Chapter 34: XXXIV – Watching a Master at Work

“We humbly thank the Honored One for the gifts! May the Deities of Yore retake their rightful place and set things right once more!” intoned Avec-Litu, the Village Elder of Navef when Esperanza dragged the remnants of the creatures she hunted deep in the woods to the village. She was rather surprised by the enthusiastic looks on Adan-Zil and his fellow hunters’ eyes, but otherwise the groveling and obeisance was as she expected.

 

The remnants of the beasts’ carcasses she brought with her still had many of their most valuable parts attached. The villagers especially crowded at the sharp bones of a Grazer’s thagomizer, its antlers, as well as the claws and fangs of another predator she killed on her way back. Apparently, the material those parts were made of was better than anything the village used for their weapons.

 

As such, they would be able to make better ones by sharpening and forming the material she gave them into blades and spearheads. Esperanza was actually curious about the processing of the materials, since she was told that they were harder and sturdier than anything the village had. As such, she expressed her desire to observe the work as well.

 

“You sure I wouldn’t be disturbing?” she asked Adan-Zil when they headed to a large hut which the village’s crafter used as her workshop. The crafter herself was a short, but very wide person, with thick, coarse hair covering her whole form to the point that she looked almost like some sort of shaggy monkey from a distance.

 

“There is no need for worry, Honored One,” said Adan-Zil from beside her. “Old Avalanusi here wouldn’t care if the Deities themselves were to descend if she was in the middle of work. Nothing would take her attention away from the work she had at hand. She just works that way.”

 

“That’s good to hear, then. I was worried that my being here would distract her,” replied Esperanza. She was seated on a bench at one corner of the hut, far enough away so as to not disturb the crafter, but close enough that she could see the whole process in detail with her eyes. Dali and Gordy were lying down on the ground, wrapped around her feet like soft, warm blankets.

 

From the moment they entered the hut, the old crafter never turned her eyes to regard her visitors. Instead, her beady eyes were fully focused at the forge ahead of her, where she had part of the Grazer’s antler rack as it was being heated. It was an odd sight, as the flames heated the antlers and caused it to glow a dull yellow, almost as if it was metal, despite how it was clearly nothing of the sort.

 

The old crafter used few tools, only a set of tongs with which she held the antler over the roaring fire, and a thick, sturdy glove worn over her hands. Once she extracted the rack of antlers from the flames, Esperanza almost gasped as she saw the old crafter grab the glowing-hot antler with her gloved hands. There was no scream of pain or even a grunt of discomfort, as the old crafter acted as if she was not holding a piece of material so hot it glowed.

 

Then she bent the glowing antler over a solid, cylindrical piece of rock, slowly shifting its shape into something more usable with nothing more than her strength. Slowly but surely, the piece of antler straightened from its natural bent form, into something more suitable to be used as an actual weapon, the heat having made the material more malleable.

 

After she got the pieces of antler mostly straightened out – the rack now resembled a single straight bar with many smaller perpendicular bars growing from its sides – the old crafted brought out a rather hefty-looking hatchet, its head made from polished stone attached to a solid wooden handle. She held the rack of antlers firmly with one hand as her other hand held the hatchet.

 

A moment later, the hatchet was lifted and struck the still-glowing antler.

 

Only a shallow mark was left from the blow, but the old crafter seemed to be satisfied. She lifted the tool and landed more blows on the antler, then flipped it around and did the same to its backside. After her work was done, she returned the antler to the fire to re-heat it for a while. Once it glowed brightly, she pulled the antler out from the fire and dipped the whole rack into a basin full of cold water.

 

Almost immediately, an explosion of steam filled the air within the hut, followed by loud sounds that suspiciously sounded like bones breaking. When the steam cleared, Esperanza saw the old crafted standing above the water basin with a smile visible through her fur – or was it body hair? She was not sure – as she dipped her hands into the water and picked something out.

 

What Avalanusi held in her hand was a piece of antler, one of the smaller protrusions, neatly split right where it joined the main branch. Esperanza caught on to how she did the feat when she saw the clean break at the antler’s base. The old crafter had struck some fault line into the rack’s structure, then heated it, followed by a rapid cooling. That rapid shift in temperature was what broke the rack of antlers, and since there were already fault lines carved into it, the rack broke along those lines.

 

The old woman then fished out the rest of the rack, sectioned into similarly sized pieces. She set aside part of them before she chose one piece in particular to work on, one of the longest parts of the antler that remained curved despite her best efforts.

 

With the antler grasped in her tongs, the old crafter stoked the fire to new heights as she placed the piece of antler in close proximity to the flames. This time she heated the piece until its glow was nearly blinding before she pulled it out, and swiftly placed it over a flat stone that the woman likely used as an anvil. Her choice of tools for working the antler further did surprise Esperanza, though.

 

Rather than any tool, old Avalanusi used her gloved hands once more to work the glowing-hot piece of antler. She struck the antler with hammerfist blows that slowly, but surely flattened the material, flipped it over from time to time, and worked it from both sides. After she worked the antler for a while, she returned it to the fire for reheating.

 

It was a slow and laborious process to work the material, but Esperanza saw how the thick cylindrical piece of antler slowly flattened out into a shape that was more similar to a knife or machete blade of some sort, if a strongly curved one. The flattening process itself must have taken hours, before the old crafted nodded with satisfaction and reheated the material one final time.

 

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Then she further worked the antler between her gloved hands, using the pressure from her fingers to shape it more to her liking.

 

What eventually resulted from her labors was a crude-looking forward-curved knife blade of sorts. Esperanza thought it resembled a Kukri knife, if longer and more rounded in shape. The old crafter then ground the edge of the still-glowing blade against another piece of antler to sharpen it, something she clearly exerted great effort to do, only occasionally splashing some water between the surfaces to cool them down and wash away the particles that were grinded out in the sharpening process.

 

Once the old crafter looked satisfied with the blade, she heated the remaining part of the antler that she had not used to make the blade once more. This time her hands molded the heated antler into a short handle, also curved like the blade, with an oval-ish cross section. The handle ended with a small knob of antler and had only a small protrusion that served as a handguard.

 

Unlike before, the old crafter allowed the material to cool slowly as she searched for other tidbits in the hut she called a workshop. She returned with some strips of what looked like leather and feathers from some bird in her hands, which she then wrapped around the handle of the knife she just made with skillful moves.

 

Though the process took a long while – Esperanza had returned to the village of Navef in the morning and it was already well in the evening – she found the process rather mesmerizing to watch. Dali and Gordy woke up a few times during the process but returned to sleep when they noticed Esperanza watching the crafter at work with rapt attention.

 

Old Avalanusi wrapped the handle of the antler-knife she made carefully with the leather strips, in a criss-crossed pattern. As for the feathers, she attached them to the backside of the hand guard and near the pommel, more as decorations than anything. While the whole knife remained rather crude-looking, not unlike some stone knives she had seen in history books, it looked more like the work of art it clearly was at that point.

 

To Esperanza’s surprise, the old crafter then reverently knelt before her on both knees, both arms extended towards her. She offered the knife she just crafted with both hands, now ungloved, and looked at her with shining, hopeful eyes.

 

“Uhh… For me?” asked Esperanza, who was uncertain on how to proceed with things. She was uncertain if it was some sort of ritualistic offering or something different, as she had not spent that much time with the village yet, and glanced at Adan-Zil for assistance. 

 

Adan-Zil returned a nod and a gesture that meant she should accept the offering.

 

“Thank you, then,” said Esperanza as she stood up from her bench and accepted the proffered knife with both hands. The old crafter said no words, but the delight in her eyes were obvious for all to see as she gave another deep bow of obeisance before she returned to her work. To Esperanza’s eye, the old crafter looked more spirited and held herself straighter as she continued to work on the remaining bits of antler.

 

Together with Adan-Zil, she left the hut shortly after, the antler knife still in her hands. Dali and Gordy woke up and followed her the moment they noticed her move away, staying close to her at all times.

 

“What was that about?” demanded Esperanza to the old hunter, though her voice was laden more with curiosity rather than command.

 

“It is Avalanusi’s tribe’s ritual, Honored One,” replied the old hunter with a slight bow. “Whatever they crafted out of the best material they had on hand was offered to the Deities of Yore. Since you were present, I believe Avalanusi saw that as an honor, personal attention from the Messenger of the Deities, and thus chose to present her finest work to you instead.”

 

“Ah, entiendo, I will cherish this gift then,” said Esperanza as she understood the weight of the offering she had been given. The knife was a fine piece of work, the antler having taken a nearly golden hue after the crafting process, with a blade that looked sturdy and extremely sharp. The forward-curved handle felt a bit odd in her hand at first, but she quickly got used to it. 

 

Seen from afar, the blade almost looked like a golden crescent moon in shape, the form clearly meant for heavy chops. While Esperanza had no actual need for such a blade, she was not so rude as to turn down the present, much less with its weight as an offering behind it. 

 

She quietly thanked Adan-Zil and asked him to convey her gratitude to Avalanusi, before she left the village with Dali and Gordy in tow. Before the night fell, she was already back at the small hut she called home, and chose to test the knife out of curiosity.

 

To her surprise, when she tried to chop a tree branch near her hut, the knife simply sliced through the wood like it wasn’t even there, the cut as smooth as a mirror’s surface.