Shadows curled about the edges of the forge, their gloom cast in murky contrast to the red heat of the furnace, its coals glowing like livid cherries. Tongues of flame licked up its ash-blasted sides, its wide mouth cut into the bare stone tapering to a thin ventilation shaft, venting smoke up and away from the interior of the room. Dug deep into the foundations of the great hill upon which Tirion sat, the rough-hewn walls stood in silent witness to the House of Fëanor's best-kept secret. Far above, his usual airy forges lay openly about his property, frequented by labourers and nobility alike. They birthed some of the finest creations ever wrought in Arda; clearest crystals set in glittering diadems, strands of gold and silver woven as if they were thread into intricate necklaces and shimmering bracelets; the coarse, rude metals refined and sculpted under Fëanor's skilful hands to works of unparalleled clarity and beauty. But below, in a subterranean cave unbeknownst to any save Fëanor and his sons lay another: a forge for steel, for iron, for the most secret works and devices. And it was here now that Fëanor laboured.
With a swift tug, he pulled a glowing blade of steel from where it nestled amongst the coals, feeling its raw, pulsing heat even through his thick leather gloves as they gripped tightly about a crude hilt. Its crossbars flared out a little lower down, sloping back inwards to a long, slightly curved blade an inch in width. Their rough shapes were already defined by hours of work; hissing gouts of molten steel poured and pressed into molds, sheets of fluid metal folded, cooled and folded again, the unrefined silhouette of a sword slowly solidifying until it could be perfected.
With the swift, efficient movement born of centuries of practise, he turned, laying the sword across the dark anvil sitting adjacent to the furnace. He blinked as the glowing afterimages danced before his eyes, smelling the acrid tang of metal sizzling against metal. Wiping the sweat from his brow against collar of his tunic, poking from beneath his heavy smith's apron, he grabbed a solid hammer from the menagerie of blacksmithing tools arrayed upon a nearby table. He weighed it for a moment, juggling it slightly within his gloved hand, his eyes locked upon the still-glowing blade before him. And for an instant it was as if he could see within it, see all of its folds, where rivulets of iron and carbon knitted together at an atomic level, he could pierce through its secrets and so master it, take it and shape it for himself. Readied, he gripped the hilt of the sword firmly within his left hand, and with his right swung the hammer down in one ringing crash. The impact jolted up his arm, and he flinched a little at the shock of it, his shoulder jarring weirdly in its socket. Tiny sparks of metal exploded away from his strike, most of them harmlessly pattering against his apron, but some flicking across his bare arms, the thin film of sweat that shone there doing little to shield him from their stings. He shook his arm away in irritation, a frown knotting his brow.
That was an amateur's mistake, he thought, the wrong angle of impact.
Scowling, he examined the metal closely, satisfying himself that no damage had been done to it. He noted its red tinge fading back to grey, and sighing in annoyance he thrust the metal back into the furnace. As it reheated, he strode across the room, gathering a bucket of icy water drawn from one of the underground rivers that flowed through a nearby cavern, an unexpected discovery while expanding his house's foundations some centuries ago. Placing it near the anvil, he checked on the steel, and determining that it was not yet ready, walked swiftly to a wooden shelf bolted into the wall. His eyes ran over the six unsheathed longswords that lay across it, each forged by his hand from the finest steel, the light sliding like liquid crimson down their sharpened, three and a half foot lengths.
Their grips were wrapped in midnight leather, their scabbards maroon and inlaid with golden filigree at the chape, with an eight-pointed star wrought of smoothest silver set into the locket, rising almost seamlessly out of the leather. Each sword was identical, but for the egg-sized jewel sunk into the pommel; a different stone for each of his sons. A great ruby for his eldest, its dark facets glistening as if a clot of blood were trapped in the crystal; a clear sapphire for Maglor, pallid against the steel but for a knot of cobalt swirled through the gemstone's heart. An elegant emerald for Celegorm; for Caranthir a dark sapphire, tending towards an indigo hue, deep and strangely murky. A glittering diamond cut for Curufin, wraithlike amid the cold steel, and for his youngest a pair of matched emeralds, two halves cut from a single great jewel that he had mined himself, its delicate green like the shimmering rays of Laurelin caught in the shiver of the morning dew. One studded the pommel of a sword already, the other waited beside it to be sheathed in its own metallic home, twin weapons for twin brothers. Behind the swords lay a line of battle-helms, their wide cheek-guards cut like sloping wings. Plumes of dyed swan's feathers spilled from their midlines, a shock of red carving through the silver metalwork.
A faint, self-indulgent smile played at the corners of his lips as he turned back to the forge, once more pulling the red-hot steel from the furnace in a spray of burning embers. He took up his hammer again, feeling the metal shudder beneath his blow, the rills of shock running up his arm, but this time with a measure of fluidity, the impact absorbed with practised, professional technique. Gradually he settled into a rhythm of strikes, the metallic tattoo clanging about the cavern, the refracted sound into a chorus of strange echoes by the cavern walls. Time slipped from him, caught almost trance-like within the swing and crash of his hammer, every minute adjustment instinctive, the knowledge of where to place his blows, when to re-heat the metal blooming in him like something visceral, this innate surety guiding his hands. After a time, he began to slow, his hammer strokes becoming softer, more precise, until with a jolt he snapped from his mechanical reverie, coldly appraising the well-formed blade lying before him. Laying aside his hammer, he grasped the sword's hilt, flicking it upright in his fist as he examined the taper of the blade with eagle's eyes, precise and calculating.
Seven swords, he thought, for seven sons. And plumes red as blood to match their shining steel.
Satisfied, he quickly returned the cooling metal to the furnace, carefully watching until he judged the metal to be hot, but not made malleable. He pulled it out once more, then with a twist plunged it into the bucket of water nearby, grinning as the water bubbled and hissed, little blisters of air running over the blade before they evaporated in a boiling cloud of steam. He held the seething metal underwater, the violence of its intrusion rippling slightly through its length.
Good, he thought, the metal must bend a little, must show its flexibility, else it shall snap. Ironic. A sneer curled over his lips, marring his handsome features. I am done with flexibility. My brother's insult will be suffered no more. His infection will be destroyed.
Thrice more he tempered the steel, passing it first through the furnace, then quenching it in water, hardening the metal, solidifying its structure. At last content, he left the sword immersed within the still-bubbling water, leaning against the bucket's edge. Wearily he walked around the forge, rolling his shoulders, loosening his muscles long stiffened with fatigue. He wiped the sweat from his brow with a stained rag he found lying amongst a clutter of iron scraps, then rolling his eyes as he realized he had succeeded in smearing himself with whatever remains clung to that rag, although whether it carbon or rust or some metal oxide he was unsure. Grimacing, he wiped it off his forehead with the inside of his wrist, at the same time smoothing back the locks of hair that had escaped his ponytail during his exertions and now clung to his cheeks in slick, itchy strands. He pulled off a glove, re-tying his hair, as he wandered over to the workbench, before taking up a smooth whetstone, and a length of rough-grained sandpaper, tucking them into the pouch at the front of his apron. Crossing the room, he lifted the sword free of the water, and with his bare hand tapped a finger down the length of the blade, his eyes narrowed in concentration. Finally he was content that he could find no fault in the metal, no unevenness or weakness to mar its integrity.
Thus, he moved to a stool by the workbench, sitting with the blade angled away from him so that he could look down its length, examining the run of the dull steel, the indent of the fuller narrowing and rising to the central ridge, which then tapered off to a formidable point. He took up the whetstone, grinding it down the blade, honing its edge until it shone bright in the glare of the furnace, a weapon to cut through flesh as if it were butter, to part muscle and shear bone, a point to puncture organs. The scrape of stone against metal set his teeth on edge, but he ignored it he once more working to a machine-like rhythm, running the whetstone down the blade careful and gentle as a lover.
We are infected, came a sudden thought, images of his brother jumping unbidden into his mind. And if the tissue is infected, how best to treat the wound? Exorcise it, with sweet herbs and spells sung in the twilight, with all of our gentle arts nurse it back to health. And though it may bleed, the scabs will peel, dark blood and pus flowing like ichor over pale skin, eventually the wound will be clean, it will heal, and the blood will run pure and red and pumping. Then we stitch up the skin, with needle and thread knit it back together. And the scars will fade and we can be whole again.
Gradually, he began to alternate the whetstone with the sandpaper, flaking away the dull, fire-blasted layer of steel to reveal its shimmering core; the metal stained a deep, ruddy crimson by the glowering embers of the furnace. Structurally it was complete, but for the inlay; the pale emerald waiting to be bound within the socket of the pommel, with the metallurgy and spells of his craft set within the steel. The grip needed wrapping, the blade an inscription, simple tasks to be finished later. And after a time, spent in silent, meticulous work but for the hiss of scraping metal and the odd crackle of the coals, he was still, the sword shining keen and new in his hands.
But what if we fail? What if the infection cannot be countered, if it proves resistant? Where sweetness and magic founder, what course then remains?
He flicked the sword up, a grin breaking across his face, all twisted lips and pointed incisors as hungrily he stared at the blade, watching the light drip down its razor edge, moiling across its flat. His eyes gleamed, and softly he purred,
"We amputate the limb."