I’ll tell ye, the pickaxe bite into that stone in the Minoc mines like it had a grudge of its own. My arms were near numb from the rhythm of it—swing, chip, heft the ore—swing again. Dust clung to the sweat on my brow, and the lantern flickered low, casting long shadows that danced like old ghosts in the tunnel. Twenty-four times I struck true in that cursed stretch, pulling iron from the belly of the earth while the pick glanced off empty rock another fifteen. Felt like the mountain was laughing. But I kept at it. There’s a kind of prayer in repetition, y’know? Each strike a word, each load hauled toward the surface a sentence.
By the time I lugged those ingots—nearly fifty of them—up to the forge behind the Minoc blacksmith, my back was a knot of fire. I fed the coals, stoked the bellows till the heat warped the air, and dropped the first chunk in. That’s when the tongs snapped. Cold steel giving way with a sound like a sigh. I stood there, hands trembling, staring at the broken jaw of the tool. Sixty-five skills in blacksmithing and I’m held back by a pair of pliers? Felt like the world was poking fun. I cursed loud enough to scare a rat from the rafters. But then I remembered old Harken, the one-armed smith from Trinsic, telling me, “A man’s not measured by his tools, Grimm, but by how he keeps working when they fail.” So I wrapped a leather strap round the shank and clamped it in the vise. Got the job done, slow and ugly, but done.
Smelted fourteen batches before dusk bled through the forge windows. The glow of molten iron painted the stone walls gold, and for a moment, I forgot the ache. There’s peace in that light—the kind you don’t find in taverns or temples.
Tomorrow, I’m seeing Yale the tinker. Paid him twenty-six gold for a new set of locking tongs. If they last half as long as his silence during the deal, I’ll count myself lucky.
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