The first hammer strike fell at the sixth bell on Pei Jing’s eleventh day in the vault. The bellows sent a fresh blast through the pit every few seconds. Even away from the fire, the air was hard to breathe.
Pei Jing wore leather trousers and a heavy sharkskin apron. He had wrapped his palms to keep the hot tool handles off his bare skin. With the long tongs, he drew the dragon spine from the chamber where it had been warming all night.
The bone glowed amber. The tough cords between the twenty segments had softened enough to bind the whole spine into one piece. Pei Jing laid it on the black anvil and lifted the four-hundred-pound hammer. With the pull of the vault, it felt four times heavier. He set his feet and let the weight fall.
The blow rang like a temple bell. Golden sparks hissed against his apron. A ridge in the bone flattened under the hammer. He moved to the next ridge and struck again.
The work took eight hours. The Ledger could count two hours at the forge as practice. The fold would take however long the bone needed to join. At first he could see each place where one piece of bone met another. By midday he had to look close to find the joins. Sweat rolled down his brow and disappeared in steam when it reached the anvil. He stopped for short drinks of cold ginseng broth and then went back to…
