Battle Mage: Forging New Steel (Tales of Alus Book 9) (9 page)

The elder mage frowned looking away towards the dancers and found Ashleen in the arms of a young man. Her eyes strayed from her partner as Mecklin watched and saw her looking at Sebastian for a moment before returning her attention to her partner.

“She doesn’t act like she is just an apprentice,” he stated.

Sebastian wasn’t sure that he really wanted to go into his personal life again; especially the truth of his relationship with Ashleen; but Mecklin was a close friend after all this time and knew some of it already. The man had been one of five mages assigned to him for the tournament and had continued on his quest afterwards as well, so they had been together for most of the year. Like Frell and Olan, the mages were all close friends after everything that had happened and had his utmost trust.

“Ashleen wants to see if we should be more than just friends,” he admitted. “Since Yara won’t be here for at least three weeks, she has convinced me to give her a chance as if I hadn’t met Yara first.”

Letting out a breath as a low whistle, the older man shook his head looking to the dancers once more. “You travel on thin ice doing something like that.”

Sebastian agreed and nodded as his eyes followed the other man’s to the moving crowd for a moment. “You saw how Yara was acting when Ashleen asked to travel with us for awhile. Maybe both of them are right. I gave Yara my heart partially because of my loyalty. I met her first and I do love her, but when I met Ashleen and I wasn’t officially tied to Yara; I was tempted.”

“Yara is a healer and you are a battle mage,” Mecklin covered one of the points most of his team had seen as a flaw in their relationship. “She heals and you often fight with the need to kill. Yara had a few times where she watched you kill and that upset her almost as much as seeing you near Ashleen.

“At least with Ashleen you would have a little more in common. Her magic is more destructive and I have a feeling that the girl is less squeamish as well.”

Sebastian thought calling the healer squeamish, when she could deal with the blood of horrible wounds on her while trying to save lives, was less than accurate; but he understood his meaning. A healer saved lives and didn’t take them. They were from opposite ends of magic and purpose.

“Anyway, while I wait for Yara to return home I will try to see her with an open heart. If I find that there is something there, then I will have to decide between the two.”

Snorting at Sebastian’s naiveté, Mecklin stated, “You say that like deciding between two women you love is easy.”

The other mage shrugged and stood as the song slowed to an end and replied, “Nothing in my life ever seems to be easy. I just need to figure out if I am making the right choice and decide. If I am wrong, eventually we would just break up and maybe wind up hating each other as well.”

“Good luck,” Mecklin offered with a wave as Sebastian found the wilder and took her hand for the next dance.

Chapter 5- Life’s a Parade

Sebastian stood with sweat on his brow before the stoked fire of Ivol’s forge. It was still early in the morning, but the smith and his son were hammering another piece on a large metal anvil a few paces away while the mage prepared to pull his first piece of iron from the fire. He had never tried to be a smith and only knew what Ivol had both told and shown him the previous day.

Using a bellows to fan the heat bringing the iron to a bright yellow for a moment, the owl deigned it time to remove the iron to begin working it on a second anvil. It wasn’t quite as large as the station the smith worked, but it would do. The second anvil was supposed to be available for his apprentice, his son Aric; but for now the mage would use it as the other two used the primary block.

He had a hammer only a little lighter than the one Ivol used. The smith had thick corded arms from years of hammering, but Sebastian’s arms and hands had been strengthened from his years using a sword. Since the movements and weights were different, the mage knew there would be both a learning curve for his mind and a physical one for his arm.

“Heal,” Sebastian called his magic casting his mind towards the metal. This was something to the process that had made him a little worried. The spell which would let him examine the metal was usually one he used by touching what he was trying affect. Casting his mind into the iron without touching it was dozens of times harder than normal, but the iron was still glowing red hot.

Striking the iron with the mallet, his mind traveled through the hammer reaching the iron and Sebastian managed to hold onto his connection despite picking up the hammer for the next strike. He could feel the impurities in the iron. Much of the carbon had begun to burn away, but each blow from the hammer compressed and forced the metal to adjust removing air and impurities.

Each strike helped to flatten the metal bar. It had come from the stock Ivol had on hand making one less step towards creating a sword. Of course making a blade was rather ambitious for a novice smith, but he had magic to help. The hammer probably wasn’t even necessary for the process. He had made iron move like liquid creating Bairh’loore after all, but this was all part of the research Bas felt that he needed to do to better understand how to make the weapons he hoped to create in the future.

Using his magic to guide his hammer, the battle mage pounded on the iron bar slowly flattening it. Once it was thin enough he scored a line down the center and bent the length of metal creating a fold. The heat was nearly gone by then, however, so Sebastian returned the metal to the fire for the next step.

Shaking out his hand from the vibrations caused by striking metal against metal, the mage smith moved to a table with provisions on a tray gathered from the inn earlier. It had a cover leaving premade sandwiches ready for consumption. A ceramic jug held water to be poured into a mug and Sebastian drank greedily as he realized how much his mouth had gone dry. The heat of both the forge and the summer air took its toll on him making the mage wish that he had bothered to create an air shield. It was his favorite spell and would have maybe kept him a bit cooler if he had it in place.

He had worked hard though and his arm was already growing a bit sore. Swinging a sword without contact in practice was much less painful than an hour of flattening metal even taking breaks.

While he was resting and refreshing himself, Ashleen walked in from the pathway behind the inn. Serving as a courtyard area for customers wishing to stable their horses or for those visiting the smith with work, it ran the length of the stable and curved out of sight beyond the edge of the back wall of the inn. The blond wore a sleeveless dress of pink lined with buttons along her left side. It was hardly the dress for an apprentice working in a workshop like the forge. Lightweight and coming down to her knees, he thought the dress resembled the Kardorian robes the girl had preferred during the winter. Since it had buttons up the side, Ashleen didn’t need a belt like she wore with the robes.

To his surprise, the girl stopped just inside the doorway and began to unbutton the dress. Curiosity made him watch as his forehead wrinkled slightly in confusion. If he was alone, Sebastian would have been more worried, but Ivol and his son were in the forge and the inn had windows overlooking the stables as well.

Pulling the pink dress away before hanging it on a hook near the door; revealed a short blue skirt that barely touched her navel and only reached a few inches down her thighs for some modesty. It was conservative compared to the blue cloth covering her breasts and little more as it wrapped around holding her tight.

“Aric, pay attention!” Ivol hollered as the hammer hit awkwardly sending the piece he was working on tumbling to the floor. Aric’s eyes whipped from Ashleen in surprise as the tongs he held twisted with his father’s strike. Giving her a second glance in spite of his father’s words, the boy quickly bent to pick the piece up to replace it on the anvil.

Ivol noticed the girl barely dressed and watched as she pulled a leather apron from another hook where it had been waiting for her.

Ashleen noticed the eyes as she secured the straps against the bare skin of her back and looked at the men questioningly. “What?”

Shaking his head, Ivol answered, “I’ve never seen a smith dressed like you, girl.”

Sebastian nodded in agreement, but tried to hide a smile from Ivol by taking a bite of sandwich.

The wilder shrugged as she adjusted the straps crossing her shoulders. Still tan from their time in the sun on the island and ship, the smaller girl’s skin looked very delicate compared to the thick leather of the apron. Of course it had to be thick to prevent her skin from being hit by flakes of heated metal during the hammering of heated iron and steel.

“I can’t run around like you boys with my shirt off, but I nearly died of heatstroke wearing just a shirt and pants yesterday,” Ashleen complained.

“You could always use your air shield,” Sebastian suggested as the girl moved closer. Her short leather boots looked too soft to protect her feet from the dangers of a forge also. Fire or falling metal were both likely going to pierce the delicate protection. Even the apron only went past her knees leaving her smooth shins in danger, but Ashleen was unlikely to be a part of the actual smithing process for now. Her duties remained trying to study the differences in the metal of each sword including the Hollow Sword and she could remain safely out of the way.

“You aren’t using one, so how can I, your apprentice, avoid working like my master?” she questioned jokingly. The girl moved close patting him on his bare back before making a face and shaking the puddle of sweat from her hand.

Laughing at her distress, Sebastian cautioned, “Let that be a new lesson for you, my apprentice. Don’t pat a sweaty man on the back unless you like the feel of sweat on your hand.”

As she wiped her hand against the leather apron, Ashleen wrinkled her nose at the unpleasant lesson and asked, “Aside from that lesson, what will you teach me today?”

Pointing at the three swords he had brought this day, Sebastian offered, “Continue to work on seeing the differences between these three swords. If you can help me work out which ingredients are used in the making of this steel that would help me to make new swords in the future.”

Ashleen frowned and said, “But that’s all I did yesterday. I’m already seeing some of what you told me. I can sense the differences in the three and can even feel your magic in the Hollow Sword.”

He pointed at a mix of metals often used in making swords from what he had learned from his research. “Something is still different between the old steel of the older sword and these newer blades, but I haven’t figured it out yet.”

Ivol, overhearing the two talking while in a lull from using the hammer as Aric reheated the piece, interjected, “The amount of carbon and other metals added for strength and hardness aren’t the only thing that regulates how the steel acts.”

Sebastian replaced the iron he had been about to pull from the fire. It had a small percentage of carbon in the form of charcoal in the mix, but the battle mage had yet to try the other additives he had on hand. He knew that it was going to be a blend of one or more of them to get what he was looking for, but that meant experimenting more.

“What do you mean, Ivol?”

“There are different types of iron being created both in Southwall and more that is imported from Sileoth and Litsarin for example. Not only that, but I have heard that your charcoal can be made from different plants making for more variations,” the smith explained. Ivol worked with simpler metals for the most part, but he had been training as a smith for decades. Even though his family had owned the inn for generations, it was he who changed the name to the Black Smith incorporating his real passion for working metal.

Sebastian heard his words and knew that this was unlikely to be an easy task that he was undertaking. There were too many variations in technique and materials when he had originally thought that making steel was much simpler. When even the very basic materials could vary, this might take him longer to figure out than he had planned. Whether the ravens would let him experiment in one place or send him on to his next post, he wasn’t sure; but only having the time to work through the changes in metal would help him to figure it out.

“You still want me to look at the swords?” Ashleen asked seeing the doubt in his face.

Giving a big sigh, the mage nodded, “Well, when facing a big task it is best starting off with one little thing at a time. Maybe with two of us looking at this problem it will go faster.”

The girl moved five cans of the main additives closer to her while placing the first sword on the table unsheathed. She also sighed before chanting her spell and began to touch each of the ingredients before her. Once familiar with the feel of each, the girl would move on to the swords looking for the differences in the blades’ metal.

Sebastian was impressed with her resolve as he felt his wane. He looked at the flattened metal in the fire of the forge waiting for his renewed attention. Whether he could solve the problem with his magic, he was uncertain. Still, the mage had chosen this task and was sure that, if he could crack the mixture needed to create the right steel, an endless production of Hollow Swords would help turn the war.

“Sebastian, we have to go,” Ashleen said stripping off the leather apron. Aric’s eyes wandered to the girl’s pretty figure, but were either unnoticed or simply ignored by the pretty girl.