Master Gant laid his iron measuring tongs across the three curved fire ribs on the anvil, squinting through the heat shimmer of the white-pine charcoal fire. “Three bars instead of four,” the old smith grunted, looking up at Daro Kesh. “If you want thirty-two inches of reach to match your broken Oran blade, Master Kesh, I can draw the billet out long and narrow with the fuller hammer. It’ll give you your old fencing distance, though the web down the center will be thin.”
Before Daro could answer, Joren stepped up to the anvil rail, his forearms still smudged with pit soot. “The fourth rib is still bolted in the sump, Master Kesh. A pocket of leftover fire breath broke open when I touched the rivet. I left it behind.”
Daro Kesh looked at Joren’s steady stance, then at Seyun’s single nod of confirmation, and finally down at the three dense, dark-veined bars of metal. Daro reached out, clapped his calloused hand once on Joren’s shoulder in quiet test. Then he turned back to the smith.
“Don’t draw it thin to fake a longsword’s reach,” Daro told Master Gant flatly. “A blade stretched beyond its honest mass to flatter its owner’s old habits will split the first time Heaven’s Measure presses its side. Keep the full thickness of all three ribs. Set your forge blocks for a twenty-two-inch broad short sword.”
