Switch Blade, Forged in Ancient Days

In the age when men wrought iron with bare hand and flame, ere kingdoms were wide and known, there dwelt a smith by the river’s bend. His hall was low of roof, his anvil blackened with many winters’ labor. None spake of him as hero, yet all came to him for the shaping of steel.

One dusk, a wanderer pressed upon his door. The man bore scars of battle and eyes wearied with travel. He spake: “Smith, fashion me a blade not long as sword nor heavy as axe, but keen, swift, hidden in palm, that I may strike as quick as thought.”

The smith pondered, for never before had such a request fallen upon his ears. Yet he set to work. Three nights he fed the fire, three times he folded the iron, and with hammer’s song he brought forth a new craft. The blade was slender, its edge bright as dawn, and by cunning of hinge it leapt from its haft with but a flick of the hand.

The wanderer held it, tested the spring, and a grim smile touched his face. “This I name Switch Blade, for it springs as wolf from brush.”

The smith asked no gold, only that the weapon be borne with honor. The wanderer bowed low and vanished into the night. Some say he took the blade to war, others that he guarded the weak with it. The truth is lost, but the tale abides: that in elder time, before sorcery and kings, man’s wit alone wrought marvels of steel.