Chapter 4. Forge

Mark took his time walking home since he did not need any more ore and he was not too worried about there being beasts on his trail. The scent of the warg mixed with blood would actually scare away most beasts and the ones it would attract were much deeper in the mountains. Mark was able to enjoy the cool mountain air and the nice view of the distant peaks on his way home. 

As he made his way to the village gates, he noticed there was already a change of guard. It means he was gone for about 6 hours which is typical for an outing like this. He could also tell it had not been too long since he still had some light which would last about another hour before the sun ducked down below the mountain.

The guards gave him a nod of respect as he walked past them, and he returned it in kind. They could see he had slain another mountain beast which would likely have killed a few of them if it had attacked the village so they were always grateful to see him carrying more beast parts past the gates. 

He made his way around the side of the village away from most gatherings of people. The guards might not care for the sight and smell of a slain beast, but the other villagers would rather not have it around them. It was faster to walk to the side of the village his smithy was on by going around it anyway. 

When he got home, he put his spear up and headed to the forge. The first thing he did after setting his sack of materials to the side was get the coals burning so they would be ready by the time he needed them. Then, he got a couple of metal buckets full of water and set them next to the forge to boil them for the bones. The residual tendons and meat needed to be removed and the easiest way for him to do it was to boil them.

Next, he started sorting through his rocks and the ores he needed for the forge. His priority was to refine the iron, tin, and aluminum metals into ingots before he could play with his special rocks. The process was not very labor intensive but he did need to make sure the fire in the refinery was kept hot. He found it best to start with the aluminum, then the tin, and finally the iron. For some reason, doing it in that order seemed to prevent the tin from sticking to the refinery as much and the iron was the easiest to work with so he liked to save it for last.

Managing the boiling and refining process took up most of his attention so he was not able to do much during the initial phases, but eventually, he had some time to pin the scraps up to dry and rub their special tanning oil on them to ensure the best end product with the leather side. It was well after sundown that he had managed to finish the refining process for the metal and the bones.

All he had left for the night was to clean up. He threw the boiled beast meat and tendon residue over the side of the cliff that the smithy was near and put the buckets up. Then he organized the cooled bars of refined metals for the smithy where they belonged.

After he was done cleaning up, he put his ores in his personal work area so he could work with them the next day. He would have plenty of work to do in the morning so there was no point in prolonging his night further than he was already going to.

'I really wanted to refine these new ores but it took longer to do my job tonight than I thought it would. I suppose I just have a little time to work on this project.'

Mark liked to work on his sword at night. While he took a spear with him outside the village, that was only because it was much easier to create the spear. His sword has been a work in progress for several months, and the method of weapon forging passed down by his family allowed him to add and remove any part of the sword he wanted before the final quench.

He pulled out a grey sword from under his workbench and threw it in the coals to get it heated up. After he confirmed it was in a good position to be heated up in a uniform manner, he walked over to his hides that had been strung up and stretched out.

The hides had a specific spot between the smithy and the outer wall of the village that they needed to be placed in order to properly develop. It takes a few minutes to place them if he doesn't run and he was trying to relax for the rest of the day so running was not an option.

As Mark was walking over to the spot he looked to his right and took a deep breath.

'ahh, it's always a beautiful sight every time I see it.'

Mark felt nostalgic as he looked out over the low wall on the edge of the mountain that overlooked the valley. The way the moonlight hit the river that ran right through the valley and illuminated the vegetation in the surroundings always took his breath away.

'It really is such a beautiful cool night, and the breeze smells so sweet like the petals from the plumb blossoms that are blooming upwind right now.'

He placed his hides in the proper position and leisurely made his way back to the forge. He made sure to stop by the low wall again and spend a few minutes just looking out at the valley. 

Once he got back to the forge, it was time to begin working on his masterpiece once again.