Fourteen and a half erumpent horns was probably more than existed in all of the rest of England at that time. It was certainly among the largest collections in Europe. People had to acquire them in ones and twos, usually. Part of that was that the horns were dangerous and subject to strict regulatory control. Potions masters carefully saved up, as you never knew when another horn would become available. Fortunately they lasted quite a while in normal use, gradually cutting off shavings which would then be carefully powdered for use in magic brews. Actually, it was quite remarkable that Snape had used up half of one, and showed he must make alot of potions on his own, outside of classes. Apothecaries normally only sold the shavings, as so few people had need of a full horn that it paid better to sell just enough for a handful of uses, and that practice helped to spread a rare resource around for more general availability, especially to students.
The rarity wasn't that the horns were hard to harvest, far from it. No, the animals eagerly killed each other during the mating season. That was the problem. They had a slow birth rate and the herds in Africa numbered very few animals to support a worldwide demand, which ran even higher in Asian markets than it did in the Western ones.
It was staggering to see so many used up in a single event, however.
The first bubble of the scarlet potion popped and Ranko's hand dived in with the tongs flashing too fast to be seen. Each of the fourteen was saved, though the half had sludged apart early and was now stuck to the bottom of the cauldron. Trying to save the bits only got the tongs lodged in the mess and melting, too. Snatching the previous fourteen out had taken less than a second, an amount of time an ordinary quick person could have salvaged one at most - and that was all the recipe assumed could be saved, and cautioned that you might have to try the process several times to do it.
Sighing that she wouldn't be able to save the last bit, Ranko turned off the heat, grabbed some dragonhide mittens and lifted the melty cauldron to pour off its brilliant red brew into a crystal decanter waiting handy with a funnel already put in. When she put down the empty cauldron both it and the tongs and the remaining mass of scales and eggs and dissolved half a horn and who knows what else had all slagged down into a solid mass of silver in the bottom, the remaining walls half melted, looking oddly deformed for a cauldron.
Glistening with now clear fluid, fourteen erumpent horns lay on alongside another on a cloth prepared beforehand, all of them solid silver.
"Cologne, your turn." Nodoka sang merrily, as she eagerly spelled down her inscriptions so nothing could disturb them until they were done.
"Living silver," Cologne breathed reverently as she sashayed up, long blue hair swaying like a flag behind her well proportioned hips. The three hundred year old amazon looked every bit as young and attractive as her granddaughter (or what her granddaughter looked like at sixteen anyway, the girl was now a slender eleven) and bore more than a passing resemblance to her. The young appearing matriarch essayed the amount of material in the horns, picking them up one by one and testing on a weighted scale. "I'd say there's enough to do a sword, a spear head, and a knife for each of us, Nodoka-chan."
"Would prefer bonbori," Shampoo whispered, trying not to intrude.
"Yah, and I'd like a set of spatulas, myself." Ukyo demurred the offered types of weapons.
Cologne chuckled. "Girls, there's no point in being difficult. Shampoo, erumpent horns are special for our purpose because they are magically sharp. They'll pierce anything, hide or metal, and so there's no point in wasting that by making blunt weapons out of them. Ukyo-chan, the cooking tools you're used to don't cut through the grill. These will. Better to save your tools for baking. These are for killing. Besides, there's power in matching sets. That's why we're all going to have the same style of weapons: A Chinese spear, a Japanese katana, and an American Bowie knife."
"Bowie knife?" All three formerly teenaged martial artists asked as one. "What for?"
"Because I used one for years that I got off an American soldier who came to help us fight World War Two, and it's the best all around utility knife I can think of. You can skin an animal, cut bone, saw wood, or fight with one, use it underhand, overhand or thrown and still get by walking the streets carrying it openly in enough places, or concealed when you have to. The three or you, excuse me, five of you will be able to claim them as part of your Potions tool set, since they're silver. And they'll do excellent work for you there, too." Cologne smirked.
"You wouldn't want them for bonbori anyway, Shampoo dear," Nodoka instructed, having finished her spells. "They're too lightweight to make good crushing weapons. For swords and others as we've got planned, however, they are ideal: as light as a feather, but as hard as dragonscale. You could wield them all day without stopping, and while they won't have the weight to crush armor, they'll cut it quite handily."
"Don't katanas take years to make?" One of the Patil twins wondered. "I thought you said we'd be done with this tonight."
"I've been a weaponsmith for almost three hundred years, girl. I've outfitted warriors of our tribe through several wars and outfitted dozens of heroines overnight for more battles than you've got years. I think I can handle this." Cologne grinned, picking up the first horn and a huge, weighty hammer and going over to a softly glowing gold and crystal anvil.
"Cover your ears, dears." Nodoka tossed around a set of pink, frilly earmuffs Ranko had lifted from one of the greenhouses to each of them. They donned them (the twins fumbled them on while the others did so smoothly), and then Cologne began hammering.
She blurred, her arms disappearing from sight, and ten thousand blows later she stopped, revealing in her tongs a perfectly shaped, elegantly deadly katana blade, complete with etching. The only thing it lacked was a handle to aid in gripping the full tang hilt.
Twenty minutes later the Chinese Amazon had produced the metal bits for every weapon she had named and used up all of the silver horns. They all took off their pink earmuffs and found it remarkable they'd heard nothing when dust had shaken down from the very stones with the noise. Fortunately, they had silencing charms up around the room.
"So we can proceed," Nodoka declared, going over to open a door.
"Not quite, child," Cologne corrected. "We could, of course, but I think the spell will go better if we use complete weapons. And it will only take a moment to put handles on these." The young ancient pulled a unicorn horn out of a barrel of same, positioned it over the hilt of the katana she was still holding, then waved her wand, muttering a complicated spell. For a half second the pearly horn seemed to melt like wax, then a strange impulse seemed to seize it and it spread itself to carefully and intelligently form a grip for the weapon before hardening. She repeated this process enough times so they had usable knives and swords with pearl seeming unicorn horn hilts, then used dragon bone, wing struts specifically, to grant shafts for their spears. "Alright child, you may fetch the guest for this event."
Professor Malfoy nodded and opened the door.
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(Posted Wed, 03 Aug 2005 02:35)
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