The smell of charcoal and cooling brine settled across the forge station, clinging to Ferra's apron as morning wind whistled through the broken embrasures.
She tapped her round-nosed hammer against the horn of the anvil, listening to the pure ring of the steel to verify that the three grounding fixtures she had anchored into the bedrock remained true.
'Two days to get this place ready... assuming that singing bastard gives us two days.'
Ferra tightened the strap holding back her hair, wiping soot from her temple before it could fall into the open crucible.
Across the station, three apprentice smiths from the Sixth District hurried between the quenching troughs, stacking spare tongs and cedar charcoal blocks beside the twin hearths.
"Keep those bellows steady," Ferra warned, pointing her hammer toward the flue dampers, "letting that hearth cool means starting the whole damned lot again."
