Chapter 10: Saws and Brvost

“No it needs to be thin, and if at all possible it needs to be a little flexible but still able to hold an edge,” I said and the smith looked at the picture I had drawn for him. “Like this thick,” I said holding my fingers about a fourth of an inch apart.

“That should be simple enough,” he said, nodding to himself, “while the Iron is hot I can strike the teeth into it with a chisel,” he was talking more to himself than to me at this point as he planned the project out.

“Don’t forget that every other tooth needs to be bent off to a slight angle like this,” I demonstrated by interlacing my fingers together and having one set point one way and the others another direction.

“As I said easy enough,” he looked at me a look of curiosity in his eyes, “You called this a saw blade, what exactly is this saw blade used for?” he asked, and I smiled at him.

“To saw things,” I answered and he snorted at me, this wasn't the first time I had come to talk to him about getting things forged, all in all I had been living in that small house for the past two weeks now, and it was definitely starting to feel more like home to me, I had started accruing and collecting the small nick nacks and tools necessary to this life over the weeks since the roof went up, among those things had been several blankets and other covers, including some furs and more than a single pair of clothing. The issue was that I still didn't have a bed, a dresser, or any cupboards for all of the things that I had just purchased. I had no doubt I could make those things, but in order to do that I would need planks of wood, and while it was possible to split rough planks from a log with shims and a flat axe I had literally no skill with that, and so a saw was a much much better way of going about that for me. Which was exactly why I was here at the smiths. “How long do you think this will take?” I asked him, crossing my arms and leaning back against a post and out of the rather sweltering heat of the fire he had going for his forging.

“A day,” he said without hesitation, “The hardest part of this will be the punching of the hole here for the handle but once it is hot I can drift it large enough,” he looked at me and smiled to himself, “even for you,” The smith was a large man, but he wasn't as tall as I was, it was still a little jarring to be the tallest guy in the area but I smiled good-naturedly at him and he laughed and slapped me on the shoulder.

The design I was having him make was a pretty standard hand saw, the type that you could find in practically every hardware store for the past 100 or so years in the other world, it had a vertical grip in one end and looked sort of like a trapezoid with the front of the blade coming to what would be a point if it extended a few extra inches, instead it looked like it was cut off and squared at the end. Once he had this one made for me I could use it to saw small planks, meaning I could make whatever I needed if I fell the trees and let them season, after all greenwood wasn't really the best for building, what with the way it shrunk and all.

“A day,” I nodded in agreement and handed him the single Kuul he had asked for to make the saw and bid him farewell. After all the sooner he got to work the sooner I could do what I needed. And besides, I had to go see Hrofdaal, I found him out in the field breaking another Brvost, this one looking particularly ornery as it charged him over and over. I had seen him do this several times now, but still, it was rather impressive every time, if this was a different time and place I could see this developing into a rodeo like sport with men going in and demonstrating to the crowds there mastery of timing, positioning, judgment, and massive brass balls. I made sure to not interrupt him as I leaned up against the railing and waited for him to be done, it took a good twenty or so minutes but eventually he had the thing laying on the ground panting, its energy and rage all expended and with a smile he came over to me shield slung on his back and his brow soaked in sweat.

“Erik!” he said, a large smile on his broad face as he climbed out of the pen and reached out grasping my forearm and giving me a hearty welcome. He was stripped to the waist, his bare torso gleaming in the sunlight and a rather impressive collection of muscles rippling beneath the skin.

“Working hard or hardly working?” I asked him with a smile and he laughed at me.

“Is it really work if you enjoy it?” he asked, his smile going wide, and his teeth flashing in the sunlight.

“Find something that you love and you will never work a day in your life,” I quoted and he looked at me eyebrows raised and nodded his head.

“That is a good way of putting it,” he said, his hand coming down to stroke his beard as he thought about it. “But enough of that, what can I do for you today?” He hopped over the fence like it was something he did all the time, a sort of automatic response to coming in contact with the fence. One foot went up on the first of the horizontal slats and he swung his other leg up and over the top and his foot hooking onto the bottom slat on the other side of the fence before he performed the move in perfect mirrored movements, it had all the hallmarks of a move that he had been doing for countless years.

“I am in need of a Brvost,” I said, crossing my arms and leaning back to look at the beast over his shoulder. “I need on that can drag logs that I fell, but I would also like to be able to ride it should I need to.” He was nodding his head along with what I was saying, his hand starting to do the routine of stroking his beard again.

“A Stag then, more muscle that way, but not just a field stag,” He stopped stroking and looked at me, “a lot of the time the stags get a little set in their ways, but they are more capable of doing multiple tasks than the Does are,” he smiled and leaned in close to me. “You know how the womenfolk are, they tend to get a little stubborn.” That got a good smile out of me and when he saw it he laughed and slapped me on the shoulder. “Well then, before we begin I need to ask, do you have enough coin for this? I like you boy, but I cannot just be going and giving away all my Brvost because I like a man now can I?”

“No, no you cannot, I think I do, for the coin that is, I have a decent amount of it, how much would a Brvost cost me?” I asked, no doubt this was going to be a little bit of a drain on my funding, this was essentially like buying a truck or something seeing as it was both transportation as well as hauling, and I had no doubt that it was going to be quite expensive, I might have enough for a couple of years but that was only if I never spent another cent, and I was pretty damn sure I was going to have to buy it out of pocket right here and now, no payment plans or anything of the sort.

“The price depends on the beast,” he said with a shrug, “as an average I would say somewhere near seven or so Kuuls,” I did the math in my head, if the wergild was 15 for a man that meant that it would take about a full half of a year just to save enough to buy a Brvost. On the face of that it didn't sound too bad, but there was also the fact that you needed to spend money in order to live, eat and everything else, it would likely be quite difficult to get that kind of coin saved up.

“I believe I can afford that,” I said and he raised an eyebrow at me, but simply led me away towards the stables, the Brvost there looked up as we approached with large watery black eyes that seemed to follow us everywhere. I had seen my share of them at this point, but it was still an odd thing to see a creature so similar to one I knew and yet so clearly unearthly when you really got down to it. He looked at them all as he passed, several of the creatures sticking out their heads to get some attention and affection from him, which he gave automatically. But at the end of the line he shook his head and turned to look back at me.

“The issue is, you are a large guy, and while any of them could easily carry you there is the issue that none of these will look good while doing so, that extra height of yours would make it seem as though the Brvost was young, or small, so we will need a large stag, and of those I have three, two that are fresh and unbroken and one that I have tried a number of times to break but seems to refuse me at every turn.” He looked thoughtfully at me. “I won’t sell you an unbroken Brvost, my reputation would be ruined, but I don’t think I can break him, and the other two will likely take me months to get to a good enough state before I would feel comfortable with selling him to you.”

“Can I try?” I asked, and he blinked at me in confusion so I explained to him, “can I try to break the big one?”

“That is dangerous work son,” he said looking at me, “very dangerous.”

“I can see that,” I said and stood there with my arms crossed as he looked me over up and down. I was taller than him, and I wasn't on the skinny side when it came to musculature, but he shook his head, I thought he was about to say no when he opened his mouth.

“I must be a daft fool to even consider it,” he groused as he shook his head. “Listen, Erik, I cannot just let you in there with no training, but I’ll tell you what, show up here tomorrow at sunrise and if in a weeks time I feel you can get in there, then I’ll consider it, okay?” I couldn't help the smile on my lips as I nodded and grasped his forearm.

“I’ll want a discount,” I said, only partially joking, but he burst out laughing, he slapped me on the back in a fatherly manner.

“Lad, if you can break Einar then he is yours for a Kuul!”