Listen to the Raiyn

16 - Blacksmith

sorry it took so long...

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Hawthrin squinted in the heat of the fire as he raised his arm and swept the sweat from his forhead with the back of his wrist, his hammer swaying in front of his face. he had finally finished the damn thing. the order had come from a man who had rode in wearing richer clothes than he had been trying for. he had ridden in on his horse, his cloak black and his hood deep so that no one could see his face. it had been twilight and the bellows had been dark, only the fire giving an eairy light on the newcomer. Hawthrin had been about to go home to his wife, his satchel around his torso and his tools put away. the man had given him the metal for the forging and described to the blacksmith the technique of forging that must be used for the order and given him the metal, saying that only this metal could be used and nothing else. Hawthrin had been given a week to finish the product and he had done it in six days. the stranger would be here in two mornings time to pick it up. there had been extra metal that the Hawthrin had been aloud to keep. from it, something would be made that would rival even the original order from the stranger. but not by him. by Keria.

Hawthrin had always thought that the girl would make a fine smith, regardless of the fact she was female. Keria would often come to the forge in her spare time and help Hawthrin so that he would be able to come home for Maria sooner. Jonathan would inherit the forge, but something told Hawthrin that Keria would be the smithy. like everything she set her mind to, Keria had mastered the forge. Hawthrin had listened to Wéarà often enough to know some things about Màjék and one of the things he knew was that metal and Màjék didn't mix. metal was immune to Màjék. when Hawthrin asked his step-daughter why she would come to the forge even though metal was not with her but against her she had told him that she would master the metal and then perhaps it would bend to her will the same way the Màjék would. that she would make them come into harmony. she had not used so many words, but that had been the jist of it.

Hawthrin was a man that loved to learn things. he would often sit at the dinner table late into the night with Wéarà talking. Wéarà enjoyed teaching and had been glad to tell Hawthrin what he wanted to know, and what he had wanted to know was anything that had to do with metal. Keria would often sit with the two men as they talked when she had not fallen into sleep after telling the twins a story before bed. and what ever she had missed on the topic Hawthrin would tell her as they worked together in the forge.

though Màjék would mot affect metals of any sort, there was something similar that was, as Wéarà had described it into the blacksmiths understanding, a metal magic. it was Aùrrk. it was a talent that, like Màjék, could only be possessed by a creature of the 'magical community', as Hawthrin had taken to calling it. Aùrrk could also only be possessed by a creature that did not posses Màjék. 'but the they had been wrong before' was a thought that often ran through the smithy's mind as he worked the forge with his step-daughter, her hell hound sitting above watching on one of the beams that ran from one wall to the opposite at the base of the roof, twenty hand lengths from the ground, lounging in the sun that would stream down from a window in the wooden roof. Hawthrin preferred to keep the window covered but every time the hell hound came into the forge he would grip the plank of wood that covered the window between his teeth and edge it into balancing on one of the beams that he was so found of lounging on.

Hawthrin looked up at the beams as these thoughts ran through his mind and he smiled a little. he looked back down at the order and removed his thick gloves, putting his hammer away. he pulled the order from the tub of water where it hat sat steaming and he placed it gently on his work bench. there was still something that needed to be done. he pulled out his engraving chisels and the paper that the stranger had given him and began the engravings.