After the sorting of finances, which Terry had promised the Knight, they returned to the smithy. Jack was excited that he had his first proper job, realising he was now on the path to becoming a great Smith. Though he thought for a moment about what that had meant.

Did his father mean a First Grade Smith, or did he mean a Second Grade Smith like Smith Kanders? He looked up to Smith Terry. “Smith Terry, are you a First Grade Smith?”

“That’s right,” Terry replied. “Though I haven’t thought to take the exam, so who knows? Why?”

“I was wondering what my father meant when he asked me to become a great Smith. A First Grade Smith is a great Smith, but did he mean it in the Bloodwall sense?” Jack looked up, pondering on the thought.

Terry looked down to Jack. It seemed the boy wasn’t as stupid as he thought. “Reach First Grade, and then think about becoming a Second Grade Smith.” He lazily whipped the boy’s hair with his rag as they entered the smithy.

Jack did as he was told. He went about smithing several daggers every single day, whereas Merri worked on creating several swords. The daggers were each five percent cobalt, whereas the swords were two percent. Terry had need of the swords, since he expected some mercenaries to come around to buy some back up weapons. They usually did every few months, and he wanted to be ready.

The daggers were more useful, though, as they were often time main weapons for some, and back up weapons for mercenaries too. Plus, a dagger was useful for all kinds of things, especially those which were five percent cobalt. One dagger would last an entire lifetime if it wasn’t used for combat and instead for things like skinning animals, or wood carving, both which were quite common for mercenaries.

Seeing the pair work hard, he decided that he needed to work hard too. He decided to work on designing a new sword, one which he could pour his soul into for a month. He expected that it would be needed soon.

Many days later, there was news. Merri returned from the market with a sack of food and a grin on her face. “Oi! You geezer!”

Terry remained sketching out the longsword, and Merri frowned. As long as he remained on his work, she’d be unable to attack him. “What is it?” Terry said.

“The Lord, he wants a new sword!” She kicked the door shut behind her. “That fucker is looking to pay big too!”

Merri turned to see Jack sipping on some tea, though his eyes were wide. She had just called the Lord a fucker! If he had heard that, even as a Smith, she’d have her head cut from her shoulders. Merri glared down at him and then placed down the sack. “So are we making a sword?”

“We will,” Terry said. “All of us will each make a sword.”

“All of us?” Jack asked.

“We’re all going to make a sword. I’ll be smithing one which is four parts cobalt, and you’ll each make one which is one part cobalt.” He was certain that the pair would be fine.

“That’s too boring!” Merri replied. “Let’s show that fuck Carlson that we’re going toe to toe with him!”

“We can’t go toe to toe with him,” Terry replied, still leaning over the table as he worked on his sword design. “There’s no need to paint a target on your backs. I’ll make a sword which will blow him away, and you two will make a sword which will reveal that you’re decent enough smiths yourself.”

There was a knock at the door, and Terry stopped drawing. Merri had stepped towards the door, but noticed her father had stopped drawing. She stepped back and then watched her father approach the door.

“Smith Terry,” said the guard, who held a letter.

“I assume this is about the sword the Lord wants?”

“It is,” the guard said, chuckling. “The rumours spread quick. He had decided it on a whim this morning.”

“Let’s see what Lord Riverhill wants.” The Smith took the letter, nodding his head to the guard who left. He returned to the other two with the letter in hand. He used a dagger to cut off the bottom of the wax and then unfolded the letter to read it. He read it within his mind at first, and his brow slowly raising.

“What?” Merri said.

“Looks like the Lord is a little impatient. He wants a sword made within three months.”

“Three months?” Merri said, shaking her head. “That sounds like a pain…”

Jack looked between the two of them. Making a one part cobalt weapon should take a week at the most, even if they were to dress it up a little.

“He wants a flawless five parts cobalt sword, one from each smithy. The winner will be rewarded with market price for the sword, a contract for the military to produce a thousand swords, each of one part cobalt and they will provide the materials while paying market price, and an additional ten thousand gold coins.”

The ten thousand gold coins was fine enough, but it was the military contract for the sword which was perfect for him. The military would accept the blades as long as they were usable, and they wouldn’t care for flawless quality. However, it appeared that the deadline was a little too quick. They had enough cobalt, but only for a single attempt. Even creating the bars for five part weapons was difficult.

“I’ll go order a barrel of cobalt,” Smith Terry said. “You two stay here and think about what to make for the Lord. We need it to be flawless.”

“So we want to win?” Merri stuck out her tongue at her father, grinning cheekily.

“Yes,” he said. “Since they expect that we’ll all work on the same sword, they’ll assume that it was mostly thanks to me. However, a three month deadline is quite rough…” They would not only need to make the sword, but they’d have to sent the design to the Lord for approval first.

Once he had left, Merri turned to Jack. “It’s going to suck to work with you, but I can at least stand it if we win. If we lose, I’ll kick you in the balls.”

“Wh-what?” Jack replied, stunned.

“Didn’t you hear me? If we lose, I’m going to kick you in the balls.”

Jack had never heard a girl say something so vulgar before. Even in Bloodwall, where the people weren’t quite so clean as those from the cities, he hadn’t been around to hear such vulgarity from most people.

Merri frowned and then crossed her arms, fuming. “Damn! Even thinking about working with you makes me mad! First we have to make a weapon for the Lord, and make it good, and then I have to work with you…” She threw her head back as though exasperated. “Aah! I only want to do one of those! I wonder if that old geezer would tell you to keep working on the weapons…” She sighed. She knew her father would have Jack assist. He was too good not to use right now. She had some inkling about why her father wanted to win so bad. She looked to Jack, who was sipping his tea sadly.

Jack wondered why Merri hated him so much. She wouldn’t really kick him in the balls, would she? He thought about how she often fought with her father and then closed his legs. He thought about making a crotch plate to walk around in, though realised he could just wear his armour, though it would be awkward to smith in.

“So what kind of design should we do?” Merri asked, finally resigning to the fact that she’d have to work with a little noble fellow like him.

“I don’t really know what he likes,” Jack admitted. “We should do something which takes his family sigil or motto into account.”

“Riverhill, Riverhill…” Merri thought aloud. “So a fish on a mountain?”

Jack almost spit up his tea, looking at Merri. “We could engrave the sword’s blade with a river design.” He thought back to various sword he had seen. “We could create waves on the blade if we fold it during forging.”

If Merri had been drinking tea, she would have spit it out. “Folding the blade? Are you crazy? How are we meant to fold the blade when it’s five parts cobalt?” She wanted to drop kick Jack so much, but kept herself calm. “We can just engrave it using silver mixed with cobalt, or gold mixed with cobalt.”

Jack drank some more tea, a little flustered that she was so aggressive with her response. Folding the metal would be difficult, but it would be something which would set them apart from the other Smith.

“We should probably order in some gems too, isn’t that what nobles are into?” Merri said, rubbing her chin.

Jack wasn’t able to respond against that, since most nobles were gaudy. His father had told him of the terrible tales of what nobles had done to various weapons, encrusting them with all kinds of gems, and even making them unusable for fighting. He wondered why nobles did that. How were they meant to defend from beasts if they attacked?

Smith Terry returned back, a grave look on his face. “It appears that there’s no cobalt left.”

“No cobalt?” Merri asked, sitting up straight. “What?”

The Smithing Arc begins?