ever be. The naked blade spanned a handwidth, its guard three times as wide. When Murderer was rested upon its point (which neither S e drich would think to do in practice), the fist-sized pommel stood even with the younger blacksmith’s chin. When the sword was slung across his back, handle high above his head, with the broad guard at his right shou l der, the scabbard-tip slapped the back of his knee.
The grip—fashioned not from leather windings, as was customary with the Helvetii, but of iron disks separated by mandrel-wound glass was h ers—constituted a third of the entire greatsword, allowing leverage necessary to swing the thing. The broad iron cross-guard tips pointed straight forward, splayed to trap an opponent’s weapon. And trap it was, a broad path leading along the flat, polished edges of the unground “forte” onto a wedge of case-hardened steel inset upon the guard-face. This would notch another blade. With a hearty twist of the wielder’s wrist, the dinted blade would snap like dried sea-oat.
Survival then became a matter of avoiding the other fellow’s jagged stump as it flashed off the guard.
Only half the blade was ground—the foible, Owaldsohn called it, a flimsy naming, Sedrich thought, for such a length of deadly steel as this—sharpened to the whispery keenness of a blade of grass along both edges all the way round its leaf-shaped point.
Yet Owaldsohn’s truest genius lay in the fact that, the handwidth blade notwithstanding, Murderer balanced at the apex of the breaking-wedge. This miracle had he accomplished only in part by means of the weighted “four-hand” grip. The “fuller,” a broad, round-bottomed cha n nel exten d ing from a finger’s width behind the point the full length of the foible and halfway down the forte, was responsible. Where it was deepest, the blade felt parchment-thin. Yet in a single stroke (a more practiced stroke than Sedrich yet was capable of delivering), Murderer could hew down a tree the diameter of the boy’s head.
After decades of war against the western savages, the weapon’s sheen betrayed neither nick nor scratch. Murderer was a perfect impl e ment. Try as he might, Sedrich could think of no innovation, no alter a tion of form or fabrication—save perhaps in its monumental propo r tions—which might have improved it.
This annoyed him.
“Now the right hand for a while , and back to the left!”
But not as much as his father’s persistence.
3
Afternoon found Sedrich at the village boatshed, where the weat h ered pier jutted into the estuary. Save for the young blacksmith, the place was deserted. It was too late in the day for any boats to be depar t ing, too early for any to be coming home.
His tools lay spread about him.
At the request of some of the fishermen, Sedrich was attempting to determine whether it was practical to fit half a dozen of his devices to the steeply curved gunwales of a dory, presently hauled up for repairs. He wasn’t the only one, they’d told him, who could get new ideas. Each crank, forged wide for what came close to being a small ship, would be turned by two men, creating a craft which could run swift upon calm water as a whitetail through a forest clearing, keeping its bow into the nastiest swell if caught in unexpected storms.
Sedrich had his doubts about the latter.
Across the water, wading-birds called raucously.
The young man had come to shoulder much responsibility for one of his short years, always busy, his few idle moments filled with sketches, a c quiring scrap, altering its shape and composition, pursuing boyhood dreams his custom might have doubted, as he doubted theirs. Despite pe r sistent clamor for more boat-cranks, there was idle time to fill. Ilse, making certain of it, pressed this wisdom upon her men: labor must give way to rest and play, else accomplish less and less. That her husband’s “rest” and her son’s “play” resembled what they did for a living, she could but shrug
The grip—fashioned not from leather windings, as was customary with the Helvetii, but of iron disks separated by mandrel-wound glass was h ers—constituted a third of the entire greatsword, allowing leverage necessary to swing the thing. The broad iron cross-guard tips pointed straight forward, splayed to trap an opponent’s weapon. And trap it was, a broad path leading along the flat, polished edges of the unground “forte” onto a wedge of case-hardened steel inset upon the guard-face. This would notch another blade. With a hearty twist of the wielder’s wrist, the dinted blade would snap like dried sea-oat.
Survival then became a matter of avoiding the other fellow’s jagged stump as it flashed off the guard.
Only half the blade was ground—the foible, Owaldsohn called it, a flimsy naming, Sedrich thought, for such a length of deadly steel as this—sharpened to the whispery keenness of a blade of grass along both edges all the way round its leaf-shaped point.
Yet Owaldsohn’s truest genius lay in the fact that, the handwidth blade notwithstanding, Murderer balanced at the apex of the breaking-wedge. This miracle had he accomplished only in part by means of the weighted “four-hand” grip. The “fuller,” a broad, round-bottomed cha n nel exten d ing from a finger’s width behind the point the full length of the foible and halfway down the forte, was responsible. Where it was deepest, the blade felt parchment-thin. Yet in a single stroke (a more practiced stroke than Sedrich yet was capable of delivering), Murderer could hew down a tree the diameter of the boy’s head.
After decades of war against the western savages, the weapon’s sheen betrayed neither nick nor scratch. Murderer was a perfect impl e ment. Try as he might, Sedrich could think of no innovation, no alter a tion of form or fabrication—save perhaps in its monumental propo r tions—which might have improved it.
This annoyed him.
“Now the right hand for a while , and back to the left!”
But not as much as his father’s persistence.
3
Afternoon found Sedrich at the village boatshed, where the weat h ered pier jutted into the estuary. Save for the young blacksmith, the place was deserted. It was too late in the day for any boats to be depar t ing, too early for any to be coming home.
His tools lay spread about him.
At the request of some of the fishermen, Sedrich was attempting to determine whether it was practical to fit half a dozen of his devices to the steeply curved gunwales of a dory, presently hauled up for repairs. He wasn’t the only one, they’d told him, who could get new ideas. Each crank, forged wide for what came close to being a small ship, would be turned by two men, creating a craft which could run swift upon calm water as a whitetail through a forest clearing, keeping its bow into the nastiest swell if caught in unexpected storms.
Sedrich had his doubts about the latter.
Across the water, wading-birds called raucously.
The young man had come to shoulder much responsibility for one of his short years, always busy, his few idle moments filled with sketches, a c quiring scrap, altering its shape and composition, pursuing boyhood dreams his custom might have doubted, as he doubted theirs. Despite pe r sistent clamor for more boat-cranks, there was idle time to fill. Ilse, making certain of it, pressed this wisdom upon her men: labor must give way to rest and play, else accomplish less and less. That her husband’s “rest” and her son’s “play” resembled what they did for a living, she could but shrug
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