Minoc’s mine forge was still humming when I dragged myself back in, sweat stinging my eyes and the stink of hot metal thick in the air. I’d just come up from the tunnels beneath the mountain—two full runs, back and forth from the seam, my pack heavy with ore. Forty-seven weight I was carrying, nearly fifty ingots in my pack if you counted the smaller chunks I hadn’t yet smelted. My shoulders burned like I’d been wrestling trolls, but it was just stone and sweat and the endless rhythm of pick against rock. That third strike near the east wall—where the iron runs deep and dark—I remember the crack it made, clean and bright, like winter ice giving way. Felt good. Felt right.
But the forge… gods, the forge tested me. The tongs snapped halfway through the second batch. Cheap things, scavenged from the pile near the anvil, but I didn’t have time to walk back to the blacksmith for a proper set. So I used the tongs from the dead miner’s bench—the one nobody claims, though everyone uses. Rusty thing, bent near the hinge. I wedged the iron bar in with shaking hands, cursed every time it slipped. The fire spat and hissed, and sweat rolled down my temple and sizzled when it hit the rim of the forge. I watched the metal glow—first dull red, then orange, then that rich, molten gold that means it’s ready. That moment, when the iron yields? That’s when I forget the sore back, the empty coin purse, even the weight dragging at my belt. It’s just the heat, the color, the truth of metal speaking to metal.
I sold the bars to Elayne at the Minoc smithy just before dusk. She didn’t haggle, not like the others. Gave me a nod and a fair price, took the whole lot. Felt strange, handing it over—the ingots cool now, solid, real—after hours of strain. I stood there a moment, hands empty, listening to the clink of coins I didn’t have into my pouch. Not much, but enough. Enough to eat. Enough to buy new tongs tomorrow. Maybe even a whetstone for the pick.
Come first light, I’m going back. That seam’s not done with me yet.<|im_end|>
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