Minoc’s mine forge was thick with the smell of burnt coal and damp stone when I finally dragged myself back in, pack sagging like a mule after a mountain pass. I’d been down in the lower tunnels near the old granite seam—cold down there, the air sharp with the taste of iron and wet rock. My pickaxe handle had splintered a bit near the grip from one too many hard swings, but I kept at it. Seventeen trips up and down that cursed slope today, and I swear each one felt longer than the last. Nearly fifty ingots in my pack, heavy enough to make my shoulders burn, but it was the last load—the one where my tongs snapped—that stuck with me.
I’d just coaxed a dark gray ingot from the deepest crack in the seam, the metal still warm from the earth, when the left jaw of the tongs gave way. The ingot clattered back into the muck, half-buried in silt and rubble. I crouched there, cursing under my breath, my fingers numb as I fumbled to dig it out. The tunnel pressed in, the flicker of my lantern making shadows dance like mocking spirits. I thought about leaving it—just walking away, letting the mountain keep its prize—but something stubborn in me flared. I wrapped a strip of leather from my belt around the hot metal and hauled it into my pack. Felt like I’d stolen fire from the gods, that small victory.
Back at the forge, I leaned against the anvil, listening to the quiet hiss of cooling iron. No fire tonight—no work to do, not with empty pockets and no copper to spare for tools. But I ran my thumb over the fresh ingot stacked beside me, rough and imperfect, and for a moment I remembered why I started swinging a pick in the first place. It ain’t glory. It’s weight in your hands, heat in your bones, knowing you pulled something real from the dark.
Come first light, I’m heading to the blacksmith near the stables. Need new tongs. Maybe a stouter pick. And then? Back down. The mountain’s not done with me yet.<|im_end|>
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