Four Horsemen: Chapter 6 Part 1 of 2

Chapter 6:

Valter rolled his shoulders to bring the waterproof hide higher on his shoulders and against his neck. Eyes bouncing between alleyways and shadows that might hide a person.

The rain and clouds covered the sun that he’d guessed to be around midday.

Waste that had been thrown into the open gutters on the sides of the main roads were swept away with the day’s rain.

Valter pushed it from his mind. Getting out of this city was the priority. Then he could make sure Xander stayed dead.

“This is me, see you later,” Desari checked the sign to an 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.

He slowed his pace and set his gaze into his storage rings.

They were organized with military precision, raw metals, various fuels, ingots and alloys, tools and a snow globe that contained his mobile smithy.

Then were the weapons of every type and kind. Each labelled with what their inscription was and its affect. His armor was last, resting upon a mannequin. Its runes a dull red.

With a thought the armor opened, revealing the intricate inscriptions within. My core is still split. The inscriptions were filled with a deep orange mixed with yellow, all of them except for his left shin guard and boot.

A metal peg leg floated into his view, steel and unremarkable from the outside it slid apart.

“Mithril is still all there,” The silvery and light weight metal didn’t have a blemish on it. The inscriptions that had taken him weeks and countless chisels filled with solid Yellow core crystal.

Valter’s gaze turned inwards to his own core.

Not a shard anymore, a miniature Red core mixed with orange. Half within him and half in his armor. Carved into his very core was a soul binding formation, its threads reaching out to the bindings within his armor.

It had brought him so much pain, though it was not to blame. It had saved his life and through it he’d saved many others. Images of fights, last expressions of dying men and women.

He closed his eyes and breathed out, banishing the images and he continued his checks. The armor and peg moving away. Guess I’m going to have to make something different than a peg leg for that mithril.

It gave him a boost in power, the mithril enhancing the part of his core he’d fused with it. Though the rest of his armor matched the power of the core within him.

Combining his core with stronger metals and gear, upgraded its power. Bronze for white, Iron for Red, Steel for Orange and Mithril for yellow.

When I reach Mithril then I will be stronger than my armor. I need to find more Mithril and create armor to house my core. If he didn’t the thing that had allowed him a greater advantage over other fighters, would turn into a hinderance.

He checked through the books on languages, on histories of various nations, different gods, dossiers on people of interest.

His gaze slowed looking at carved plate of metal, Valter grinning with Annabelle on his shoulders laughing Asha rolling her eyes at both with clear love, her hand on Devin’s shoulder between him and Asha, a wide smile on his face, missing one of his front teeth.

A doll of a bear/rabbit sat next to the metal plate. A threadbare thing that had been repaired several times, burned and stained black on one side.

He slowly withdrew his gaze and studied where he’d wandered to, surrounded by the sounds of smiths hard at work.

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

The doors to the forge were open, a stream of guild members, guards and people looking for something to defend themselves filled the storefront of the forge.

Valter looked down the side of the building to where a door hung open to the forge in the rear of the building.

Valter walked down the alley, pulling out his paper and hitting the door.

A woman spotted him and walked over.

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

“Guild told me to come here.” He handed he the paper.

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. “Use that forge there, iron is in the black bucket, the coke is in the blacker one.” The woman grinned at her own joke.

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.”

Valter nodded and walked through the space, taking the hide from his shoulders, hanging it up near the forge in the corner.

“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.

He paid her no attention, in this kind of work you had to prove yourself first to get any kind of respect.

The coals had been allowed to burn down.

Sighing Valter pulled out an apron from his storage device. He cleaned up his workspace, then the forge.

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 the same size as the rest.

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

“That should do nicely,” He leaned against the wall, pulling out a book made of metal. Its front scarred and pitted.

The half-smoothed sides of the book pressed against his thumbs. This body doesn’t have the callouses. He ran his thumb against the slight burrs of the book. He could feel for the first time in a long time.

Lighter memories, of working in the smithy, coming home to Asha, tucking in Annabelle and Devin into bed. Stroking their cheeks, soft to the world. Untouched by its harshness.

Valter opened the book with a sigh. Metals, ways to purify, alloy and temper. Different weapons and creations.

Started in a time before he’d been entombed in armor, no more than a weapon of war pointed at his emperor’s enemies. His only solace between campaigns and fights. He pressed a finger to a page, drawing out a rune and tapping two parts.

The book expanded with a hidden section. Weapons, armors, thoughts, inscriptions. Items and ideas too powerful to pass on.

He breathed in looking at those pages. He’d sundered Xander’s soul into hundreds of shards, split and spread across the empire, between battlefields.

To kill a god. He closed the book. He would have to put the ideas he’d copied down faithfully to the test.

“For now, steel.”

He checked the nest he’d made in the midst of the forge.

A young man watched him as he moved through the smithy, bringing in metals, charcoal and coke, keeping the smiths well supplied.

Valter sifted iron through a sieve into a spare bucket. Anything too big he took chisel and hammer to, breaking it till it went through.

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, got to start learning somewhere.”

“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. Needs a little more. He grabbed a scoop of coke putting it onto the coals and used the bellows, holding his hand out again he nodded once in satisfaction.

“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.

“That’s the stuff.”

Essence flowed into him at the completion of the Steel.

Been a long time since making something of the uncommon grade has given me that much experience.

The orange continued to overtake the red within his core.

He hammered it into a rough square shape and put it off to the side.

He took more iron and sprinkled it over the still hot coke layering coke optop of that, repeating the layers all the way up again and topping it with stones.

Turning iron to steel was worth the same essence as killing someone with a red core. With his different hearths he could start earning some good passive essence.

Crafting a few steel weapons would really crank up the essence gain.

A 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.

“Three gold for every ingot this size.” He held it up and walked away.

Valter used other fire bricks to create two more hearths 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?”

“Can I get my questions?”

“Sure thing,” Valter smiled.

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

He opened up the stone brick hearths, pulling the steel from them, getting into a rhythm, essence spreading through his core as he reset the hearths with more iron and coke. While Gus would run supplies for him and ask him questions.

The day swung by as Valter felt his core swell and change.

The last of the red was driven out by the orange that filled his core.

His core swelled and then compressed. As it changed it changed him, new strength, half remembered ran through his body. His senses sharpening as his mana, untethered-a new sensation- glided through his mana channels.

“Here you are mister Valter.” Gus said, a bit out of breath with sweat working through the ash on his forehead. Valter released the feeling, moving slowly and carefully, it would take him a little to get used to his newfound strength.

A new color was always a bit more of a rush. Adding the same amount of power that a flecked or mixed core might.

“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.

“Why do you need a higher carbon content?”

“Makes the iron into steel which is stronger and easier to sharpen.”

“Oh, Gus nodded to himself.

Valter put the last brick under the chimney flue.

“Might need some more iron and coke in a little bit.”

“Okay, see you in a bit mister Valter,” Gus smiled and hurried off to his other tasks.

Valter fed his first brick hearth and put the other two together.

“Hearths in the forge.” He frowned at the odd turn of words.