By keeping his supply lines from the sea open, he had ensured that his army was well fed and well equipped. Hundreds of artisans, cooks, skilled woodworkers and taskmasters had been taken from the ships in the minotaur fleets, and put to work in the coastal village. One of these had been Theros, who had served on board a minotaur ship for the past eight years, since the age of ten.
The job of sharpening weapons, which Theros had picked up almost by accident, had proven to be one in which he was highly skilled. Theros had been so successful at his work of repairing leather and maintaining the ship’s complement of weapons that his reputation spread far beyond the war barge on which he served.
The warriors of the Blatvos Kemas had done well in battle. They credited themselves, to be sure, but the captain had also done Theros the rare honor of including him in the reports. The captain claimed that the quality of armor and weapons was such that a warrior could rely on them to enable him to rise to his true potential. Unfortunately for the captain, this praise of Theros caught the eye of a wealthy Supreme Circle member. The captain lost Theros in a wager on a sea battle with the council member, much to the regret of the crew and warriors.
Theros was not the only valuable object won by the Supreme Circle member. Several ships, with their complement of slaves, crew, warriors and supplies, went to the high-ranking minotaur. He sent most of his winnings to the revitalized army of Klaf, as a show of support.
Theros was assigned to the chief armorer of Klaf’s forces. Hran was wise, powerful, with legendary skills when it came to bladed weapons. His axes were much prized and widely sought after. At first, Hran had been skeptical of working with a human. He assigned the young man the job of making arrows and spears. These were not the weapons of any fabled warrior, yet they were the daily tools of an army. They could be made in abundance, and an army would run short of them in two days of fighting. When Theros proved skilled in this task, Hran began to think that the human might make a fairly decent smith.
Hran took care never to tell Theros that, however.
The new elven army posed a great threat to the minotaur army. The elves had to be defeated or there could be no consolidation of the coastline. The place of battle was not a hospitable one, and the clouds had not stopped raining for the past week. The ground was soaked through, and wherever the large wagons of the baggage train moved, mud churned in their wake. The ground around the smithy was the only dry ground for a league in any direction. A huge tent had been set up, with the center post being the chimney for the forge. The heat of the fire under the tent baked the ground to a hard clay.
The fire was finally hot enough to melt metal after a day of feeding the flames. Theros took blocks of steel and bronze and melted them in a large cauldron. Under the watchful eye of Hran, he tossed in small amounts of different powders to add special properties to the metal soup. White powder ensured that the metal would not crack when cooled. Gray powder helped the two different metals mix together to form a stronger alloy.
The cauldron bubbled and boiled. Using a small knife, Theros cleaned the mold for the arrowheads. Very carefully, he peeled away any remnants of previous castings. When he was satisfied, he arranged the wooden plates around the fire. With a huge pair of tongs, he lifted the cauldron and poured molten metal into the first mold. The metal flowed into the arrow-shaped crevices carved into the wooden block and began to congeal. The wood burst into flame from the intense heat. Theros moved on to the second mold, and repeated the pouring. He did the same again and again until all of the ten molds were filled, all were on fire.
Theros placed the cauldron back into the forge flame, and dropped the tongs. He ran to the water barrel, filled a bucket, and ran back to his burning molds. One by one, he doused the molds in water, putting out the fire and curing the metal. The steam rose, mixing with the smoke from the forge, curling from the top of the tent.
“I’d say three more uses for these molds. After that, they’ll be far too burned. What do you think, Hran?”
The large minotaur grunted. “I would say that you could have at least four more uses if you put out the fires faster. For a young cub in the prime of his physical condition, you are exceedingly slow and as clumsy as a dwarf. You are hopeless! You will never make a smith!”
The young man was not disheartened. He knew that he had put out the fires in the molds in near-record time. Hran was always trying to push Theros to better, higher standards. Theros refilled his bucket of water. This time he cooled the metal to the point where the raw arrowheads could be removed from the molds. He dropped them into a metal grate that hung just below the water’s surface in the water barrel. Bubbles and steam sputtered from the water. Soon, two hundred raw arrowheads from the ten molds lay cooling in the water.
“Hey, Hran! When do you think Klaf will march the warriors out to battle?”
Hran stopped sharpening an axe blade for a moment, and looked up. “If Klaf has his way, it will be two more days before the battle will begin. I think that Klaf will not get his way, though. I do not see those soft and dainty elves becoming more and more drenched while waiting for us to build up to fighting on our terms. No, I think that they will push soon. Too soon. We must be ready.”
Theros pulled the arrowheads from the water one by one. He fastened each one into a vise. Next, he took a large metal file and began to sharpen the raw shape into a honed tip. Four or five scrapes with the coarse-toothed file would shape one side of the arrow, and four or five scrapes with a fine-toothed file would put a sharp edge on it.
“Don’t you think that our infantry is better than theirs, though?” Theros asked.
Hran continued sharpening the sword. “Infantry is only one part of a battle. We have no cavalry, and the elves make good use of theirs. Normally that means nothing to us. We stand and fight until there are no other enemies to be fought. In this case, I can see trouble. If our supply lines are cut and the infantry are separated into small groups, the elves can concentrate their forces and crush the survivors.”
“Klaf knows that,” Theros said. “We will prevail if given the chance.”
He removed the arrowhead from the vise, turned it over, put it back and repeated the process on the other side.
“You’ve got to admit, my friend, that our weapons are vastly superior to those of the elves.” Theros regarded his work with pride. Every few moments, he would finish an arrowhead and throw it in a pile. As they talked, the pile grew steadily larger.
“Bah!” Hran snorted again. “You know nothing of weapons. I have taught you as much as I know in the months you have worked for me. We deal with weapons and armor designed for an army’s everyday use. Axe, sword, arrow, spear, knife-these are the weapons of the warrior. Shield, breastplate, shin plates-these are the armor of a warrior. We mend and beat out the dents and make arrows, but we don’t have the time to do truly excellent work. Take this sword, for example. It’s a weapon for a true warrior. Only an expert can craft such a blade. I wish I had the time to teach you the art of making a good sword.”
Hran gazed at the weapon fondly, then, with a sigh, he slid the sword back into its sheath. Setting the sword aside on a table, he picked up a huge breastplate. The piece was ornate with inlaid silver pictograms and symbols, each depicting a heroic act or a battle scene. The armor had separated from the leather backing.
Hran threaded a leather-working needle with sinew and inspected the piece. The leather had ripped in the backing, causing the shoulder straps to come loose. The piece had probably came loose in a battle, and the warrior had ripped the plate away, causing most of the damage.
Hran grunted and threw the work onto the ground. “Bah! Theros, you do this. The work requires smaller hands than mine. Why they want me to waste my talents on repairing armor is beyond me.”