Chương 140: Chapter 113: The First Fire

Bellan rebound my ribs before sunrise and made the permission to return sound like a sentence. I could sit, measure, mark, cut clay, and use tools that did not require bracing through my torso; I could not lift beams, carry bricks, climb an unsupported platform, or decide that a task became lighter because no one else stood nearby. He added that the dark line beneath the bandage was blood rather than evidence of commitment, then sent Jory to ensure I reached the forge with the wrap still tied.

The third day belonged mostly to other people. Halden directed the outer wall from inside a square of string lines, using the drainage foundation as the fixed point for every course. Garron mixed mortar. Fen carried bricks from the river cart with his injured arm bound close, while Joss kept trying to stack loads above his line until Wade removed half and told him the wall did not become cheaper because the carrier arrived damaged. Carl, the former forge-hand, worked nearest the chimney.

I remembered him behind the old hearth when Arra Glen sold me the Woodsman's Axe, thick fingers turning stock while she corrected my expectations at the counter. He had been north with a tool cart during the attack and returned to find the forge collapsed, its owner gone with the families who fled. Carl set bricks without claiming the building or asking who would own it later. Each course seemed to answer enough.

"You were the boy with the hardened axe," he said after recognising me from the stool beneath the road awning.

"It was expensive."

"No weapon is cheap to the person buying their first." He scraped excess mortar from one joint and reset the brick with its face aligned to Halden's cord.

"The old wall had no breathing space behind the hearth. Heat ate the mortar every winter."

"The new furnace stands on its own footing." Carl looked across the broader foundation.

"The new furnace has enough room to develop ambitions." Halden heard him.

"The dimensions are the minimum safe requirement."

"That means the ambition belongs to him," Carl said, then returned to the wall. Watching others build proved harder than moving stone. Every time Joss reached for a wet brick, Fen braced a ladder against Ironwood, or Garron mixed the mortar too thin for the chimney course, my body began rising before the wound stopped it. By midday, Lysa sent a stool with a higher back. By afternoon, Wade had moved the tools beyond arm's reach and called it labour management rather than restraint.

The walls reached shoulder height before dusk. Narrow gaps remained between brick and Ironwood, allowing heat to leave without charring the frame. The old doorway arch had been incorporated into the new front wall, its soot-dark stones surrounded by fresh red-brown brick. Carl cleaned the inner curve with a stiff brush until pale stone emerged beneath the black. I could still remember crossing that threshold with fewer coins than the forge now contained in one vent assembly.

Bellan returned the following morning, inspected the bandage, and allowed work inside the structure because the remaining tasks involved smaller materials. He left before I could ask whether refractory brick counted as small when held above chest height. Halden had already built the chimney throat and laid the first inner course around the furnace foundation. The refractory bricks came from river clay mixed with crushed pieces of the former hearth, then fired in temporary clamps during the night.

They were rough, dense, and shaped to follow the furnace curve.

"The lining remains separate from the shell," Halden said.

"No mortar bridge across the expansion gap. Air channels enter beneath the grate, divide here, and meet under the fuel bed."

"I remember the drawing."

"You remembered before opening the wound." This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

"The ribs did not strike my head."

"That remains outside the evidence available." We set the lower courses together. Halden moved the heavier bricks while I spread clay, checked the curve, and cut the air channels beneath the floor. Appraisal gave shallow confirmations of fired density, heat cracks, and obvious defects. Smelting showed where the fuel bed would need even pressure and how a poor draught would turn charcoal into expense without producing steel heat. The paired bellows sat beyond the furnace wall.

One used heavy frost-boar hide reinforced around the folds. The second used a cleaned section of demon hide, black-grey and stiff until warmth reached the buried red channels. Appraisal named it Bronze material with residual vital elasticity, which explained its recovery without saying whether building it into a forge was sensible. Halden fitted the demon hide between two Ironwood boards and pulled the lever. The material compressed, then snapped back faster than the ordinary bellows beside it.

"It recovers too quickly," I said.

"The operator can alter the rhythm."

"The operator becomes tired. The hides do not tire together." Halden watched three full cycles, then measured the air at both channels with ash held over the opening.

"Widen the ordinary side by a quarter finger. Add an adjustable plate to the demon line." The agreement came through altered dimensions rather than concession. The inner furnace rose by slow courses. Appraisal passed across brick, Copper vent fittings, Iron grate bars, hinge pins, and the red-lined hide. Each reading remained weaker than the ability I remembered, but the repeated attention began separating provenance, wear, function, and where a material's useful property became the start of a failure.

I climbed onto the low furnace platform near midday to set the upper throat brick. Bellan had prohibited unsupported climbing. The platform was supported, which should have warned me that I had begun arguing with wording instead of risk. The brick failed to fit by less than a thumb. Removing it would shift the next course and delay the chimney connection until Carl returned from the outer wall. Halden told me to leave it for reshaping.

"It is already here," I said.

"So is the person who knows the mould."

"He is outside."

"That condition can be corrected by speech." I took the trimming hammer instead. The first strikes removed the outer ridge cleanly. The fourth travelled through my arm into the ribs. The sixth made the bandage pull wetly against the side. I changed grip because the brick was nearly right and because stopping would require admitting that someone else should finish the piece I had placed poorly. The seventh strike removed the strength from my knees. Halden caught the brick before it fell into the open furnace.

I caught the rim with one hand and remained bent there, unable to draw enough breath to stand.

"You continued after the wound opened," he said.

"It almost fitted."

"That explains the action. It does not defend it." He set the brick aside and helped me down without calling Bellan. We sat against the inner wall while afternoon light crossed the unfinished floor. Halden retied the bandage from cloth in his tool pack, pulling each turn tight enough to hold without shifting the ribs.

"The bridge requires years," he said.

"I know."

"The forge requires people after you leave."

"I know."

"You behave as though knowing a limit makes crossing it a measured choice."

"That sounds familiar." Halden tied the final knot and sat back.

"Yes." The answer ended the argument because neither of us could improve it without including ourselves. Carl reshaped the throat brick. Fen and Garron finished the roof braces while Joss carried mortar at the line Wade set for him. I measured, cut clay, and checked joints from the floor until the furnace body reached its final course. No one remarked that the work moved more quickly after my role became smaller. The first fire entered after dark.

It was a drying fire rather than a steel heat, built from thin charcoal and split wood, but the new chimney drew cleanly. Smoke rose without entering the room. The frost-boar bellows compressed slowly, while the demon hide recovered with a faint tightening through its red channels. The widened air path balanced both streams beneath the grate. Halden watched until the inner bricks warmed evenly, then gathered his tools.

"No additional fuel. The mortar dries slowly or the lining cracks."

"I understand."

"You have used that phrase immediately before several repairs." He left through the old arch. Carl had gone home, Wade's work line had dispersed, and the new walls held the day's warmth around me. The roof still needed its final slate, the floor required levelling, and the tool racks remained bare, but a small flame moved through the furnace centre without smoke or hurry. I fed one narrow piece of wood into it after Halden's footsteps disappeared. The warmth entered my back when I sat against the furnace base.

I intended to remain until the piece burned through and the inner lining stopped clicking. The paired bellows rested beside me, one sagging and the other drawn tight around channels taken from a creature that had refused to die properly. The next thing I knew was the forge floor against my cheek.