Borin Ironforge's Arc

Chapter 18 of 20

Three days after the mine, the ore bucket still sat by the forge door. Gray hammered his own steel without fear now. But Aelindor had not come back. The elf had gone deeper into the old passage that first night, chasing whatever pulled at him, and no word had followed. Borin owed the man a farewell. He would not pack his own bags and leave town with that debt open. Borin took a pick and a coil of rope to the mine at first light. The timber mouth leaned crooked over the black passage. Cold, damp air breathed out of it. He climbed down past the seams Gray had cut and followed the tunnel where it narrowed. Water dripped. A tiny thing scampered across his boot, a rodent with a goat's soft face and two small horns. It squeaked and vanished into a crack. Borin kept walking. He found Aelindor at the bottom of an air shaft. The elf sat against the wall, one leg splinted with a broken pick handle. A frayed rope hung from far above, snapped at the root that once held it. "The anchor gave out," Aelindor said. He tried to grin, but pain caught it. "I've been eating a strange red flower down here. It bites back." He nodded at a plant near his hand, glossy green traps fringed with teeth. Borin knelt and checked the leg. "You came to pay a debt to my forge," he said. "I'll not leave you rotting for it." He anchored his own rope to a stone spur, tested it twice, and hauled the elf up hand over hand. His grey arms shook. His breath tore. But he did not stop until Aelindor lay in the daylight at the mouth. They rested on the stone steps. Aelindor pulled a worn pack from the rubble, a folded map still buckled to its front. "I planned this trip careful," he said. "Planned everything but the rope." He laughed, then winced. "You could have sent the boy." "The boy has a forge to run," Borin said. "This was mine to do." He helped the elf stand and set the pack on his own shoulder. "I'm leaving town soon. I couldn't go with you buried in my mountain." Aelindor gripped his arm. "Then we're square. Go teach the next age, smith." He limped toward the ridge road, map in hand, already looking past the town. Borin watched him go. The debt was closed. His conscience was clear. He could leave now. But standing there, catching his breath, he thought of Gray's raw hands and Finn's crowded order stack. He had freed himself to walk away. He was no longer sure that leaving was the whole of the work he owed.