards inner passageways, “they don’t go anywhere beyond a few rooms which I have made livable because beyond that the roof has collapsed.”

He nodded in understanding and wondered how much expertise had been used in placing the roof props. It wasn’t something which he had any expertise in and so could only hope that they did. He wondered how well known this place was back in Sultros or if anyone actually cared about such a derelict monument to the past. He suspected a mixture of the two for in general he’d seen little interest in the past, at least in the sense of vague history. He himself dismissed it for he doubted that there could be anything which would be of use for his quest and he had no interest in anything else.

Having chosen a small room at the end of one of the corridors which led off from the main entrance chamber Eanos laid out his bedding and took a quick rest before intending to explore the rest of the ruin. He woke to the smell of cooking food and lay there for a moment confused by it. His eyes explored the darkened room and recognised that it wasn’t a cave at all, a recognition which brought back the realisation of where he was and brought on a feeling of chagrin that he’d obviously just fallen asleep on arrival. He put his kit together and then followed his nose to find his host.

[Eanos]

“Good morning to you,” she greeted him without turning as he came to the doorway, her hands busy with the pan on the stove. “Good morning to you too,” he answered her and sidled into the room to where he could see her and talk. Her greeting had brought with it the realisation that the light in this room was indeed the first light of day coming through a slit window off to the side and that the lantern above her head was now simply lighting the stove and not the whole room.

“I’m sorry for falling asleep on you,” he said and realised that he’d placed himself in danger by so doing, though likely not much more than he’d done at any point along the way so far. She turned and tossed her head so that her curls moved out the way enough to see him.

“You were obviously tired Eanos Swifthand,” she said with a smile.

“Eanos, if you please,” he returned the smile. “Is there something that I can do?”

“Just take a seat, and we can talk.” She waved towards the table and he took a seat as she dished the contents of the pan out onto two plates and brought them over. He eyed the plate hungrily as she placed it down and his nose twitched. It seemed forever since he’d last eaten a proper meal and his trail rations had become harder to eat with each day that had passed.

She sat and took up her knife. “Eat,” she said and dug in herself. “Where are you headed now?” She asked once her mouth was empty again.

“Wherever it is that this road leads,” he answered, which made her smile.

“This road forks shortly,” was her cryptic reply.

“Then I would have chosen one, for one place is as good as another on the way,” he said with a smile, not being ready to be so easily defeated in this.

She nodded in reply and ate for a short while, clearing her plate. “Then I have a proposition for you,” she said at length. “If you are in no hurry to reach your destination then I will take you to the next city you wish to visit and save you the walk there if you will spend the time you would have spent on your feet here. I need someone who can help me make this place liveable and to make it a place I can use to attract the traders as a stopping point.”

“I have no skill in stone,” he pointed out to be sure that she did not have expectations of him which he could not reach.

“It is of no matter,” she shook off his protest. “You have the strength to help me clear the debris, and the eyes to see in here where I cannot without my lantern. But also you said that you were a smith and I have need of metalwork.”

He nodded at that but shrugged. “I can only work metal with metal and I have none. Nor did I bring my tools with me, or a forge.”

She considered that for a short while. “A fair point but metal I can arrange and I think there is some here, though I cannot vouch for whether you can use it. I take it that you can build some of what you need if I can do what I can?”

His eyes narrowed as his thoughts turned to the problem which she posed. Her offer was a fair one and while he loved the mountains, in truth he had reached the point where one mountain pass looked much the same as the previous ten. He had no idea of how far it was to the next city from here, but getting there directly seemed a fair trade, and he would be doing something he loved during that time.

“I can make no promises until I have seen what there is here and what you can bring me, but yes, I can improvise to a degree.”

“Good.” Her response was curt and she reached over to take his plate. “Then spend some time and see what there is here. When you have had the time to consider what you can achieve and what you would need then come back to me and we will talk again.” She stood and took the plates away, leaving him still sitting and somewhat surprised by her efficient manner.

He smiled at her back as she took the plates back to where a tub of water stood and left her to it. He made his way back to the main entrance and looked around properly for the first time. The general layout he’d seen the previous day but now he could see that once this had been a sizeable space, built without supports as far as he could see which perhaps was used as a storage or loading space. Certainly the entrance would be large enough to enter with a wagon though inside like as not there would be only space for one or two wagon which would then be difficult to turn. He pushed aside the wondering as to the original design which would come clear or not as he explored further. Three corridors left the space and he explored each in turn.

The most left had one as he stood in the entrance had three large rooms off it which he ascribed to storage for he could think of no other obvious use for such utilitarian spaces. The middle corridor ended in rubble, as Aurelisa had said. He poked at the rubble but it seemed firmly set in place and even if he did clear it, perhaps the roof might collapse on him at that point. It seemed to him that it would be a good precaution to prop the end of this tunnel in any case, even if they left the rubble in place. He added props onto his list of things to be brought in, leaving it to her to agree and then determine how she would get the things actually delivered.

The rooms along this corridor were more grand. As with the first rooms these were stripped of all contents so it was hard to be sure, but certainly the finish of the walls and floors were of a much higher standard and much more suited to living spaces than the storage of things. It seemed to him also that the corridor now he looked at it more closely was also constructed to a much higher standard.

The last corridor was the one which he’d already been in for it contained the room which was functioning as a kitchen as well as bedrooms for himself and Aurelisa. This was also the only corridor in which the rooms contained anything, though it was clear that much of it had not been there all that long and perhaps had been put there by her or by recent caravans at any rate, perhaps in anticipation of need or her occupation.

The rooms and corridor here he noted were not as highly finished as the second corridor though better than the first and this confirmed to him his assessment of the layout as it was originally designed. It beggared the question as to what lay further down the tunnels for if this place was a mine as he’d first wondered then the first tunnel ought to have been continued into the mine shaft itself, but it did not and the end of the tunnel had clearly been finished to the same standard and at the same time as the tunnel walls. It if was not a mine then how else had these people earned their living up here at the top of the world?

[Eanos]

Going back to his room, his room? The concept amused him once it had occurred to him, he sat and made some notes, a list of what he needed. She had enough he thought to make some sort of start. The one great advantage of being a smith was that he could make almost anything that he needed, so long that was, as he had the very basics. Iron she had, though quite what she had intended for it he couldn’t imagine. The concept of scrap was very foreign to him for there was always a use for anything and everything had a use, even if that use were not immediately obvious. Things were far too precious to merely throw away. Perhaps most importantly were a pair of hammers, though he suspected that they’d been made for breaking rocks. That thought brought him back to the heavy iron pins and levers which perhaps then were for the same purpose, which was something to do with maintaining the road. That made sense to him, for though very expensive and precious to be leaving in a cave in the wilderness, too it was very heavy and he certainly wouldn’t want to be either carrying it for no reason, nor finding a fault in the road and having no tools closer than sixty days travel away.

There wasn’t a forge nor an anvil, which wasn’t exactly surprising though he’d held out some hope for at least an anvil, but he accepted the lack for likely the caravans kept the portable anvils that they would carry for mending and making good en route with the wagons and not leave it here. He realised as he finalised his list that he’d accepted the theory which he’d built in his mind as fact, but he shrugged it off.

He found her outside, staring off into the clouds which were low today; the lowest of them hiding the valley below them.

“I’ve decided to accept you offer,” he said to her without bothering to announce himself since he knew already that her hearing was exceptional.

“Good, I’m glad,” she replied and straightened up before turning to face him. As she did so he held out the list and waited until she had taken it and read slowly down the list. A small frown creased her forehead as she worked down the list, and then she glanced back up at him.

“Is all of this necessary?” He could tell from the tone of her voice that she knew the answer already and so he nodded.

“I’ve kept it to the minimum that I think we can use.”

She sighed softly and shrugged. “Some of it I can bring in but some of this will need to come in by wagon.” He nodded again and she continued, “well then, I will arrange it but we will have to wait for the next caravan. It might keep you here longer than I had intended. Is that alright with you?”

“Yes, a week or two or even a month or two in the journey are not important to me.” Such short periods of time were unimportant to an Isur, but perhaps her race had a different appreciation of time. “There is some work to be done here which I can do and which will be of value and that is good to me.”

“Then I will make a start on this,” she replied softly, “if you will make a start on what you can, then I will appreciate it and thank you again for your help. There is food in the kitchen area and I will be back in a few days.” She seemed more relaxed and less testing than she had the day before and it made him wonder of it.

It was a thought which occurred to him several times in the day as he set about clearing the rubble in the entrance hall. When they met she had seemed aloof, powerful, mysterious and very much in control. But now the mask had lifted a little and underneath she seemed to have the same insecurities which plagued him. But like him she was trying something different, something bold. Perhaps she was desperate and surely recruiting the first random stranger who came along was a mark of such desperation? Then again she might not have had much choice in that since there would be few indeed who travelled this road outside of a caravan, of those who did travel surely they were far more interested in arriving at their destination than in being detained by side trips along the way. It seemed to him to be a good answer and indeed she had offered to make up the lost time. It would be good to be back in Sultros as soon as he could but he didn’t expect it to happen any time in the next few years.

He paused, a chunk of rock in his hands and realised that the feelings of homesickness which had plagued him had gone and back was the feeling of optimism and enthusiasm which had motivated him in the first place. He smiled and offered up a silent prayer to Izurdin in thanks. It seemed that this was blessed by the god and that made it all the more important to do well. Why this diversion should be important he didn’t know, but he also knew that such things often only became clear in hindsight.

He attacked the piles of rock with new vigour, prising them from their places with a long iron rod and then carrying them outside and placing them nearby where they could be reused to strengthen the road or some other such use. It would have been easier, but he resisted the temptation to simply walk over the road and pitch them off the edge down the rocky incline.

There were any number of jobs on which he could have started and it could be argued that this one was of low priority but for him it was important that every stage as done well and if the working place was a mess at the start then the whole job could only follow suit. When she returned he aimed for the entrance to be ready to receive visitors without it looking like some rat hole.

The job took a while and there were some places which he left alone at least until more props arrived. Something would need to be done with the existing props to make the place look less like a mine shaft and more like somewhere that people lived, but that was a task for later. There was a distinction in his mind between a place that was uncared for and one which was clean but still needed work doing to it. He found a wooden shovel tucked away in the gear which he had overlooked before and with an improvised broom managed to bring the entrance into a state which was good enough for the time being. There was an inevitability to the fact that the entrance would get messy again and all the time it was open to the elements as it was now that would happen very quickly. He couldn’t do much about that though until she and the supplies returned.

With that done he spent a short while in tidying the kitchen area and the rooms on that corridor, though he left her room alone aside from a cursory sweep of the floor. He did the same in the hallway which held the grander rooms and when he was done with that he realised that most of the day had fled. With his tools replaced in what would become their proper place he retired to the kitchen to see what was to be made of the supplies there.

After attempting dinner, a process which called for some things from his own pack, he was impressed with the skill she had shown that morning with her cooking. His meal was burnt in places where he had dropped the pan in the coals and only extricated it with some coals aboard. Cooking on a camp fire was all very well when out in the woods, but here he saw no reason for making life harder than it need be and so he spent some time as he nursed his tin of tea in sketching out some of the things he recalled from his mothers kitchen at home. Most of them were simple enough and would be the first things on his list to make, but almost inevitably, some of them would be harder. He did at least have the confirmation now that he’d poked around in the fireplace that this had been a kitchen before, but what served as an oven would need some work done to it for on one side the stones had split and crumbled. At home an iron sheet had been used with the cooking fire above it, but he held out no hope of getting iron in that quantity any time soon, and even if he did, there were higher priorities.

Dawn brought with it a new day but also a clean slate. He wandered the now cleaner hallways running his fingers along walls and inspecting in greater detail. There were things that he’d overlooked before but now did not. He poked his fingers into holes around the doors and imagined how the doors had been mounted before. In the main entrance from the road he spent a good deal of time deciding how hinges had been fitted and how they could be again.

Sometimes it seemed to him that he was wasting time, but he knew that was not the case, for he needed to build up a picture of how the place must have looked once. When he had that, it would be much simpler to reproduce it. Now was a time to get the feel of it, so that he didn’t waste time by making wrong assumptions about how things had been. Eventually though he repaired to the kitchen which seemed to be the only place with a suitable fireplace for what he wanted. He made a fresh tin of tea while he sorted out the pieces in his mind. The framework he’d established the day before but now the details were more fleshed out and there were some things which nagged at him.

Here was a long way away from anywhere and the place didn’t quite fit. Had it been designed as a shelter for caravans then he could understand it. But even then, where was the forge? Where were the workshops for the repairs to be made while the caravan was laid up here? A caravan would not need storage rooms, which made him discount that theory a little. It seemed to him that some rooms must have been lost beyond the rockfalls, it was the only theory which made sense.

[Eanos]

With the tea now drunk there was no more reason to delay and so he brought into the kitchen the supplies he’d set aside and considered them. A large and almost square stone stood beside the fireplace. Not quite an anvil, but it was the closest thing he’d found. He wasn’t entirely happy about it because he was quite sure that it would be a poor anvil indeed, but his choices were limited and he’d just have to make do. The two hammers and a number of iron bars completed the tools. A serious lack was in the fuel supply and that concerned him. There were trees way down on the valley floor and he suspected that sooner or later, and likely sooner, he’d need to get down there to remedy the situation.

The fire he’d set for his tea had now burned down to embers and he shifted them around to provide a bed for the forge whilst stacking fresh wood around the back so that it would burn down while he worked. His first priority was tools and for that he set two bars in the fire to heat. There were some tools he’d just not be able to make well at all, especially things like saw blades and files, so those had been on the list he’d given to Aurelisa. Until he got them, things would just have to remain somewhat rough and ready.

While the iron heated he took the bucket outside to where a stream ran nearby and filled it. That also made him pause for it was the first time that he’d done this and it seemed an inconvenience. Not only that, it seemed unlikely that such a place as this had relied upon a stream making its own course down the side of the mountain. That mystery though would have to wait for another time if he were going to resolve it.

Bucket in place the first iron was now getting to red hot at the end so he took it from the fire to his stone anvil and hammered at it to see how it would work. The results were every bit as poor as he’d feared for the stone simply absorbed the force of the blow with a dull thunk. He sighed to himself for clearly Izurdin had not intended to make this easy for him, and with that thought he grinned to himself. The challenges that He set for Eanos were many, but only when Eanos finally recognised them did he stand a chance of meeting them.

The work took longer than it would have done back home because the forge was not hot and the iron cooled quickly, but against that what he did was simple enough. Now rough forged were several chisels and a small axe head. The forge wasn’t good enough yet for welding so he was limited by the size of the iron bars, and they were small in section. Now he needed to bring them up to a much higher heat and that would be more of a challenge.

The iron cooled and he banked the fire while he worked on the designs that he would need. Whilst working with iron was simple or so he thought, working with and being good at not always being the same, working with djed was always harder. Perhaps because there was no such thing as good enough or not very good but still can use it somehow as there was with metal often enough. Instead even the most simple of workings seemed to be of the same standard as a highly competent smith would produce.

He lacked bellows, that was his problem here and without them or a way to improvise he couldn’t get the fire hot enough to do what he wanted. Now he worked with charcoal on the floor, not doing djed working as such but merely recalling the glyphs that he knew and practising them so that he could draw them accurately. He knew in his heart that it was not the accuracy of the glyph which made it effective. The masters produced beautifully crafted glyphs it was true but that was because of the extreme amounts of practice they had had and the intense focus on drawing the same one out hundreds if not thousands of times. The artwork merely reflected that. They worked beautifully too because of the focus of the mage, not because of the beauty of the art. Still though for him it was a question of concentration since if he was thinking about the form of the glyph then it stood to reason that he wasn’t paying enough attention to what he wanted the glyph to be doing.

There was one thing he loved about the glyphs though and that was that they were part of the world magic, so he didn’t have to use up any of his own personal djed to create them. He’d been there before in his study of auristics and he knew it would happen again where he’d draw too heavily on his personal djed and suffer in consequence all of the ill effects of draining his own life force.

Eventually he was satisfied with the glyphs he needed and set the fire to build again, this time trying to get it as hot as he could. While that happened he also made a new tin of tea. As the fire burned bright he turned his attention to the issue of the bellows and whether or not he should try to address the problem here or whether he ought to try and create a whole new forge somewhere else. He tossed the problem aside for now as the fire raged and he rearranged it to leave a central part of the hearth free. Now he drew again, careful to use his left hand. There were advantages to the god given gift of having an arm which was to all intents and purposes fireproof. It was that gift which drew Eanos to the art of smithing for all that his clan specialised in the workings of djed, but even though his left arm was made of such, the truth was he could have built the fire on his body and not come to much harm from it. It was only in the forge heat that the arm came into its own over and above the general gift of protection from heat.

He drew quickly, a series of spirals marked the centre, the thing which would be the focus. The spirals interlocked until there was a complete circle drawn there. In theory he could have used it then and there, but doing so might have had unexpected complications and so he drew nearer to him one final and more complex glyph. This one was the trigger which would release the glyph and allow the magic to happen.

He turned his attention back to the fire and stoked it, coaxed it and blew hard on it. As he did so he reached in and took the hottest of the coals and dropped them into the focus ring he had created. As he did so they dropped through the hearth and vanished from sight. He’d often wondered just where they went, but so far his curiosity had not gone so far as attempting to find out by sticking his head into a focus to see what might be seen. He suspected that it was somehow related to the discipline which allowed things to be stored or placed in the void. Perhaps one day he might experiment with that sort of djed working, but for now he had other concerns.

With enough coal in the focus he concentrated, or rather released his concentration and allowed the focus to close. How he place more coals carefully over the focus, but these stood proudly on the stone and did not fall into it. He had to be careful because he didn’t want the charcoal markings to be disturbed. He really didn’t want the focus somehow misfiring because it was broken. Not that he expected to get hurt by the burning matter likely to be ejected by such a thing, instead it just bothered his sense of orderliness. That and the fact that he’d have to waste time doing it all again.

Slowly the fire burnt to a good heat and he placed the iron in to heat, watching the colour change. He added the other irons in behind it so that he’d not waste time nor fuel doing them one by one. When he judged the iron was as hot as it was going to get then he spoke the word he’d used in his mind for the setting of the trigger and the focus opened. Now heat was concentrated and the iron heated rapidly. He watched the colours as they flowed and snatched it off and slipped it into the bucket of water. Even as the water hissed and steamed he had moved the next iron into the flame, but now it was cooling and he knew it would not last for the coals were burning out quickly. In a forge fire there was normally a size to it which meant that heat could be maintained but here that wasn’t the case. He pulled the second iron off and quenched it. There was no point putting the next iron though because the last one had only just reached the temperature. Still though he wasn’t dissatisfied because it just meant repeating the work in order to get it done.

He inspected the irons he had done. The chisels he’d created were far from sharp given he’d not been able to file them to an edge, but since he intended them just for hot cutting, that was less of an issue. It also took away the need for more precision on the hardening of the iron. These ones just needed tempering and then having the handles cut down to length. One of them he’d designed to be a punch to create rivet holes, so it was quite fine, but the other was heavier and designed for cutting off. He’d need to complete the other chisel in order to cut off the handles, but with the axe done as well he’d have some ability to shape wood as well. He’d not be cutting any trees with it, and he really needed to make one with a good edge to it, but this one would just have to put up with some rough sharpening and be serviceable enough for now.

He repeated the glyphing and finished the morning with his first set of tools completed. It had been a good deal of work to get them made, more work than he’d expected and it highlighted the shortcomings of his workplace. Now was the time to do something about that he decided and took a hard look at the fireplace and his plans for it. Stoneworking was beyond his experience and yet he knew the theory of it, it was hard to live in a fortress and not see people working on stone from time to time. Yet he had not the time for the mistakes which would happen so he left the oven alone for now. Too if he could get the forge working properly then making tools for the stoneworking would be easier. He’d need to do some experimenting to find the right balance of hardness against being brittle in order to cut the stone without spending too much time in the sharpening of the tools.

[Eanos]

A fire basket seemed the place to start and he knew from the start that he’d not take the traditional route on it, but to take a leaf out of the rule book for basket makers and weave the iron together. With tools that would be hard, but given he could bend red hot metal in his fingers, he had an advantage which was begging to be used.

Stoking the fire back up and with a concerned glance at the rapidly shrinking fuel supply set the first iron bar to heat. This bar would set the width for the basket and he made some judgements by eye as to how it would look. Three fingers width he judged for the leg which would be made by leaving the bar at its current size and shape and then hammering it flat for the width. As it came to heat he took the bar out and hammered it flat then cut off the excess. In a final heating he bent the legs down by a right angle He repeated it with a second bar to create the back set of legs and then set to work flattening bars to use to create the bottom and sides.

With the parts made and cut to size it remained only to put the pieces back into the fire and bringing them up to heat so that he could start to interweave them. He started with the bars which would form the uprights of the front running under and then up the back. It required a little fiddling to get them onto the legs which he had created first of all but it wasn’t too hard for he could slip them on before creating the second bend. By pushing them together he created the space to work more easily. He did the same with the sides only this was a little trickier. The problem was in getting the sharp bend that he wanted at the corner. As he had done with the first set of bars because now that the basket was taking shape he didn’t have the space to bend the bars squarely for the second bend.

By now the afternoon had fled and he had worked into the evening, but he’d not noticed the passing of time, nor did he miss his evening meal, not yet. The technical challenges of working in difficult conditions made it all the more interesting. With front and sides in place all that remained was to bind the tops in with a reinforcing rod wrapped around the top. It was in theory a simple enough affair but the circumstances turned a simple job into one much harder. Normally he would have been able to work the basket around the horn of the anvil, bending over the tops of the bar and welding them over to lock in the reinforcing bar. Here though the stone block had no such facility and he was forced to revise his techniques to allow for it. The additional difficulty added to the challenge and it was one that he rose to with pleasure and pride. Eventually he was done and he stood the basket upright for a final check. There was a slight wobble which was easily corrected and then he placed it on the hearth and filled it with the remains of the fire.

As he sat back, with a new can of tea brewing on the firebox he reflected that it was past time to eat and also that there were some new things that he needed. This in itself wasn’t surprising because it was the nature of how it worked. He’d not bothered with tongs because he could reach directly into the fire to pick things up. It might however have been easier while bending the hot steel to have something he could use to hold it to create tight corners. With an anvil he could have worked round that to a degree, but on the whole he decided that it was time to add tongs to the list of things to make.

First though now that the firebox was complete and the fire somewhat more organised, it was time to consider the bellows. He would have liked to feed the fire from below with air and that had been one of the reasons for raising the firebox up, the other being simple cleaning. But that would mean creating an angle in the feed and he had no means of doing that in a way that he was happy with. Which meant simply running a straight tube in. This in itself was not easy. He was happy that he could make a tube, but making one with no leaks or few enough leaks to work efficiently might prove challenging.

The next morning found the Isur back stoking the fire back up ready for working and also cooking something as he did as he hadn’t in the end got round to eating anything the night before as his mind had been entirely too occupied with plans and alternatives or workarounds. The floor around the fire was littered with charcoal diagrams, many of which were now at least partially erased, either by intent or by accident as he prepared the area for a new days working.

The first task was to create a thin sheet of iron which was wide enough to wrap around one of the slimmer iron poles, thin enough to not too heavy and yet strong enough not to break as he attempted to work it into a tube. He placed what he judged a suitable bar on the fire and watched as it started to heat. The fireplace was large, designed as it was for a proper kitchen, which was fortunate, but it was also still inconvenient as a forge because it was a little too shallow for his liking. Whilst it might be fine for pans, the bars he was using had a tendency to catch against the back wall. It wasn’t a real problem, but it was irritating enough that if he ever thought that he was going to spend any serious amount of time here then he’d have thought seriously indeed about building a new forge from scratch.

He started work on one end of the bar as it reached heat, glad that soon he’d have bellows for this process was painfully slow. His hammer rang loudly in the otherwise silent holding as he worked to first flatten out the bar and then to widen it enough for his needs. It was somewhat tricky work for all that it was simple enough in theory. The heat meant that the bar did not stay soft for long and the surface of the stone anvil was only roughly flat at best which resulted in a number of holes appearing as the metal was hammered out into a sheet. These could be rectified by pushing the hot metal about but it was time consuming and irritating to someone who tried for perfection in what they did.

Eventually he had a somewhat rough and ready sheet of metal. It wasn’t quite what he’d had in his minds eye at the start but he doubted that he could significantly improve it in any short amount of time and to the contrary he might well only make it worse and have to start again with a new bar.

He laid the sheet on the fire and watched it carefully as it came back up to heat for now it was critical that he got this part right. On the anvil lay the iron bar which would be the former for his tube, if he could get it to work as he wanted it. He carried over the sheet of glowing iron and carefully laid it over the bar. When he was happy he held it and lightly tapped one edge so that it curved down and hugged the bar. He worked along, returning the sheet to the flame when needed and gradually brought it into a loose curve which he then tightened down until it was long enough that he could trap one end of it under the bar. Now he could work a little faster and tightened the curve so that it was tight along the bar and then carried on, bringing it further and further around until it met and overlapped.

He drove out the bar with a sharp tap of his hammer and took the sheet back to the flame for almost the last time. He concentrated on getting it hot enough to weld, willing it in his mind though he knew that his chances of success were limited. Slipping the bar back in which remained cold because he didn’t want to weld the tube to the bar, nor for the bar to suck out all of the heat while it was on the fire he worked quickly to weld the edges as best he could, then drove out the bar once more and allowed it all to cool.

He knew that some of it had not worked as well as he’d hoped so he set about making some rough wire. Since he didn’t have a die nor a means for pulling the wire through, he had to settle for a simple hammered finish which was uneven and liable to break and be brittle. For this reason he intended to use it hot which would also make it simpler to apply. By the time he’d finished this as well the morning had long fled and the tube was as cold as it was going to get. He tested it by the simple expedient of blowing through it whilst holding a wet hand along the weld, marking in charcoal where the worst leaks were. It had to be said and even Eanos was forced to admit that as pipes went, this was an ugly one, and it didn’t look any better once it had wire wrapped and hammered round it at odd intervals along its length. He could only hope that no other smiths saw it before he had chance to make a better one.

He made a test fit into the fire basket by the simple expedient of bending the ironwork of the basket slightly and then blew into the pipe. The fire flared as he did so leaving him satisfied as to it’s success. Somewhat harder then was the construction of the part which would force in the air. Harder only in the sense that it wasn’t something he had much skill in. A proper bellows was beyond his skill to make, but neither had he the wind to blow into a pipe as well as work metal so a compromise needed to be made. He knew what he wanted and it required only some time with a needle, strong thread, leather and of course leather working gear. The tools fortunately were a part of any travellers kits for the repair of everything from footwear to his backpack. While his stitching wasn’t good, it needed only to be good enough, though it was perhaps the slowest thing that he had done since he arrived and it took him all of the remainder of that day and the rest of the next to make what he wanted. Some of that time was spent in making again things which had not worked out well enough but by the end he had a set of somewhat awkward bellows. To use it meant a double action which was awkward for he had not yet figured out how to produce the one way valve that a proper bellows used. That was something he intended to correct in short order but until then it was necessary to open the bellows and then seal the opening before closing the bellows again, the action of which sent air into the forge. It wasn’t something he looked forward to but fortunately he needed only to pump the bellows or work the metal, not both at the same time.

Now that he had bellows his first task was to retemper one of the chisels that he’d made the day before and convert it from a hot cut into a cold cut chisel. It was a simple enough task but one whose end was the first steps in learning a new craft; that of the stone mason. One thing he had learned in his recent forging was that the stone anvil was far from perfect and one of the main issues was it that it had no flat surface on which to work. That was something on which he could now work and he was busily hammering away at it when his name was called from the entrance to the kitchen.

“Eanos” The word was timed carefully to fit between his hammer strokes but even so he jerked in surprise for he was engrossed in what he was doing.

“I didn’t mean to disturb you,” she said with a smile, for it was indeed his host who had returned. She walked into the kitchen as he greeted her with a smile and stood, dusting off his hands from the dust of the stonework.

“It’s good to see you back here,” he said, “though you’ll have to forgive I hope the mess I have made of your kitchen. I’ve been doing some makeshift work to get started on the work which will need doing.”

She nodded, her eyes taking in what he’d been doing. “Mess is not a problem and thank you for the work you’ve done, it almost looks more like a place for people to live now.” She finished her inspection and turned to face him.

“I’ve arranged for most of the items on your list to be delivered here and they should be here in two or perhaps three weeks time with a caravan that will be passing by. If we can then it would be good to have this place in a state ready for them.” Her lips thinned a little. “I do not have an unlimited supply of mizas and your list has eaten into it rather more heavily than I’d planned on.” She waved aside his questioning glance almost as though she regretted admitting a weakness in front of him. There was silence for a moment where perhaps she considered her next words more carefully. Eanos used the time to add mental notes to his assessment of her, but unlike what he suspected he thought, he was not surprised by her admission nor did he think it a weakness. Quite the contrary he was more impressed that she risked what little she had on this venture. Had she been rich enough to have afforded the loss then it would have changed the way that she was involved in the place. He suspected that for whatever reason it was that brought her here, she needed to make this work and it made him all the more resolved to ensure that it did.

“There is a limit to what we can achieve without the supplies that they bring,” he responded at length. “But I would imagine that there is much that we can do to welcome them, and to ensure that they will be looking forward to a return visit.”

“Yes, you are right,” she smiled and cast aside the black mood which had taken her. “I know the size of the party and I can arrange that we have some fresh supplies for them. By the time that they arrive here, much of their fresh stores will be exhausted and it is not yet winter so fresh will still be appreciated. I did bring back what I could, but there is a limit to that over such a distance.”

He nodded without speaking in acknowledgement of it, for it was a truth he had known before. “I have almost reached the point where I can start making things,” he said, “so we can decide what it that you want first.” He was careful in his phrasing to give her the control over what happened, for this was still very much hers and he didn’t want her to think that he was attempting to change that.

“The first priority will be to have this kitchen working,” she pronounced after some thought. “Shelter we can offer them, but the chance at food which is better than something cooked just at the end of a long day at the trail will be more than welcomed. Do you think that you can do that?”

The question hung in the air for a moment while he considered it. “Yes, I don’t see why we shouldn’t be able to do that.” He stared at the hearth for a moment. “The oven is something of a problem but I’m sure that we can do something about that. If we are to create shelter then we need to do something about the main door, and that is something I don’t think we have the ability to make properly.” To him it was an issue of size and resources for he knew but little of woodwork and there wasn’t enough time for him to learn it.

“Yes, that is true,” she responded thoughtfully. But I think that we can improvise with hides.” She nodded to herself with pursed lips as she worked on the idea in her head. She nodded, coming to a decision. “I will make the door into my priority. It will not be fancy but it will serve its purpose. Much like your work here.” He glanced up at that and smiled wryly at the teasing look on her too straight face.

“I would hope that it will be better than this, otherwise they might just drive straight on by for fear of being taken in by bandits,” he replied, teasing on his own. She laughed in return, though it was somewhat strained.

“Let me to the fire and I will make a meal since it is time enough for that. You’ll need to shift yourself aside for now else we’ll be eating stone in with it.” He took that as dismissal and shifted his block of stone and then swept up the chippings he’d made so that she had a clear run at cooking. In the morning he would need to start on improving things so that they could both eat better and there would be the ability to cook in bulk.

[Caelum]

Thread Award

Eanos

Skills

Blacksmithing +4
Deduction +4
Glyphing +2
Intelligence +4
Negotiation +3
Observation +5
Organization +2
Planning +5
Socialization +3
Weaving +2




Lores
Waystation Location
Waystation Layout
Blacksmithing: Working With Low Quality Tools
Blacksmithing: Firebox

Notes

Excellent.

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