Sterling Forge's Arc

Chapter 16 of 31

The storm broke near dawn. Sterling eased Linny off his chest and laid her against the cave wall. Her lips were pale. Her coat was soaked through at the shoulders where snow had melted into the wool during the night. His own trousers were stiff with wet from the knee down. The fire had shrunk to a red eye in the ash. Outside, the wind had dropped, but the air that came in through the mouth of the cave bit cold and dry. He touched the back of her hand. It was cold as stone. He checked their pack. Two strips of jerky. A half loaf gone hard. The last ash jar. No dry cloth. If they stepped out like this, she would not last past midday. He knew it the way he knew a bad weld by the sound. He built the fire back up with the last of the bark, then went deeper into the cave. He found a shelf of dry stone at the back. He carried her there. He stripped her wet coat and hat and laid them flat. He pulled off his own shirt and wrung it. Then he stopped. The hammer was still in his belt. The blade was on the floor. He looked at both. He dragged three flat stones from the wall and set them in a ring near the fire. He fed the flame with pine roots he broke from the ceiling. When the stones were hot, he lifted them with the flat of the blade and set them under her coat. He hung the coat on the blade, propped between two rocks. The wool began to steam. The chipmunk climbed out of Linny's lap and sat on the warm stone. Its snow-dusted fur dried in patches. Its petal ears twitched at the heat. It turned in a slow circle and settled, watching him work. He did her hat next. Then his shirt. Then her boots, one at a time, packed with warmed pebbles from the fire ring. The blade held the weight. He fed the fire and turned the cloth and swapped the stones out as they cooled. He worked without stopping for two hours. When the coat was dry, he put it back on her. Her color came up slow. She woke while he was lacing her boots. "You made a forge," she said. "I made a rack." She touched the blade's spine where the wool had hung. The steel was warm. "Even heat," she said. He stopped with the lace in his hand. He had spent a year of nights trying to hold heat down the length of a bar. He had never thought to hang the bar instead of laying it. "Yes," he said. "Even heat." She stood. She took the blade off the stones and handed it to him. "River," she said. He sheathed it. They walked out of the cave into hard cold sun.