“Keep it up, I think it’s working,” I said to Ibriya, who was pumping away on the third iteration of our bellows. I squinted at the piece of bog ore sitting in the fire, waiting and watching to see if it was heated up enough to start to glow .
“My arms are getting tired,” Ibriya huffed.
“So switch to your other arms.”
“Why aren’t you doing this? You’re so much stronger than me.”
“I’ve got to watch the bloodstone. You don’t know what to look for yet.”
After a few more minutes and a bit more bickering, I stepped back, frowning. Ibriya took that to mean we were done, and stopped pumping the bellows, groaning and massaging his shoulders.
“Well, I think the bellows are working. Air flow seemed good. But we’re definitely going to need to do something about our fuel.”
It wasn’t a surprise that neither the peat turf or the dung cakes were able to make a hot enough fire for the iron, since they were both wet fuels. Even in a world with wood, no blacksmith would use unprocessed wood for this; turning it into charcoal removed moisture and impurities, leaving behind purer carbon that burned hotter.
The problem I was facing was that the best lump charcoal I knew about was made from well-dried hardwoods. Trying to make charcoal from turf or dung wouldn’t result in usable lumps, instead breaking down into pieces and powder. The Sheowon had an idea of what charcoal was, just by virtue of dousing fires or coal embers burning under the ashes long after the fire burnt out. It just wasn’t something they actually developed because their fuel sources were so wet and lacked structure, leaving charcoal that was only used as medicine or as black dye.
“Collecting enough charcoal for what you’re describing would take ages,” Ibriya said. “And making it intentionally would waste so much turf. There’s no way the village will be okay with it.”
“Well, there’s a better way to make charcoal. You can cook it in a kiln similar to how you fire pottery,” I said. “I’m just not sure how well it will work, in this case.”
Was it worth it to start trying to dig for shallow coal from the get-go? I wasn’t even sure where to look, and without metal pickaxes, it would take a lot of Blood to do a dig. Stone pickaxes wouldn’t break through stone, after all. Searching for coal would slow down the entire project, but that would be necessary if I couldn’t make peat charcoal work.
If making charcoal out of peat resulted in dusty, broken up pieces of charcoal, could I compress those into briquettes? I would need a binding compound, which would make the charcoal burn cooler again, so probably not. Thinking about compression sent my thoughts in another direction, though.
What if I pressed the raw turf? It would add a lot of labor, but if I could squeeze out a lot of the moisture and create a more solid brick of dried peat, that might make better charcoal.
I ran the idea past Ibriya, who mulled it over.
“Sounds like it could work, but how do you plan on pressing the peat?”
“We’ll need to carve stone molds, and probably some slabs,” I said, as a design started to form in my head. Again, the problem was no wood or metal to use for leverage or for screw-tightening, but once we could start working metal, we could fabricate improvements to the design. “Beyond that… Blood, sweat, and tears.”
*
The first molds were simple things, with insert tops that would fit over top to compress the peat inside, and a channel for drainage. Rather than kill ourselves trying to press out the moisture quickly, we instead used bricks and let gravity slowly squeeze out the excess fluids. When they stopped draining, we added another brick on top, until they stopped having an effect.
It was slow going, but the compressed peat was surprisingly solid. It was no wood, but it seemed like an improvement.
Weeks passed as Ibriya and I experimented with improving fuel efficiency and continuing to build out what we would need to get forging. We built a charcoal kiln, not wanting to ruin one of his parents’ pottery kilns in our experimentation, and then the bloomery we would need to smelt the slag out of the bog iron to hopefully get a usable piece of sponge iron, which we would then hammer and consolidate into wrought bar.
Of course, our initial tools were made from stone, and we would likely shatter a lot of stone hammer heads trying to work the first blooms, but as soon as we had a consolidated piece of metal, that could become our first true hammer. Each small improvement would be a leap towards a viable smithy, at which point we should be able to fabricate actual tools and parts. Theoretically.
In between working on the project with Ibriya, I met with Yishola and continued to talk through my past and my feelings. I also sometimes met with Owawu to continue discussing boat making and engineering, and with Nupeal to learn more about the Sheowon religion, based around the All-Bonded, and to learn about the Bonding process itself. Unfortunately there weren’t any Sheowon prepared to establish a Bond, which I hoped to observe, though given that it was such a private affair, that might not be possible. Especially for me.
Many of the Sheowon still feared me, but after weeks of being in their village and being no harm, some people were starting to warm up to me. Brumesh was the only elder who still seemed to harbor doubts about me and my intentions, but even that started to go away when we finally produced the first pieces of usable charcoal.
“There’s so little smoke,” she commented as we tested it in our proto-forge, with Ibriya on the bellows.
“That’s because we’ve pressed out the water and cooked off most of the impurities,” I explained. “Basically all that’s left is the purest part of the fuel, which burns the hottest, especially as we push air through it. Look—the bloodstone is starting to glow.”
It was still raw bog iron, so it wasn’t ready to be worked, but it meant that we could start trying to smelt in the bloomery.
“And that means it’s soft?” Brumesh asked.
“Soft is a relative term,” I explained. “But yes, it should be malleable enough to change the shape of it, and turn it into… well, whatever we can imagine, in the end. Once it cools, it will get hard again, stronger than stone.”
“Interesting,” the elder muttered.
It was likely difficult for her to imagine all the uses of metal, since she had no exposure to it yet. I wasn’t sure I could properly explain it, either, since sometimes my words didn’t translate into the Sheowon language if there was no equivalent; I had needed to switch from speaking Uli to speaking Argadian or English to even attempt to discuss most of this stuff, since the Uli language was even less useful when attempting to describe things, and the blessing seemed to work the same no matter what language I spoke.
“We will need a lot more bloodstone, though. It will reduce in size as we work it.”
“Feel free to collect as much as you want from the bog,” Brumesh said.
Ibriya and I groaned. Hunting down and collecting the stuff was a job in and of itself, let alone making the charcoal and the actual metalworking.
Brumesh smirked at our distress. “I’ll ask around, see if anyone has any they would be willing to donate.”
“Thank you,” I said, smiling at the elder. Even if it was more for Ibriya’s sake, it was the most kindness she had shown me yet, and I took that as a win. She left us to our work, though there wasn’t much we could do just yet. The next step was smelting, and I wanted a nice stockpile of both bog iron and charcoal before we attempted that. I glanced up at the sky to check the time, and debated heading to the bogs to try hunting some down myself. I glanced back at Ushem and Pliwa, wondering how open they would be to trudging through the muck with me.
Besides the elders, my hosts had slowly started to warm up to me, too. Even Keo was less hostile these days, though I wouldn’t call her friendly, either. I was still accompanied by at least two of them at all times, but since it had initially been all four, the change to only two was progress.
A few of the villagers had started to nod at me or greet me in the morning, as well. I was still pretty busy with this project, but when I could, I tried to make myself useful. Once we were making metal tools, I was sure things would change for the better, but I wasn’t willing to bet everything on that, so I helped out where I could, particularly when it came to my physical strength. I tried to avoid using my Blood around other people, since the source of my Blood was an uncomfortable reminder of my history.
Ibriya stepped away from the bellows, rolling out his shoulders. He was bare-chested, a sheen of sweat on him from the forge heat and the pump work.
“I’m starving,” he grumbled. “When I agreed to help you, I had no idea it would be so laborious.”
“Yeah, well. At least you’re putting some muscle on. Look, Shappi is checking you out again.”
Ibriya stiffened, then glanced over at the pottery workshop, where one of the female apprentices had been watching us. As their eyes met, they both blushed, and she disappeared back inside.
“You should ask her out,” I said, not for the first time.
Ibriya covered his face with his upper arms. “Ugh,” he groaned. “I told you I can’t. It would be way too awkward if she says no.”
I shook my head. “She’s not going to—well, whatever. I don’t need you distracted by romance right now anyway. We’ve got an entire bog to search through for bloodstone.”
Ibriya uncovered his face, glaring at me. “Seriously. Why did I do this to myself?”
“Well, once we’ve succeeded, you’ll be the first Sheowon smith ever.” I grinned. “Shappi will definitely go out with you then.”
“Shut up,” he hissed. “I’m going to get some meat. Might as well use this fire to roast something.”
“You would disrespect the sanctity of our forge by cooking food on it?” I gasped. “Get enough for me, too.”
“Yeah, yeah. Got to keep the giant fed.”
I flexed my arms. “Keep it up and one day you just might be as magnificent as I am.”
He scoffed and walked away. I watched him go, feeling a warmth that went beyond the heat bleeding off the forge. After all these years of isolation, it was nice to once again have someone I considered a friend.