I’ll tell you, the air down in the Minoc hills was thick enough to chew that day—the kind that clings to your back like a second shirt, hot and damp, with the stink of wet stone and iron dust. I’d been swinging that pick since dawn, my arms screaming after the third trip through the narrow tunnels west of the mine forge. Each strike sent a shiver up the haft, rattling my teeth, but there’s a rhythm to it, a kind of prayer in the repetition. Sixty-seven good hits I got in, more than half turning out ore worth keeping. You learn to hear the difference—the dull thunk of waste rock, then that sweet, ringing crack when the pick finds a pocket of iron. That’s when your spine straightens and your breath catches. Gold in the rough.
Up top, the forge near Minoc’s smithy was already roaring when I staggered in, nearly fifty ingots weighing down my pack, my boots crunching on cinders. I tossed the ore into the flames, stoked the bellows till the fire screamed, and watched the dross bleed off. Seven good ingots came out pure, but five—five just bubbled and warped, the heat uneven, or maybe my tongs slipped at the wrong moment. Felt like losing kin, each one. I remember staring at that warped lump, blackened and useless, thinking how much sweat went into pulling the raw stone that made it. You don’t cry over slag, but you damn well remember it.
Later, I limped over to the vendor near the blacksmith’s yard, sold a few tools I’d hammered out in a quieter hour—nothing fancy, just nails and hinges. The clink of sixty gold hitting my pouch was sweet, but it wasn’t the gold that stayed with me. It was the weight of the pack as I walked home, lighter now, but still pressing into my shoulders. Tomorrow, I’ll need new tongs—mine are bending at the jaw. And I’ll find them, even if I have to walk all the way to Trinsic. This life grinds you down, sure, but it forges you too, like iron in the fire.
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