“Give me three strokes on the bellows, Seyun,” Daro said, his eyes fixed on the charcoal bed as the lower third of the short sword came back up to welding yellow. Seyun leaned on the ash-wood lever. It sent a smooth draft through the tuyere until the fancy ridge above the tang softened. Daro pulled the blade back onto the center of the anvil with the tongs. He picked up the broad-faced flatter hammer instead of the peen.
Clang. Clang. Clang. With six measured, flat-faced blows infused with his adaptable Early Jade focus, Daro beat the traditional teacher’s step fully out of the spine, blending the displaced metal seamlessly into the taper of the flats until the cross-section from point to guard formed one nonstop, unbroken lens of steel. He held the blade up toward Kes.
“Sight the spine now,” Daro said.
After the upright stone-water cool roared to a finish and Master Gant pinned Daro’s old leather-wrapped bronze handle onto the new tang with two cold-hammered iron rivets, the smith handed Daro a coarse gray oilstone to give the edges their working bite. Daro sat on the workbench rail as dusk turned the waterfall spray silver outside the shed. He drew the oilstone down the twenty-two-inch leaf-straight blade with long, even strokes that rang with a low, clear deep note.
