Back at his station, the bellows blowing, Harbek shaped iron. The familiar weight of the hammer was no longer at his hip but in his hand, working the stiffness from his muscles as much as from the bar. He drew the metal out slow and even, listening to the ring as it met the anvil, letting the rhythm settle him back into the forge.

  The work had gathered while he was gone.

  Nothing urgent, nothing spoken aloud, but more than there should have been. A rack of unfinished blades leaned closer together than usual, their chalk marks half-smudged. A crate of bar stock sat open near his station, the ends already counted and marked by someone who hadn’t finished the task. Harbek took it in without comment and set the piece back into the coals.

  Time would be the measure today.

  Runa moved between the bellows and the bench with practiced ease. The tongs Harbek had set aside were no longer there when he reached for them—replaced with the right size before he realized the need. A quench bucket had been drawn closer, water fresh and clear instead of clouded from earlier work. She glanced at the blade once as he turned it, then went back to the bellows, feeding the fire only when it asked for it. The forge answered her touch cleanly.

  Harbek adjusted his stance and kept working.

  A blade came to length and was passed off without ceremony. Runa quenched it and set it aside while Harbek had already started the next, keeping the order in his head without writing it down. Knives for the hunters—nothing ornate, just work meant to be trusted. The rhythm returned, steadier than before, the forge full but no longer crowded.

  Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.

  Durnek passed behind him once, close enough that Harbek felt the shift in heat at his back. A heavier bar was set down at the edge of his station. No words. No pause.

  Harbek finished the blade he was on before reaching for it.

  Branches lay bound in the corner of the forge, drying in the steady assault of heat and smoke, catching the occasional glance from the apprentices without drawing a word. Harbek didn’t look their way. He focused on the iron, on the sound it made, on the way the day pressed forward whether he acknowledged it or not.

  The forge moved around him, and he moved with it.

  As Runa took the blade to quench, Harbek turned without breaking stride, reaching beneath the bench where cord and scrap were kept for repairs. His fingers tested one length briefly — coarse, well-twisted, familiar. It would hold.

  He set it aside near the branches without looking back, already drawing the next bar from the rack as the quenched blade hissed behind him.

  The blades cooled straight. The measurements held. Nothing had to be redone.

  Harbek wiped his hands and stepped back from the bench, waiting for the sense of completion that usually followed good work.

  It didn’t come.

  The forge carried on without him.