Minoc’s mine forge was still warm when I stumbled in last night, shoulders aching like I’d been wrestling trolls instead of rock. Rain had come down in sheets, turning the path from the iron veins near the mountain pass into a slick mire, and every step back felt like the hill was trying to swallow me whole. I’d been down near the lower tunnels, hacking at the seam behind the waterfall—quiet work, just the rhythm of pick against stone, the occasional spark when the blade caught a flint edge. Took me most of the day to pull out nearly fifty ingots, my pack groaning with every shift. By the time I surfaced, the sky was bruised purple, and all I wanted was the orange glow of the forge and the smell of hot metal.
I dropped my pack near the anvil with a thud that made Old Marle glance up from his whetstone. Didn’t say much, that one, but he nodded when he saw the bulge in my satchel. I fed three ingots into the coals, just to test the heat, and watched the flames lick greedily at the metal. There’s a moment, you know, when the iron softens just right—when it glows the color of a dying sunset and gives under the hammer like wet clay. That’s when I felt it: the old tongs slipping in my grip. Not a clean break, but a slow, treacherous bend at the joint. I cursed loud enough to make Marle snort. Twenty years of smithing, and it’s the tools that wear out before the man. Had to rework them right there, hammering the jaws straight under the flame, sweat stinging my eyes from the heat.
It’s funny—how much of this life is just holding things together. The mine, the forge, the gear. I sat on the stone bench afterward, staring at the repaired tongs, still warm in my hands. Felt heavy, not from the iron, but from knowing they’ll fail again. But they held tonight. That’s enough.
Come first light, I’m heading back to the deep seam. There’s more iron in that wall, and a man can’t stop just because his tools get tired. Neither can he.<|im_end|>
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