A smith doesn’t judge what a man needs. He judges whether the man knows what he needs. Those are different questions.
Gunnar the smith filled his forge the way an anvil filled a stand — solid, immovable, and very clearly not something you wanted to bump into by accident.
The heat didn’t bother him. Neither did the noise. Neither did the two boys in his doorway carrying what was, in Eirik’s case, a very familiar mistake.
Gunnar looked up once.
His eyes went to Langr.
Then to Eirik.
One brow rose.
“Well,” he said. “That got worse.”
Leif made a choking sound.
Eirik, who respected honesty, nodded. “It helped.”
Gunnar wiped his hands on a rag and stepped forward. Up close, the difference in size was still obvious — but less than it had been a year ago. Eirik had grown. A lot.
“You’re Bj?rn’s boy,” Gunnar said.
“Yes.”
“You were smaller last time.”
“I was seven.”
“You were knee-high and mean.” Gunnar jerked his chin toward Langr. “That the same piece?”
“Yes.”
Gunnar picked it up one-handed. The near ten pounds of it didn’t seem to concern him in the slightest. He turned the blade slowly, reading the work the way other men read letters.
“Gróa made this,” he said.
Not a question.
Eirik nodded.
Gunnar’s mouth twitched faintly. “Of course she did. Woman’s been waiting half her life for someone dumb enough to ask for this.”
He bounced the blade once, feeling the forward drag.
“Deliberately wrong.”
“Yes.”
“Deliberately heavy.”
“Yes.”
“Balance shoved forward to make your shoulders cry.”
“Yes.”
Now Gunnar looked properly at the boy holding it.
“You know why it worked?”
Eirik shrugged. “I kept picking it up.”
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
There was a beat of silence.
Then Gunnar barked a short laugh.
“Fair enough.”
The side door opened and Astrid slipped in carrying a small crate of scrap. She was just over a year older than Eirik now, long-haired and quick-moving, built like someone who worked around a forge but still very much a girl her age — wiry, sharp-eyed, and entirely too observant for comfort.
She stopped when she saw the weapon.
Her nose wrinkled.
“…What,” she said slowly, “is that.”
“Conditioning tool,” Eirik said.
“It looks like you picked a fight with a fence post and lost.”
Leif wheezed.
Gunnar didn’t even glance back. “He paid good coin for it.”
Astrid set the crate down and leaned closer, squinting along the blade.
“You paid money for that?”
“Yes.”
She studied it another second, then straightened.
“I hate it,” she decided.
“That seems to be the common reaction,” Eirik said.
Gunnar set Langr back against the wall.
“How long you holding it now?”
“Thirty-one minutes. Extended.”
Astrid’s head snapped toward him. “You’re what?”
“Thirty-one.”
She looked at Gunnar.
Gunnar looked back at her.
Then the smith’s gaze returned to Eirik, slower this time, more measuring.
“You’re what height now?”
“Five foot ten.”
That earned a sharper look.
“And weight?”
“About one-sixty-five.”
Gunnar grunted softly. The boy had thickened through the shoulders and back over the last year — not a child’s build anymore, not quite a young man’s either, but heading there fast.
“Built yourself into it,” he said.
“Yes.”
Gunnar tapped the flat of Langr once.
“And now it ain’t mean enough.”
Not a question.
Eirik’s mouth tilted. “It’s… manageable.”
Astrid made a scandalized noise. “You are nine!”
“Almost ten.”
“That is not better!”
Gunnar went quiet.
That was never encouraging.
He walked around Langr once, then again, eyes narrowed the way they did when he was judging heat in the forge.
“…You want another one,” he said at last.
“Yes.”
“Heavier.”
“Yes.”
“Worse.”
“Yes.”
Gunnar exhaled through his nose.
“Gods help me.”
Astrid brightened immediately. “Oh, we are absolutely making this.”
Gunnar pointed at her without looking. “You are not helping.”
“I am emotionally invested now.”
Three days later, the thing on Gunnar’s bench was — in the loosest and most legally questionable sense — a sword.
It was just under five feet long.
The blade alone ran four feet.
The spine was too thick.
The taper was too slow.
The balance point sat aggressively forward, like the weapon itself had opinions about your shoulder joints.
It weighed just shy of fourteen pounds.
Astrid stared at it with open delight.
“That,” she said warmly, “is horrible.”
“It is,” Gunnar agreed.
Eirik picked it up.
Immediate difference.
Langr had pulled.
This thing dragged.
The weight wanted the ground in a way that felt personal. His shoulders lit up almost immediately, muscles and channels both waking up and complaining in the same breath.
Two minutes in, the burn arrived.
Four minutes, it deepened.
By eight, his arms were shaking.
He lowered it carefully and let out a slow breath.
“…Well,” he said.
Astrid’s eyes were wide. “That’s evil.”
Gunnar nodded once. “New floor.”
Leif circled the weapon like it might bite him.
“That cannot remain unnamed.”
“It absolutely can,” Eirik said.
“No. No, this is worse than Langr. This demands documentation.”
Astrid considered the blade, head tilted.
Then she grinned.
“Heimskr.”
Eirik rolled the word once in his head.
Foolish.
Stupid.
Painfully accurate.
“…Yeah,” he said. “That tracks.”
Gunnar pointed a thick finger at both of them. “I am not responsible for that name.”
“You made it,” Astrid said sweetly.
“I made a tool. What you idiots call it is between you and the gods.”
Tórbergr saw Heimskr first when they brought it back.
He stopped walking.
Stared.
Looked at Eirik.
Looked back at the weapon.
“…That,” he said slowly, “is not a sword.”
“Conditioning tool,” Eirik said.
“With edges.”
Tórbergr rubbed his face.
“You made it worse.”
“Yes.”
A long breath left the guard.
“…Good,” he muttered, and walked away before his professional dignity suffered further harm.
Astrid called after them as they left the forge.
“Hey.”
Eirik turned.
She jerked her chin toward Heimskr.
“Three months,” she said. “You beat that thing in three months and I want to see it.”
Eirik grinned.
“Deal.”
Behind him, Gunnar snorted softly.
And Heimskr — proud, ugly, and deeply offensive to proper sword design everywhere — went home with its new owner.
New floor.
