Heretic's Forge: A Crafting Fantasy Adventure (The Warrior Blacksmith Book 1)

by Jared Mandani

  Ren laughed. “I think I have met him, but I can’t be sure. I’ve been trying to talk to him for the better part of half an hour, and he just stares at me as if I were some precious bauble.” At her comment, Kain averted his eyes. Was that heat he felt on his cheeks?

  Munesuke shook his head. “My apologies, Ren-chan. My assistant is a deaf, a mute, and an imbecile, but I assure you – he’s not ill-intentioned.” Yuki laughed as she heard the old man berating Kain, and to her the smith said, “Would you believe it, Yuki-chan, the things one needs to do to find help around here?”

  “Well,” Ren said, “We won’t take away any more of your time, Munesuke-san. You must be busy, considering the materials at your disposal.”

  “Oh, nonsense, Ren-chan. Talking to you is never a waste of time, but I admit I must, indeed be on my way.”

  Ren nodded and said, “Then we’ll leave you be. Farewell, Munesuke-san,” she bowed, “Gizoo-san,” she bowed and winked. “Come on, Yuki-chan.”

  “Bye-bye ojiisan, bye-bye bushi-sama!”

  Munesuke glared at Kain but said nothing on the matter. “Help me fix the barrow, quickly,” he ordered and Kain quickly bent down to lift the wheelbarrow. Munesuke removed the remnants of the axle, aligned the wheel, and shoved the new implement into its slot. “That should do it, at least until I can properly hammer it. Now come, help me pick up the sacks.” Kain obeyed and quickly bent down to help his father gather the jute sacks. After an hour, the wheelbarrow was ready to roll again.

  Kain and his father left the market behind and started on the path back towards the Kajiya house. Munesuke broke the silence by asking, “Senshi?”

  Kain was surprised by his father using his birth name. He replied, “Yes, father?”

  “I saw the way you looked at Ren-chan, and the fact that Yuki-chan named you ‘bushi-sama’ was not lost on me.” Calmly, Munesuke asked, “Is there something I should know about?”

  Kain sighed and replied, “Yesterday at the town’s main street, the daughter of Yorunokenshi-daimyo was passing through on her palanquin. Yuki chased after a toy, and Hanataro tried to kill her,” he shrugged. “I jumped in and was slashed by him.”

  “I see. That explains the wounds you had. They were no ordinary wounds, but cuts caused by an ikiteiruken.” He paused, and bluntly said, “You should be dead.”

  “But you tended to my wounds.”

  “I merely dressed them in bandages and poultices, Senshi. They should have continued to fester, just as they were, but they didn’t. Why?”

  Kain shrugged. “Truly, father, I don’t know.”

  “Hm.” The old man paused before saying, “You did an honorable thing. Yuki shouldn’t suffer because of her youthful naïveté. As was the case with her parents.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Munesuke sighed, dejectedly shaking his head. “Did Ren-chan tell you how her mother and father died?”

  “No.”

  “Then, Kain, it is not my place to tell you. Suffice for you to know that it is an unforgivable thing that a father would try to slay his daughter, even if unwittingly,” he paused and swallowed loudly, “Even if he is a samurai.”

  Kain’s eyes widened. “Father, you mean that Hanataro is...?” He left the sentence unfinished, and his father said nothing, indirectly confirming his suspicions. “The bastard!” Kain spat.

  Munesuke scoffed. “It is ill, speaking like so of a nobleman,” he paused before knowingly adding, “Even if he is a fucking stuck-up prick.”

  Kain felt blood draining away from his face. “You heard?” Munesuke nodded. “I am sorry.”

  “Make no apologies, Senshi. I know Ren and Yuki since they were but children. They were almost daughters to me after...” he stopped. Kain needed to hear no more to understand what his father meant. “Whatever the case, Senshi, you should never see Ren nor Yuki again.”

  “Why?” he asked.

  “For their own sake. Their lives have already been plagued by tragedy and misery, more so than they are for many people. They need not suffer any more than they already have, not for my sake, or your sake, or Kain Smith’s sake.”

  Kain sighed, “You he—”

  “Yes, Senshi. I heard. Understand that using such a name, even if it is meaningful to you, supposes an immediate death sentence. More so considering that you offended Hanataro-sama.”

  Kain felt a surge of anger within himself. “How have I offended Hanataro? By keeping him from killing an innocent girl?”

  “Precisely,” Munesuke replied nonchalantly.

  “How can you be so calm about that matter, father? You are speaking of a samurai. One supposed to protect a daimyo’s people, threatening to kill a girl because she dared step in front of some princess’ palanquin!”

  “Such are things, Senshi, as they always have been, as they will always be. For your sake,” he said, “I suggest you accept them as such.”

  Kain’s teeth ached as he ground them into dust. He found it inconceivable that his father would see Hanataro’s actions as anything less than absolutely despicable! No amount of deeply ingrained tradition could justify the murder of a child. And yet, thought he, the same happens throughout the world. Children younger than Yuki are sacrificed on a daily basis to gods of war and hatred, or worse – they are given to priests and preachers to... He left the thought unfinished, reeling as his stomach became sick.

  “It is wrong, father,” Kain said.

  “According to whom?” Munesuke asked.

  “According to any sensible person, damn it! Father, how can we allow such atrocities to go unpunished? How have we been so... diminished that we accept ourselves as shit underneath the nobles’ boots, when in truth without us they are nothing!”

  “Oh?”

  “Father, look at it this way: Who cultivates the food they eat? Farmers do. Who wages their wars of conquest and expansion? Commoners. Who hold the secret of their vaunted ikiteiruken? We do, damn it! They need us more than we need them!”

  Munesuke sighed sadly, shaking his head. “Senshi, there is yet much for you to understand about life. Your worldview... it has changed. It has become tainted by western ideals. Have you ever wondered why returned ones are killed on sight?”

  Kain scoffed, “Because they may bring back word of the Emperor’s defeat in a faraway land?”

  “No, my son. Because they can become educated in ways reserved only for noblemen.”

  “Huh?” Kain was surprised by his father’s calm reply.

  “A man who witnesses war,” his father said forlornly, “knows it for what it is – not a thing of honor and glory, but a thing of horror, violence, and loss. A man who returns from war may dissuade others from fighting an enemy he doesn’t know, for an Emperor he doesn’t see, in a land he doesn’t recognize and that,” he added sternly, “we cannot have.”

  “But why, father? Why must we accept this?”

  “Because that’s the way things are, Senshi, and to say otherwise is heresy. I must quote you to yourself, my son: You survived by clinging tooth and nail to life. We do the same, we survive by clinging to what the rulers want from us. By appearing coy, uneducated, and abnegated to their every whim. Tell me, son, what is the alternative? To rise in arms and oust the Emperor and his shoguns? We, mere peasants and artisans armed with what crude tools we can muster? The Emperor, his shoguns, daimyo and samurai control armies, they possess weapons, they possess spellcasters, and they possess might. What do we have, Senshi?”

  “We have our free will, father.”

  Munesuke sighed. “True, son. But free will refuses to mend men’s guts as they have been spilled on the ground.”

  “True,” Kain agreed reluctantly, “But if that comes to happen, at least they know they died free men.”

  “Hm.” Munesuke’s expression was unreadable as thoughts coursed in his mind. Eventually, he asked, “Son, I have said before that I do not know who you are. Let me ask you, are you a hero? A li
berator? A revolutionary?”

  Kain sighed. “Neither, father. I’m a man who has seen war, who has seen friends and comrades be butchered before his own eyes. I’m a man who has seen slavery and has been abused to fuel the machinery of murder in the name of a god not his own, for rulers he doesn’t recognize. I am...” he took a deep breath, stilling the inner turmoil he felt. “I am a tired man, father, who wishes only to learn his family’s smithing techniques.”

  “And to what purpose?” Munesuke asked.

  “Truthfully? To improve upon them, to create weapons and armor unlike anything anyone has ever seen.”

  “So your aim, Senshi, is to create better weapons to kill with?” Damn, thought Kain, my father is right. Munesuke sighed. “I am disappointed, son,” he said flatly before staying completely silent.

  Kain was taken aback. My father is disappointed in me? Why? Because I wish to create weapons and armor? The gnawing feeling that his father was keeping something from him returned, but at the edges of that feeling was a glimmer of recognition: His father was, in fact, not denying Kain’s thoughts, but outright confirming them.

  Perhaps, he thought, I do have more to learn about the world. Perhaps what I need is a lesson in humility, he admitted as he slowly rolled the wheelbarrow into the Kajiya homestead.

  Perhaps, he thought, surprising himself at what coursed through his mind. Perhaps there is hope, after all.

  Chapter VI: Warriors and Brigands

  “There is something to be said about the fighting style of the Nipponese. It’s quick, elegant, intended to end an encounter as quickly as possible. It’s, in other words, absolutely unfit for actual warfare.”

  -General Theophrastus Aurelius von Eisengrad, in “Battlefield Dissertations: An Analysis of Combat Styles.”

  Hauling the materials to the Kajiya household took but a few minutes. Instead of bringing the materials to the shed for storage, Munesuke instructed Kain to take them to the forge. “We have no time to waste,” the old smith said truthfully: They had but two days to forge an ikiteiruken. And Kain felt eager.

  He felt eager for a chance to demonstrate what he was capable of, now that his father had agreed to an iota of his so-called heresy. The revelation that his father was not as close-minded and traditionalistic as he seemed had actually heightened his enthusiasm; he knew Munesuke could be prejudiced and overly reliant on archaic methods and tradition, yet he had revealed a side Kain had never seen before, a thinking, inquisitive, even rebellious side he would have never ascribed to his father. But I wonder, why? Why reveal this to me now that I am, for all intents and purposes, a different person? He thought back to his father’s words, particularly the poignant question he asked him when they first met: Who are you?

  Who am I? Kain asked himself. It was as introspective a question as he was willing to consider, yet he knew he had little time for contrived answers. I am a blacksmith, he thought with finality. And now, I must create a weapon.

  He lit the tatara, the furnace, ablaze, stoked the flames using the bellows and turned towards his father. “Are you certain I may use my,” he paused carefully weighing his words. “My arts, in this endeavor, father?”

  Munesuke folded his arms and took a deep breath. “We have little choice, Senshi. It’s either that, or dying most unceremoniously. Only I ask a boon of you.”

  “What is it, father?”

  Sternly, Munesuke answered, “I don’t want to witness, know, or have anything to do with what you are going to perform. Misunderstand me not, I still find it to be heretical, deplorable, abhorrent even,” he sighed, “but sadly necessary. Can you do this on your own, Senshi?” Kain nodded, and Munesuke returned the gesture. “Then I shall retreat into the house, and pray to the gods for absolution.”

  Kain watched his father’s back as he slowly made his way to the family house. “You will see, father,” Kain said to himself, “What a heretic’s forge is capable of creating.” He took a deep breath, rolled his shoulders, and set himself to his endeavor.

  Kain donned a pair of blacksmith’s gloves and a leather apron, and stoked the fire. He glanced to the side of the forge where the discarded katana lay forgotten; as he picked it up, he felt its top-heavy weight distribution, smiled and muttered, “You could have been a great weapon,” Kain closed his eyes, extended his hand, and focused into the essence of the metal. “Now, you’ll serve to create a greater one.”

  He channeled through the vessel-metal and, as he did before, he created a magnetic field to extract raw iron from the ore, and melded it together into a large lump. He chuckled under his breath and said, “Easier than working with ironsand,” then he let go of the decaying blade, and stuck the lump into the forge to heat it. He used a pair of tongs to turn it to and fro until it was red-hot, then removed it and took it to the anvil.

  When the blazing iron was on the anvil, Kain used a hammer and a piece of metal to cut the iron into three different pieces and returned them to the forge. When the three pieces were heating up, he channeled through the tongs and willed the metal to do two distinct things: First, to retain its temperature throughout the process, then to become receptive to different degrees of carbon. One lump would take in a large amount of carbon, the second a moderate amount, and the third the least amount to form hagane, kawagane, and shingane respectively. When he finished exerting his will into the iron, Kain wiped at his brow, feeling a slight wave of nausea as his energy was sapped away. But he continued nonetheless.

  Kain bent down to shovel coal into the furnace so the iron would combine with it into the various necessary forms of steel, a process—unlike the normal creation of tamahagane—expedited through his abilities. He turned each piece of newly formed steel until he was satisfied with their composition, removed each chunk and took them to the anvil to hammer away any slag on the surface. What remained were three lumps of steel of varying carbon contents, each ready to become one of the parts of the katana.

  Just as the previous day, Kain started working with the hagane. He took it to the anvil and started hammering at it, elongating the metal and giving it a slight curvature to give its characteristic shape. He would make it equal in shape and length to the weapon his father had been commissioned with. Sparks flew with every strike of the hammer as the lower quality pieces of metal were shaved off the blade’s edge—its ha. When Kain judged it complete, he returned it to the forge, confident that it wouldn’t heat up or cool down thanks to the incantation he set upon it.

  Work began on the weapon’s ji and nakago, the core and tang. He removed the low-carbon shingane from the forge and placed it on the anvil; he hammered it time and again, deftly turning it around to give it an even width as he elongated it to the size necessary for the edge and tang (fifty centimeters to fit the hagane, and another thirty-five centimeters for the tang.) Kain held the red-hot steel using the tongs, and inspected its shape and integrity. Satisfied with the result, he returned it to the forge to start working on the final piece.

  He took away the kawagane and started working on it, violently hammering it into shape. The spine of the blade needed to be slightly shorter to account for the weapon’s curvature. He drew it until he judged it long enough to fit in with the weapon’s core, and when done, he left it on the anvil as he fetched the other two pieces. As he laid them close together, he grinned with satisfaction when he saw they fit perfectly. Long years of practice, he thought proudly as he inspected his work for any signs of imperfection. He found none.

  Kain hammered the segments together into a single piece with varying degrees of carbon content—a perfect katana blade. Once the sword’s length was complete, he released the incantation he set upon the metal and let it cool down. Once it was no longer hot, Kain exlcaimed, “Father, come, the blade is ready!”

  Munesuke left the house and slowly made his way to the forge where Kain held the blade proudly. He knelt and offered the cooled down metal to his father. The aged blacksmith took the length of steel in his hands and s
crutinized it entirely, from its length to its shape, its construction, and the quality of the metal used. He held it by the tang at arm’s length as he tested its weight. After a moment, Munesuke closed his eyes, sighed, and uttered, “I find no faults in the weapon.”

  “Thank you, father, I—”

  “I am not finished, Senshi. You are mistaken if you think I am praising you. I am doing no such thing. This blade is perfect. Too perfect, in fact. Every blade has an inevitable degree of impurity to it, impurity on the grain of the metal, on the curvature, the length, yet through your arts you have created something no normal smith could have created, let alone in such a short amount of time,” he sighed once more and said, “But it will do. Better present something unnaturally well-made, than nothing at all.”

  Kain didn’t know whether to feel proud at his weapon’s so-called “perfection,” or vexed at his father’s admonishment. Instead, he asked, “What’s the next step in the process, father?”

  “You know what follows. Coat the blade in clay, heat it, quench it, and then...” he left the sentence unfinished, nodded, and returned to the home.

  And then awaken the kotodama, thought Senshi, trying to find a way around the process. It’s the art of giving, but must I absolutely give from myself? He wondered, glancing at the discarded katana blade. Before he could test his theory, however, he needed to coat, heat, and quench the blade. “Yes, father,” said Kain, taking the cool metal from his father and laying it on a flat surface.

  He unstoppered one of the urns containing the coating clay, took one of the nearby thin brushes and coated the spine and core of the blade with it. The mixture had already been prepared by his father. Kain reasoned he’d have to ask his father over its composition at a later time; for now, the blade was fully coated and ready to be returned to the forge. Once it was back in the furnace, Kain waited until the metal along the edge was red before removing it and quenching it in the trough beside the forge. Water sizzled and boiled as it quickly cooled the hot metal. After a few seconds, Kain removed the weapon and checked its surface for any cracks or deformations. As before, the metal was expertly made, sporting no signs of damage along its length.