Towers of Midnight (The Wheel of Time 13)

Perrin held up a horseshoe, then frowned. This wasn't difficult enough work. It was soothing, yes, but today he wanted something more challenging. He felt a need to create, as if to balance the destruction he'd seen in the world, the destruction he'd helped create. There were several lengths of unworked steel stacked beside the forge, finer material than what was used for shoes. They were probably waiting to be turned into swords for the former refugees.

Perrin took several of those lengths of steel and set them into coals. This forge wasn't as nice as what he was accustomed to; though he had a bellows and three barrels for quenching, the wind cooled the metal, and the coals didn't get as hot as he'd like. He watched with dissatisfaction.

"I can help you with that, Lord Perrin," Neald said from the side. "Heat the metal up, if you want."

Perrin eyed him, then nodded. He plucked out a length of steel, holding it up with his tongs. "I want it a nice yellow-red. Not so hot it goes white, mind you."

Neald nodded. Perrin set the bar on the anvil, took out his hammer, and began to pound again. Neald stood at the side, concentrating.

Perrin lost himself in the work. Forge the steel. All else faded. The rhythmic pounding of hammer on metal, like the beating of his heart. That shimmering metal, warm and dangerous. In that focus, he found clarity. The world was cracking, breaking further each day. It needed help, right now. Once a thing shattered, you couldn't put it back together.

"Neald," Grady's voice said. It was urgent, but distant to Perrin. "Neald, what are you doing?"

"I don't know," Neald replied. "It feels right."

Perrin continued to pound, harder and harder. He folded the metal, flattening pieces against one another. It was wonderful the way the Asha'man kept it at exactly the right temperature. That freed Perrin from needing to rely on only a few moments of perfect temperature between heatings.

The metal seemed to flow, almost as if shaped by his will alone. What was he making? He took the other two lengths out of the flames, then began to switch between the three. The first and largest he folded upon itself, molding it, using a process known as shrinking where he increased its girth. He made it into a large ball, then added more steel to it until it was nearly as large as a man's head. The second he drew, making it long and thin, then folded it into a narrow rod. The final, smallest piece he flattened.

He breathed in and out, his lungs working like bellows. His sweat was like the quenching waters. His arms were like the anvil. He was the forge.

"Wise Ones, I need a circle," Neald said urgently. "Now. Don't argue! I need it!"

Sparks began to fly as Perrin pounded. Larger showers with each blow. He felt something leaking from him, as if each blow infused the metal with his own strength, and also his own feelings. Both worries and hopes. These flowed from him into the three unwrought pieces.

The world was dying. He couldn't save it. That was Rand's job. Perrin just wanted to go back to his simple life, didn't he?

No. No, he wanted Faile, he wanted complexity. He wanted life. He couldn't hide, any more than the people who followed him could hide.

He didn't want their allegiance. But he had it. How would he feel if someone else took command, and then got them killed?

Blow after blow. Sprays of sparks. Too many, as if he were pounding against a bucket of molten liquid. Sparks splashed in the air, exploding from his hammer, flying as high as treetops and spreading tens of paces. The people watching withdrew, all save the Asha'man and Wise Ones, who stood gathered around Neald.

I don't want to lead them, Perrin thought. But if I don't, who will? If I abandon them, and they fall, then it will be my fault.

Perrin saw now what he was making, what he'd been trying to make all along. He worked the largest lump into a btick shape. The long piece became a rod, thick as three fingers. The flat piece became a capping bracket, a piece of metal to wrap around the head and join it to the shaft.

A hammer He was making a hammer. These were the parts.

He understood now.

He grew to his task. Blow after blow. Those beats were so loud. Each blow seemed to shake the ground around him, rattling tents. Perrin exulted. He knew what he was making. He finally knew what he was making.

He hadn't asked to become a leader, but did that absolve him of responsibility? People needed him. The world needed him. And, with an understanding that cooled in him like molten rock forming into a shape, he realized that he wanted to lead.

If someone had to be lord of these people, he wanted to do it himself. Because doing it yourself was the only way to see that it was done right.

He used his chisel and rod, shaping a hole through the center of the hammer's head, then grabbed the haft and raising it far over his head slammed it down into place. He took the bracket and laid the hammer on it, then shaped it. Mere moments ago, this process had fed off his anger. But now it seemed to draw forth his resolution, his determination.

Metal was something alive. Every blacksmith knew this. Once you heated it, while y

ou worked it, it lived. He took his hammer and chisel and began to shape patterns, ridges, modifications. Waves of sparks flew from him, the tinging of his hammer ever stronger, ever louder, pealing like bells. He used his chisel on a small chunk of steel to form a shape, then placed it down on top of the hammer.

With a roar, he raised his old hammer one last time ovet his head and beat it down on the new one, imprinting the ornamentation upon the side of the hammer. A leaping wolf.

Perrin lowered his tools. On the anvil still glowing with an inner heat was a beautiful hammer. A work beyond anything he'd ever created, or thought that he might create. It had a thick, powerful head, like a maul or sledge, but the back was fonned cross-face and flattened. Like a blacksmith's tool. It was four feet from bottom to top, maybe longer, an enormous size for a hammer of this type.

The haft was all of steel, something he'd never seen on a hammer before. Perrin picked it up; he was able to lift it with one hand, but barely. It was heavy. Solid.