The Merchant whistled. “Phew, Smith. You gotta lotta work piled up, doncha? Heheheh.”

  The other slaver, the one who wielded a spear and usually just watched the slaves and the surrounding forest silently, remained typically silent. His eyes roved over the pile of iron ore, the smelter, and the tools James had painstakingly created: the anvil, the hammer, and the tongs.

  The merchant slaver snorted and gestured at the tools. “You know, Smith, we took ya outta the mines so ya could make tools. What in creation are those?”

  James nervously replied, “Th-they’re an anvil, hammer, and tongs, sir.”

  The merchant squinted at them for a moment, then turned back to James. “Eh, I can see the hammer and tongs, but my skill’s telling me they ain’t even tools. They’re comin’ up as raw materials, ain’t they? Ya really gonna be able to work with them? Hell, yer anvil’s comin’ up as an oversized ingot, hah!”

  Under his breath, the merchant continued. “Still… bit pricey for raw materials, innit?”

  “I’ll d-do my best, sir.” James stuttered. None of the slavers had approached him in the days he was working on the tools, so he had let his guard down and had not expected to have his work judged. Maybe the grey-eyed boy would comment, but not the slavers.

  The spear-wielding guard spoke up. His voice was deep and pleasant sounding. He smoothly said, “What can you forge, Smith? A spearhead? A shield?”

  “A, uh, a shield, sir? No, I don’t think so, not on an anvil this size-”

  “An anvil he calls it! Hah!” the merchant slaver interjected.

  “And a spearhead? Like this one?” The spear-wielder ignored the merchant’s outburst. He slowly extended the tip of his spear towards James. James reached out to touch the spearhead and the spear was suddenly jerked back.

  “Look with your eyes, not your hands.” the slaver warned in a low tone.

  “Y-yes sir” James hurriedly replied.

  The spear was extended again, precisely as fast and precisely to the same spot as before. This time, James kept his hands at his sides and tried to drink in as much of the spear head as he could with just his eyes in the fading light. The spear head was chipped in several places, and a large crack had formed which threatened to break entirely soon.

  [Material Identification: Forged Iron]

  “Er, I do think I could reforge this spearhead, sir.” James said.

  “Hrmm.” the spear-wielder grunted.

  “But I don’t know about making a new one from scratch, with these tools… I could try casting a mold, but that would make it more brittle than a forged one. And I don’t have a whetstone, so I couldn’t sharpen…”

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  “Don’t worry about sharpening.” The spear-wielder interjected.

  The merchant slaver clicked his tongue. “Tch, all that time and you can’t even make a spear-head? You really are a crappy smith. Can you at least fix a pick-axe, a shovel? Be a huge waste if you couldn’t after all this time.”

  “Er, yes sir, I’m pretty sure I can fix a pick-axe and a shovel.”

  “Pretty sure?” the slaver pressed threateningly.

  “I-I’ll do my best, sir!” James said.

  “Tch. We’ll see. I need all this ore smelted by three days from today. I’ll also give you a couple tools to work on tomorrow morning. I want to see if you can actually fix em.”

  “Uh, sir, will I be working in the mines again starting tomorrow?”

  “Course ya will. Gotta work in the mines, that’s your main job! Do yer smithing in the morning, then mine in the afternoon, then smelt in the evening, heheheh.”

  The two slavers walked away. James looked at the smelter. By this point, it was already quite dark. Even if he got started now, he wouldn’t get much done before it was too dark to see what he was doing. He instead spent his time making sure he had plenty of fuel for the smelter and ore ready to go. Then, he went to the lean-to and found the grey-eyed boy lying in his usual spot.

  “Hey.” James whispered. The boy rolled over and looked at him. “What?” he replied.

  “That one slaver, the one who takes the iron and sells it? He told me to do smithing in the morning and work in the mines in the afternoon.”

  “Did any of the other slavers hear him say that?”

  “Yeah, the one with the spear.”

  “Should be fine then.”

  “What about cleaning up the mine in the morning?”

  The boy gave him a look. “Yeah, what about it?”

  “I got a lot of smelting backed up, and I gotta be done in three days.”

  “Your smelter runs too hot, nobody else can even use the thing.”

  “Yeah, but-”

  “Figure it out. It’s gonna be bad enough you’re only mining for half a day. If you’re making a mess in the mine and not helping clean up, everyone’s just going to resent you even more.”

  The next morning James woke up slightly earlier than the other boys and crawled out of the lean-to. There was just barely enough light to see as he prepared his forge for the morning’s work. Soon enough the dawn properly got started, and the other boys climbed out of the lean-to. James joined them and spent time clearing out rubble with the rest of the slaves. Some of them were side-eyeing him as they worked, but nobody said anything.

  As they worked, carrying chunks of stone out of the mine, the grey-eyed boy spoke with each boy one on one. Apparently he had been explaining James’ new work schedule because the last and coincidentally biggest boy threw his stone down on the mine floor with a clatter.

  “That’s bullshit!” he hissed, still making an attempt at keeping his voice down but clearly furious. “He barely in the mine to begin with and now he only gonna be working half days? You know that’s bullshit!”

  The grey-eyed boy caught James’ eye and jerked his head, calling him over. James took a deep, shuddering breath. This was it. He walked over to stand behind the grey-eyed boy, backing him up.

  The angry boy started to round on James, but the grey-eyed boy stepped back between them. “Hey, idiot. Smith’s doing what he’s told. We’re all doing what we’re told. If you don’t like it, take it up with the slavers. Otherwise, shut up.” But the angry boy didn’t listen.

  “Oh, sure, Smith’s just doing what he’s told, and he’s just being told to take weeks off and now he’s being told not to mine, you think we can’t see what’s going on? It’s bullshit-” His voice was getting louder and louder, and now almost all the other slaves had stopped working to watch the altercation.

  The grey-eyed boy saw this and glanced at James, then jerked his head towards the boy.

  James took a moment and observed the boy. He was skinny, like they all were. Not one of the slaves with [Fire Resistance], so he hadn’t been on the smelter in weeks. But other than that, he looked relatively healthy and well rested. Maybe that was the problem, he’d gotten too comfortable, gotten too much rest, and now he was acting out with his excess energy.

  Then he stepped forward and decked him in the jaw.