The Sword Whisperer – Forging a blade

What happened so far:
How it all began
Ordered to get armed

The Kindom of Kiklich was small and not particularly rich. Its King however was young and ambitious. Of course when two Kings are fighting, it is never clear who started the quarrel. It can be assumed however that King Ludwig of Kiklich certainly was at least partially responsible for the feud. His Kingdom was ordered to get arms.

Ulf had received the steel to forge a blade for Sir Lekton and he was working on it. The boys were using bellows to blow air into the flames to increase the heat. It was a laborious task to forge the steel. First the steel was flattened out and then covered with a paste of leaves and harvest rests. Then the steel was folded on itself, flatted out and another layer of the paste was added. It was hard and repetitve but very important to give the future blade a lot of elasticity and sharpness.

They worked several weeks just to get the good mix before the steel even remotely started to resemble a blade. In turns Ivan and Eric were working the bellows. When they were away from the forge, the boys were very busy getting water from the fountain, wood from the forest, food from the farmers and training from Master Tiroc.

Ivan and Eric were well built for their age and they were used to process new information in the smithy and learn. This was a big contrast with the other farm boys who were attending the training with spears as well. Master Tiroc had a past in the royal army and he knew to use Eric and Ivan as assistants to teach the other boys, even the ones much older. This didn't help their popularity which was already very low among the villagers. It was an exception when the boys didn't come with some cuts or contusions back to the smithy. Times were harsh and nobody complained.

When Ulf was happy with the alloy that he had, he started to put the blade into form. The boys also worked on the arrow heads that their lord had ordered. For arrowheads it wasn't necessary to use the same alloy than for the blade and they made quick advance.

In the process of forging the blade, there was a crucial event that would define the quality of the sword. Once the form of the metal was satisfactory and it was sharp, it had to be heat treated. This meant that the metal had to be heated till it became a certain hue of orange and then it had to be put into cold oil. If the blacksmith had done its job well, the blade should come out of the oil straight and without cracks. This was Ulf's first sword but he had produced countless knifes and other tools and the heat treatment wasn't a challenge for him.

The blade was perfect...

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I hope you liked this chapter of the Sword Whisperer. You can read the rest of the story soon. Upvote and Resteem if you liked it and follow @achim03 if you want to know what will happen to Ivan, Eric and Ulf.