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Alehandro · #**121** [ ] 02-21-2006, 06:50 PM

This is the very begining of a story of mine, which I have been contemplating overall for a fairly long amount of time.

I would like, if possible, commments and criticisms of this exerpt.

Quote:

Chapter 1: Scrapper

Nicoli wiped his brow with an old ash covered piece of blue cloth, pushing his sooty black hair behind his ears. He grabbed a raw sword from the barrel, hoisted it onto his right shoulder, and ran across the aging cobblestone floor towards the blazing furnace. His black leather smock, made for a much older boy, nearly made him trip over his boots several times into other apprentices as well as blacksmiths. He kept his balance and no-one paid any mind, for Nicoli was only slightly taller than most of their waists and even further below eye level.

He managed to reach the furnace, and with a relatively small amount of effort, handed the un-forged blade to Chris. The beast of a man reached for the steel without even turning his head, placing it right in the center of his calloused palm. “Thanks Scrapper...” he said as he thrust the metal into the dancing flame.

“Scrapper, could you fetch me my pliers?” said Chris as he lowered his firm, yet kindly, gaze toward his apprentice. Nicoli quickly ran around to the opposite side of Chris’s enormous pitch-black anvil. Out of habit, he repeated the placement of the pair of pliers on Chris’s hand-forged tool rack, “Second from the left...”
Nicoli hefted it off, with some strain, and slowly paced back to Chris.

As Nicoli waddled over to him, his smock swaying like a clock’s pendulum, Chris couldn’t help but gently smile at the endearing sight.

With a slight chuckle, he took the pliers and placed what would eventually be a hilt onto the newly placed blade. Chris beckoned to Nicoli, motioning with his grubby hands toward the fire.

He knelt down to Nicoli’s level, and said with the learned tone of a wise teacher, “Scrapper, you see how I put the end of the hilt on the butt of the blade there?”
Nicoli nodded, making his smock move slightly.
“Alright... now where do you think I made them overlap?”
Nicoli replied with the enthusiasm of a child, “In the heart of the fire!”
Chris smiled approvingly as he roughed up Nicoli’s hair, “Exactly!”

He suddenly donned a look of disappointment as he looked over at the furnace, “But, you see... the embers are cooling, making even the heart not hot enough to meld the two pieces together as one.”
Nicoli seemed to be affected by this, as he put on a slightly downtrodden demeanor.
“You see, Scrapper, we could just take it out and say that we’re done. But out on the battlefield, when one of our mercenaries swings that sword over there against something, he’ll find, to his dismay, that it breaks at the hilt- possibly costing him his very life.”
With that, Nicoli looked down at the frayed edges of his smock, shuffling his feet in disappointment.
Chris lifted his apprentice’s head, “Now... chin up boy. There is a way to prevent this calamity!” With a growing sense of excitement, Chris spread his hands over an invisible parchment, “All we have to do, is make sure that the two pieces of steel have melded...” he slightly turned his head toward Nicoli, casting a sideways glance, “...and how do we make sure that the steel can be completely melded, Scrapper?”
All of Nicoli’s exuberance returned in only a mere moment, “By heating the furnace!”
“And how do we heat the furnace?”
The ecstatic little boy had returned in full, as Nicoli knew what joys awaited him, “The big-giant bellows!”
“Go and knock yourself out.” Chris said with a wink, returning to his full stature.

Nicoli scurried over to the enormous bellows, resembling a wooden alligator with accordion fold leather for teeth. He reached up with the tips of his toes, jumped up, and pulled down with all of his strength. The collapsing leather compartment let loose a steady flow of hot air, sending the flames in the furnace to its mason roof. Nicoli continued to compress the bellows, push with a sudden whoosh of air to fill it back up, and then pull down again. It was all a game to Nicoli, riding the bellows like a see-saw.

“All right, Scrapper! That’s good!” yelled Chris, having borrowed another pair of pliers and clasped either end of the sword, he pulled the entire piece out of the furnace as nearly unbearable heat emanated from the orange steel.

He began forming it to his design, wailing on the steel with his hammer. Sparks flew across the room as Chris began to shape the metal into the recognizable form of the classic “Dunbar double-edge.”

Chris spoke to Nicoli in-between the thundering strikes of his hammer, “Hey, Scrapper! This is going to take quite a few hours, and I think that you’d enjoy having a bit of free time.” He turned back to his anvil and, as is their ritual, slammed his hammer as hard as humanly possible on the end of it, sending a deep resounding metallic note through the air, “Scrapper, you’re dismissed!”