2022 B: Blacksmith

 

It's a short week for the A to Z in April Challenge. B is for blacksmith. Meet Brodie from Windmaster Golem and Gelem from the upcoming release, Fire and Amulet. Their physical descriptions are similar. Both are tall men with strong hands. Geren has long, straight dark hair always worn tied back with a strip of leather. Brodie has intense brown eyes.

Image by thewaitingexperience from Pixabay

Although both work with metal, what they do with it is different. Geren primarily works with iron to create horseshoes, hooks, and wagon wheels. He is also an inventor. Geren, his bride-to-be, and his father have escaped from Darceth. The excerpt takes place in a narrow, high-walled defile and shows one of Geren's creations. Although it is not wide enough for wagons to be put into a circle, Deneas and Trelleir watch as they are.

A man standing at the head of a team of horses lifted the lead rope, and the horses sidestepped in perfect unison. The wagon tongue swung with their movement and in response, the wheels rotated so the wagon turned with no perceptible forward motion.

Besides creating the usual items of iron villagers need, Brodie is also a master weaponsmith. Among his special creations were the hilts and blades that when joined with a particular element such as a polished stone or gem formed the daggers for mages as they came into their powers. While the making of weapons and horseshoes are one magnitude of smithing, Brodie's affinity for metals also allowed him to work with silver to create jewelry or engrave runes onto weapons.

Image by rygudguy from Pixabay

 

An excerpt relating to the making of one special journeyman dagger.

Drawings of the blades he had designed for the soon-to-be vetted mages lay scattered across the workbench. His gaze fell on the rendering of the knife he felt would become Kia’s. The blade itself was in the annealing oven cooling from the final tempering. He had seen little of her in the two sevenday since their arrival at the isle. He had been busy getting the weapons ready for the future mages, and she with her lessons.

Sketch in hand he opened the drawer holding the trinkets and gems meant for the hilts. Unlike the other sketches, the space for the element remained shapeless. None of the bits and pieces or any of the stones matched the signature he saw in the iron. Runes for power and wisdom had already been etched into the metal and gleamed from the page in reflection of the energy embued by symbol and meaning. He didn’t know what the key to unlocking the dagger’s power would be, only that there was nothing to mate with the blade. “I’ll know it when I see it,” he muttered.

To meet Brodie, click on the cover Windmaster Golem in the banner for excerpts, a free read of the first chapter, and buy links. Gelem and the rest of the story of Deneas and Trelleir is at Books2Read.

 

 Sales Sites for Fire and Amulet at Books2Read.

 

To make following my posts in the challenge easier, you can find all my posts at 2022 AtoZ Connections. Just remember, the next day's post isn't live until midnight.

~till next time, Helen 

 

 

If you're following other blogs in the challenge, here's the master list of the other participants