Three hundred paces beneath Iron Peak, Pei Jing had a forge that smelled of charcoal dust and sulfur. Its slate walls stayed cool even when the hearth burned white. A crack in the mountain drew the smoke away.
It had taken him eight hours to drain the charge bank and move the wreck. He drew the thirty-foot probe into the long fold in his marrow storage, carried it down the winding passage, then set it across four stone supports. Dents ran along one side where it had hit the riverbed. The nose still pointed a little upward.
By the next morning Pei Jing was in his work tunic and apron. He unwrapped a steamed pheasant from broad cabbage leaves. Salt, wild garlic and mountain pepper had worked into the meat. He ate it with a bowl of iron-wort tea. The tea left a sharp metal taste in his mouth.
He sat on a low bench with the Black Mountain Whetstone and his cleaver. The center of the stone had worn down under his hand. Its grain felt the same as it had in Cloudford. He spread a little camellia oil over it and worked each section of the edge until it passed over the stone without catching.
