Crimson's Arc

Chapter 4 of 4

Crimson worked the ore into a blade shape until dawn. The raccoon watched from its usual spot near the entrance, tail curled around its paws. Then it stood, crossed the chamber floor, and stopped at a flat stone near the vein wall. It scratched the stone once and looked back at him. Crimson lowered the hammer. The creature had never asked for anything before. He pried the stone up. Beneath it, a narrow shaft dropped into the dark, cut by hands, not water. Old chisel marks scored the walls. The raccoon slipped over the edge and vanished. Crimson lit a lamp and followed, boots scraping stone as he climbed down. The shaft opened into a low chamber. Heat pressed against his face. Crimson ore ran through the walls in thick ribbons, brighter than anything in his forge above. In the center stood an anvil of dark stone, worn smooth. Tools lay beside it — hammers, tongs, a half-finished blade cooled mid-shaping. His ancestors had worked here. Not just once. For years. The raccoon climbed onto the anvil and touched the unfinished blade with one paw. The metal glowed faint red where the paw met it. Crimson stepped closer. He saw carved lines along the blade's tang — the same patterns he had been guessing at for months, drawn full and correct. He reached for the blade. Boots scraped stone above him. Crimson froze. Voices. Two of them, low, at the forge entrance. Someone had followed the weathervanes. He heard them move through the chamber above, testing his tools, calling for whoever owned the place. If they found the open stone, they would find the shaft. They would find this. He looked at the anvil. The blade. The proof his ancestors' craft was real and recoverable. He could stay and copy the pattern, learn what he came to learn. Or he could climb up now, seal the stone, and turn the strangers away before they saw the drop. The raccoon watched him, eyes steady. Crimson grabbed a shard of the cooled blade — a broken piece near the anvil's base, small enough to hide in his palm. He climbed. At the top he dragged the stone back into place, kicked ash across the seam, and stood by the forge as the two strangers rounded the wall. He met them plainly. Said he was a smith. Showed them a plain iron hook he'd made for trade. They asked about the weathervane by the western vein. He told them it marked his claim and nothing more. They lingered, studied his hammer, and finally left. Crimson sat by the cold anvil after. He opened his palm. The shard glowed faint in the dim. He had the pattern now, or the start of it. But the forge above was no longer secret. The strangers would talk. Others would come. He had traded quiet for proof, and the trade could not be undone.