Ashes of the Fallen

The river was flowing a bit slower now than it was in the spring and early summer, and there weren't quite as many fish as before either. Though, to say the river was slow or that there was a lack of fish would be extremely misleading. I could probably throw a chain lightning into the river and watch as two dozen fish float to the surface.

Yeah, there was no lack here.

"Wow, so that's it," said Milly as she leaned forward slightly and stretched her hand out, placing it across her brow to help her see. It was comical, something you would see out of a cartoon, but it fit her character.

She was a character.

"I'm running ahead old man!" she yelled as she took off in full sprint.

Letting her go, I decided to hail Selene to warn her.

"Hey Selene, we've got a guest, watch her if you will, she's a strange one."

"Oh, is that you Sigurd, this communication magic is quite awkward," replied Selene with a fairly straight tone of voice. "I'll be on the lookout, a she, you said?"

"Yeah, she was wandering the forest, followed me home like a lost puppy."

"I'm sure Katherine will be pleased to know you've brought home another woman," she casually admonished. "I'll let her know, as well."

Ah, women.

Heading over to the blacksmith's hut, I found Ansgar hard at work at the forge while Enok was busy sharpening an axe with a small grinding stone. Along the wall of the small shop was an assortment of two-handed axes of varying lengths, all ready to be used at a moment's notice.

"Pardon the intrusion fellas," I said as I knocked on the edge of the doorframe.

Enok looked up first, and greeted me enthusiastically, "Sir Sigurd! You'll be happy to hear that we've completed all of the axes for the warriors, I'm just now adding some finishing touches, and we'll hand the rest out by mid-day."

"That's great to hear my boy," I replied with a pat on his shoulder.

"Ah Sigurd, this one here is an experiment, but I think you might be interested in it," stated Ansgar while continuing to face away, busy shaping the orange-glowing iron.

Looking closer, the shape looked as if he were attempting to make a double-sided axe. More fantasy than practical, I questioned its effectiveness but the quality thus far was looking rather spectacular.

That's when I realized he wasn't talking about the axe.

"Ansgar, that's steel there," I pointed out, after realizing he had a steel sword lying on a table. Completely shocked by it, I quickly picked it up to examine the specifications. It was an [Experimental Eutectoid Steel Sword]… which meant, they were to a degree, successful with the crucible. It was of a [Decent Quality - Uncommon Grade] and certainly better than any pattern-welded sword that filled the market.

All of those iron swords people were currently using were pattern-welded, with small bits of steel mixed in or even in some cases, only iron. They were weak weapons, not worth using in actual battle. What steel was there was an accident, formed from the process by an addition of carbon.

Bloomery iron was what was used during the middle ages, as iron ore was heated with charcoal, also known as wood, in a small furnace until the slag melted off. Iron melted at around 1550-degrees Celsius while slag, trace minerals that weakened the metal, turned to liquid a little after 1100-degrees.

It was a complex process, what with needing to introduce carbon with the iron oxide, and of an appropriate amount in order to create usable steel. Eutectoid steel was around 0.8% carbon, while if the iron absorbed more than 2.0% carbon, it would melt at the same temperature of the slag.

If the iron did melt, it ended up as cast iron, which was, for most points, useless as a weapon. Cast iron could be shaped but it couldn't be forged, was extremely brittle, and was generally left for basic tools and items, such as nails.

There was a lot of cast iron lying around the shop, a lot of it.

Though what mattered, was they were able to get it down.

This was a usable weapon, and was worth a lot of money right now.

As a comparison, pure iron has a hardness of around one-hundred on the Vickers Pyramid Hardness scale. Eutectoid steel was around two-hundred and fifty VPH, which was a considerable improvement. Quenching the sword could triple or quadruple the hardness too, but at that point tempering was required to reduce the hardness and increase the toughness of the blade.

The problem was that the brittleness increased with the hardness, at least with these low-level production methods. We weren't quite at real crucible steel yet, nor were we at Damascus steel, but it looked as if he had reached the very beginnings of the former.

Oh man, was I excited.

Next was Hypereutectoid Steel, at 1.2% to 1.6% carbon content, true Crucible Steel.

I was giddy.

"Ansgar, Enok, you made this with the crucible method?" I asked, unable to wait for them to finish their current work. "Can you replicate it? The process, can you repeat it?"