Minoc’s wind cuts sharp through the canyon pass this time of evening, carrying the grit of the hills right into your teeth. I was down near the old iron seam, just east of the mine forge, where the rock’s stubborn but honest. Sixteen strikes that hour found ore—good rhythm, each thunk of the pick sending a jolt up my arms and into my shoulders. One strike glanced off solid stone, another caught on buried bedrock—felt it in the wrist, that dull ache settling in like an old complaint. But the iron came free, dark and heavy, each lump whispering promises of coin and coal.
I remember the exact swing—the seventh—when the pick bit deep and the rock split with a sound like a dry branch snapping under boot. That one chunk I pried loose was near perfect: veined with silver-gray, cold to the touch even in the afternoon sun. I hefted it, felt the weight settle in my palm, and grinned like a fool. Carried that one back myself, even though my pack was already sagging with nearly fifty ingots from earlier runs. The walk up the slope was its own trial—knees creaking, the sun low behind the ridge, casting long shadows over the forges below. Smoke curled from the chimneys of the blacksmith’s row, and I could almost smell the hot metal, the sharp tang of quenched steel.
Back at the forge, I fed the furnace slow, letting the coals rise to that cherry glow I know so well. The tongs slipped once—damn rust on the hinge—and I nearly dropped a bar into the cinders. Held on, though. There’s pride in that, in not letting go. When the last ingot was stacked and the anvil cooled, I sold the batch to old Haldor at the smithy. He didn’t haggle, just grunted and handed over a pouch. Light in my palm, but the weight’s still in my bones.
Tomorrow, I’m trying the northern pocket. Heard whispers of mithril flecks near the river cut. Might be nothing. But that seventh swing today? That was fate testing me—and I didn’t flinch.
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