Spearmaker

The summer sunrise lances through the small gaps in the thatching of our hut, and I rise with a start - I have missed the hunt. The sharp pain in my left knee forces me to sit back down, breathing through my teeth, holding back the pain as I remember. I have not missed the hunt, I will never miss another one.

I stand slowly, steadying myself against one of the logs holding up the roof ring, nudging my daughter with my foot. The longer she sleeps the taller she will grow, but if she doesn't start fetching water from the brook early I won't be able to run the forge for long enough to make it worth the firewood. She groans, but gets up, squinting demonstratively. She understands. No forge, no tools. No tools, no food, hunted or otherwise.

She is eight winters old, and she understands. It was her who had the idea to place the forge and the anvil in such a way that I could lean against tree trunks while I swing my hammer. I can still forge just fine, as long as I don't have to bear the whole weight of myself and my tools. She even tied half a roof between the trunks. She is very good with knots. It might hold for a year or more, if the storms are not too bad after summer's end.

I limp out to my forge as she scampers down the path with her buckets, and I start arranging my tools. My gaze drifts to the stand of trees further down the path, with the bluebell clearing, to the stones there marking my wife and my three sons, and those marking Ulfen and the others. It was a bad winter, long, and cold, with our grain store fouled. In the spring the deer returned in lower numbers then we needed, and the wolves were hungry.

Ulfen, the old smith, died when his axe slipped, chopping trees in the freezing dark. I had helped him when he needed someone strong to fetch wood, or swing the hammer with him, and now I am our smith. In turn, the rest of the village help me, bringing wood for the smithy and such food as me and my daughter cannot gather ourselves. I know some are unhappy about this extra work, but no smith, no axe. And no axe, no firewood.

I refocus on the work in front of me, and notice I have been daydreaming for long enough for the fire to heat to red-hot already. Next to me stand four buckets of water, enough to quench the metal for the first half of the day. I hold one of the blanks I prepared last week, and imagine what it might become.

Wult has asked for new arrow heads, but the blank is too good to split, there are smaller pieces that can fill that need. I would prefer to make an axe head, the tool I know best, and where even the smith from the next village has to admit I have a certain talent. But, turning the piece in the morning sunshine, I know it is too narrow. I know what it wants to be. A spearhead. A spear for the boars that still roam our forest, hardy enough to survive the winter and dangerous enough to scare some of the wolves. In normal years we would leave the boars alone, but this year we have no choice but to gamble, even after my accident with a particularly angry one.

The spears can serve double duty, too, if our cousins from the mountain have had an even harder winter than we did. They are shepherds, not raiders, normally, but the old folk tell of dark days in the past, of bloodshed and lost relatives. A few boys in the village have asked for swords, but I prefer the spear, which will be useful no matter what the future brings.

The metal has reached the right colour, and I take it out of the heat, start shaping it. I like the steady beat of the hammer, and the metal slowly finding its true form. I like the satisfaction of a thing well done, and the fact that I am still useful to our village.

Sweat runs down my face, and I start singing along to my hammer. I can smell someone cooking the fruit of the morning hunt, and I like that my hard work means I can still eat a good portion of deer, boar and fish, and not the small bowls of left-overs, nuts and dried berries of the old story-singers, who don’t need strong arms.

I smile as I take the cooling spearhead, and pass it to my daughter to sharpen. It will be a good day, and with any luck a better winter.