Sun was still low over Minoc when I first swung the pick into that vein—cool stone, damp air, the kind of quiet that only lives deep in the earth. Fifty times I brought the head down in the hour, each strike sending a jolt up my arms, but the rhythm’s what keeps a man sane down there. I’d found a pocket near the old tunnel fork, the one where the ceiling’s crusted with fool’s gold and the walls sweat moisture even in winter. That’s where the iron runs thick. By the third swing, my back was loose, my breath steady, and the ore came free in chunks like it wanted to be taken. Nearly fifty ingots in my pack before I even thought to rest. Heavy bastards, too—felt every ounce as I trudged up toward the surface, boots scraping on worn stone.
But it wasn’t the weight that slowed me. It was the forge. I’d stoked it myself just after dawn, banked the coals beneath a skin of ash, and when I tossed the first batch of ore in, the flame licked back to life like an old friend. That heat—dry, fierce, wrapping your face like a fever dream—there’s nothing like it. I leaned on the bellows, watching the metal bloom red, then white, the impurities bubbling off like sins. Six times I fed the fire, and each time, the tongs groaned in my grip. On the last pull, one jaw cracked clean off. Ironwork fatigued, just like that. I stood there, half-laughing, half-cursing, holding a broken tool and a near-molten bar I had to nudge with a hammer claw. Felt like the mountain itself was reminding me: nothing lasts, not even steel.
I made it to Old Mikael’s stall by dusk, though the path kept clogging with folk—miners, guards, some fool mage trying to summon a chicken outside the bank. Three times I tried to cross, three times turned back. When I finally dropped the ingots on Mikael’s counter, he didn’t even count them. Just nodded, slid over a pouch light with coin, and said, “You look like hell warmed over, Grimm.” Might’ve been the soot, might’ve been the hollow ache behind my eyes. But I’ll be back tomorrow. There’s another vein calling, I can feel it—a deep one, singing in the dark. And this time, I’m bringing a spare set of tongs.
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