Master Smith Hobb’s anchor forge was a cave of glowing red light. He smelled of burning coal, sulfur, and cooled salt water. Two apprentices were working the double bellows with rhythmic, shoulder-heaving strokes, pumping white-hot air into the charcoal hearth where the bent bronze spindle lay resting on three iron fire-bricks.
‘Careful with the blast, lads!’ Master Hobb bellowed, adjusting his thick leather apron. ‘Glowing-bronze isn’t anchor iron! If you take it past cherry-red, the zinc boils off and the copper turns to crumbly porridge!’
When the bent section reached a dull, glowing cherry red, Hobb and Eren Tal lifted the fourteen-foot bronze bar with two pairs of heavy tongs, laying it into the V-blocks of the shop’s ten-ton screw press. Pella set her brass flat ruler along the shaft, marking the high spot with a piece of soapstone.
Hobb threw his weight against the five-foot forged lever of the screw press. The heavy iron screw turned, its lead-faced die bearing down on the glowing bronze with five tons of pressure. The metal groaned, yielded with a soft squelch, and straightened out under the steady thrust.
Hobb tapped the shaft three times with an eight-pound copper maul. He used lead sheets to protect the delicate square-cut gear threads. Pella ran her measuring tongs down the fourteen-foot run, checking the gap against the steel rule.
