The ankylosaurus was dead, and it wasn't my fault.
Ok, so maybe it was kind of my fault. Or I guess, mostly my fault. Fine, it was like, 90% my fault. I maintain that it wouldn't have died if it hadn't stepped in front of the rolling boulder, but how was I supposed to know it was going to decide to walk that particular direction. So some of the blame can be put on its spiky ass.
I guess I should explain. The morning had come, and I geared up to head up the mountain. The trip up was uneventful, though a bit more exhausting than my first hike, due to the pickaxe and hammer I lugged along. I found a decent sized iron veined boulder, and had spent over an hour whacking it with the hammer and pickaxe, trying to dislodge the iron from it. I'd had minimal success, and after seeing more of the giant vultures fairly close, I decided on a different course of action. The mountain was a decent slope, and there wasn't a whole lot between it and the river at the base of my tower. My logic was, if I could dislodge the boulder and get it rolling, it would end up at the base of the mountain, far closer to my tower, and I'd feel more secure with trying to break it down.
You can probably see where this is going.
Well, I'd dislodged it. I'd even taken care to make sure nothing was in the immediate path that I thought it would roll down, and with a combination of digging, strength, physics, and my pickaxe, I managed to get it unseated from its earthly socket, and rolling down the hill. I'd even cheered when it finally started moving, and picking up speed. Then I saw the ankylosaurus step out from behind a boulder, waddling along right into the path of the massive rock. The impact was like a sadistic game of bowling. I felt pretty bad when the boulder crashed into the beast. It didn't fling the creature, so much as just crushed it, though I was a little impressed with how much air the rock got from the sudden spiky hill it had encountered. On the bright side, after the obstacle, the boulder slammed heavily against another boulder at the edge of the river, smashing both in an impressive display of rock, dust, and sand. I hadn't really planned for that to happen, but it sure saved me some effort, so I couldn't argue with the results.
I followed the path the boulder had taken down the mountain, stopping briefly at the casualty of Newton's second law. The beast was dead, naturally, and the rock had torn bits of flesh and its armored shell off. On a whim, I collected as much of the spiky substance as I could fit in the bag I had slung across my shoulder, figuring that I could find some use for it. I also spent some time hammering more pieces off the carcass, filling the bag to the brim. Waste not, want not, and all that jazz.
That done, I continued on, finally arriving at the boulders final destination. The force of the impact had shattered the rock in several pieces, and I was able to sift through and eventually found a decent sized chunk of pure iron, with bits of rock still stuck in small crevices. Perfect for what I needed it for. With some more searching, I found a much larger piece of iron, weighing probably forty pounds. It was a bitch to lift, but I needed that as well, and taking both prizes, I returned to my tower, and started working on a forge.
The logic behind it was easy enough. Make a fire hot enough to heat the metal, then beat it into the shape I needed. Simple in logic, no so much in practice. A fire could potentially get hot enough for my purpose, but I had to do this in a bushwhack method, and charcoal is what I actually needed. Since I couldn't exactly run down to the gas station and collect some, I had to settle with option 2. Enter, my wonderful journal. There was a written process in there for creating charcoal, which was actually quite clever. Returning to the base of my tower, I collected as many branches as I could, piling them into a large cone shape, maybe five feet tall. Then, I layered the entire thing in mud. From top to bottom, completely enclosed. While I waited for the mud to dry, I started working on the actual forge.
It would be a cylinder, like a smoke stack. Because I had no way of creating a bellows for it, I needed to use the natural air current coming from the north to support air flow and keep it hot. After finding the windiest spot on my tower, and using clay from the river, I started forming a small but genuine barrel forge. The walls needed to be thick, as I didn't want to wait the weeks it would take for the clay to dry into a rough ceramic. Instead, I built up the walls about four feet tall by a half foot thick, in a fully circular design, then lit a fire in the middle to dry it out. Along one edge, I piled up more clay in a slight wall, adding another two feet into a barrier that would come in handy later. On the side where the wind would be coming in, I dug out a small entrance, then formed a cone shape outwards, to catch and funnel the natural wind into the forge, then lit a second, smaller fire to sit inside the cone and dry that out as well.
With that done, I returned to my charcoal stack, and found the mud decently dry. I pulled chunks at intervals on the bottom of the mound off, uncovering the wood beneath. I also pulled the top off, giving an air flow through the entire thing. Then, with some assistance from dried leaves and kindling, I lit the wood within on fire. It took some coaxing, but after about twenty minutes, the wood inside was burning cheerfully, and flames spurt occasionally from the open top. In about an hour, I'd take more mud, and cover every hole, choking the oxygen out of the mound, and turning the remaining wood into a rough, but capable, charcoal. It was a brilliant bit of primitive engineering, and once again I sent my silent thanks to whoever had written the journal.
At this point, the sun was sitting low on the horizon. I spent some time catching and eating dinner with Sara and Shira, briefly returned to the mound to cover the holes, then retired to my shelter to get some sleep. The next morning, upon breaking open the charcoal mound, I was pleased to see the grayish black color of charcoal. The process had worked like a charm. Using one of the ceramic bowls I'd taken from the cabin, I started transporting the charcoal to the forge. It took several trips, as the bowl wasn't very big, and I committed to making a basket or something when I'd have some time. Before filling the forge, I placed the last crucial item I needed for the process, a large stone roughly the size of the bigger iron piece I had. It was the biggest stone with a flat top that I could find, and I spent a bit making sure it was relatively level inside the cylinder, then placed the larger chunk of iron on top of it. That done, I started a good amount of charcoal, then started adding more and more to the forge.
It took almost two hours for all the charcoal to light and come to heat, but eventually, with the forge up to its top with charcoal, and the air flow coming in the cone, I had a fiercely burning forge. It took another two hours of heating, which turned out to be a pretty damn boring process. There wasn't much I could do besides wait for the iron to come up to temperature. Without any kind of tongs or gloves, I had to improvise, hence the rock in the center. Once I felt that it had been in there long enough, I pushed charcoal out of the way with a handy stick, exposing the cheerfully glowing piece of iron. Then, without much subtlety, I started beating the hell out of it with my hammer.
It wasn't a great solution, but unfortunately, it was the only one I really had. Without having any decent way to pull the large piece out of the fire, I needed to hammer it to the general form I needed while it was still in the fire. Thankfully I didn't think I could hit it hard enough to split the rock it was settled on, but each strike caused sparks to shoot out violently. Fortunately, I'd planned for that, and the barrier wall I'd built up worked as a decent block for the majority of the spark, though I still got hit in the arms with small pieces of slag and metal, adding small burns to my resume of injuries. There was little I could do but keep going at it, occasionally pausing to scoop more charcoal into the fire, and taking a break to let the iron come back up to temperature. I did this about four times, until the top of the iron was almost completely flat, like I wanted. Satisfied, it was time to get a bit more dangerous.
I'd built the forge up close to the edge of my tower. This had the advantage of air flow, but there was a second reason. It was a straight drop from the edge down to the river. Using my pickaxe, and trying to be as careful as possible, I broke open the wall, spilling burning charcoal and clay down the side of the tower. Then, without much subtlety, I hooked the pickaxe around the red hot piece of iron, and forced it off the side to slam heavily into the water of the river, sending an impressive plume of steam to shoot up, along with the sharp hissing of evaporated water. Grinning, I stood back and inspected my work.
To harden the iron, it needed to be quenched, and with an easily accessible stream nearby, why bother carrying water up? Work smarter, not harder. Now, once the iron was cooled, and with the only downside being that it was going to look wonky as hell, I had a fairly decent facsimile of an anvil. Ghetto indeed.
I descended the tower, and found my anvil in the stream. The constant flow of water had cooled it quickly, and I lifted the heavy piece from the stream. As I'd hoped, the top I'd beaten was solid, and mostly flat. It would be perfect to work with. The rest of the iron looked haphazard and wonky, but nothing was perfect when you're doing everything from scratch I suppose. Lugging the heavy piece back up the tower, I plopped it to the ground, and spent some time pushing the rest of the charcoal off the tower top into the stream. Tomorrow, I'd build a second, smaller forge to use for the axe head, but for now, I was beat, and didn't feel like hauling more material up the tower.
Instead, I started working on a set of makeshift tongs to use for the axe head. With the anvil, nothing I could make in the forest would work to lift such a heavy piece, but for something smaller like the axe head, I could improvise a little bit. I found a decently thick sapling, nothing too big, and spent some time chopping it down. Then, with the assistance of some rocks, I stripped the bark, exposing the green wood beneath. Leaving about a foot at the end, I wrapped rope tightly around the piece, then split the wood the majority of the way down, being careful not to let the split go past the rope into my handle. Once split, I wrapped a second rope half a foot above the second, after the split, to keep tension on the split, and with some experiementing, I found I had a fairly stable, if goofy looking, holder. In theory, once I was ready to use it, I could layer clay where the wood would touch the iron, and that would help prevent the wood from burning. Once I had the iron between the pieces, I could tighten another rope further up the split, and it should hold it in place. Theoretically, anyways.
The next day, I repeated my process on a smaller scale. I'd burned through most of my charcoal, so I started with another charcoal mound, and left it to dry while I made another smaller forge. It went by quicker since I learned a few lessons from the first one, and after a few hours, I had a charcoal bed burning, and started working. I wanted to jump right to making the axe head, but after giving it some thought, I figured out that I needed one more thing before I could make the type of head I needed. A simple punch, probably in a slight funnel shape, so I could create the hole the handle would fit through. So, I started there, taking another chunk of iron from the destroyed boulder, and started forming it.
Turns out, blacksmithing is a bitch. They make it look so easy on YouTube, so I guess I thought that it was because it was an easy task. It really isn't. I'd get maybe a dozen hits in before I'd have to replace the iron in the forge. On the bright side, my tongs worked like a charm, and I kept a supply of clay close by to keep the wood from burning. All in all, it took me nearly three hours of smacking the piece of iron to get it into the general shape I needed. I was sore, sweating, and my hands were cramped, both from holding the tongs and smacking the iron, and I still hadn't even started on the actual axe head. I wanted to stop for the day, but knowing that I'd have to rebuild everything kept me going. I heated the punch once more, and let it sit in the fire for another hour, getting fully up to temperature, before quenching it in a pot of water I'd hauled up from the river, a process called heat treating, which hardened the metal into a useable tool.
With the punch done, I started working on the axe head, and while it was still difficult, I found it to be somewhat satisfying, watching a chunk of iron turn slowly into the general shape of an axe. There was something distinctly calming about the process, tedious as it might have been. I lost myself in the work, forming the metal to the shape I wanted, then using the punch to work out a hole for the handle. My makeshift anvil handled the work amazingly, despite the relatively haphazard way I'd gone about making it. I'd dug out a small pit on a raised portion of the hill, so I could stand and have it easily accessible, and the day rang with the blows from my hammer. In hindsight, I was amazed that I didn't draw any attention from predators with the sound.
Finally, hours later, I'd finished forming the head, and heat treating it. It wasn't pretty by any stretch of the imagination, and without any way to file or grind the head, it wasn't going to be pretty either, but the shape was right, the hole was there, and I'd beveled the edges to hopefully help with sharpening it. That was going to be the most tedious part, but if I could find some stones of the right grit, I was confident that I could get an edge on it.
Without having to break the forge to get to the piece, I was able to leave it as is, and let the charcoal burn out on its own. The forge would be relatively useless tomorrow, and I'd have to create a new one if I needed to do any more metal work, but for now, I was satisfied. I wanted to get to work right away on sharpening it, as it would take a long while to get an edge on it with nothing but rocks. Collecting my fishing spear, I went and caught dinner, and filled my water skin along the way. With no easily available oil, water would have to suffice. Not as good, but it was better than nothing. After eating with Shira and Sara, I settled myself down, and started sharpening on a few rocks I'd collected during my walk to catch a fish. It didn't go fast. I'd beveled the blade as much as I could on the anvil, but to get a decent edge, it needed a whetstone, elbow grease, and lots of time. Fortunately, I had all three.
I sharpened for as long as I could stand it, then retired to my shelter. The next day was more of the same, taking breaks occasionally to play with Shira and Sara, catch fish, collect berries, or just relax. By the time the sun was setting again, I'd finally managed to put an edge on the blade, though it still wasn't sharp. It'd take a bit more effort, but I was nearly there. By lunch time the next day, I finally had it to my satisfaction. It wasn't a razor, but fortunately, axes shouldn't be razor sharp. A good keen edge on it was important, but a razor edge would actually cause it to break down quicker. My next step was a handle, and by comparison, that was a breeze. I took a branch of oak that had been left over from the gate, stripped the bark, and used the axe head to shape it how I wanted. Rubbing stones along the handle worked as a decent replacement for sandpaper. I split one end of the handle a few inches, then slipped the axe head over the split. Using my hammer, I forced a wedge into the split, securing the head in place, and after a bit more sanding with a rock, I had finally finished. After only five days, tons of work, two forges, at least a dozen burns, and a whole slew of curse words, I had my very own, homemade, ghetto as shit axe.
Hot damn I'm good.
Tomorrow I'd start felling trees. With an actual, legitimate axe handy, the work would go a lot faster. As I settled into my shelter with Shira, the new axe at my side, I felt something I hadn't felt since I'd been here. Hope. I'd figured out a method, albeit fairly painstaking, to create metal weapons. The axe was only the start. A knife or a spear would be next, and hell, if I really felt squirrely, I could forge a damn sword. Let's see a raptor try to take a piece of me if I had a fucking claymore to slap it around with. I had the capability to create weapons now, and that in turn, filled me with hope. Laying down, I let the feeling of hope consume me, and I drifted to sleep with a smile on my face.