The Cold Friction of Iron and Ash: A Story of an Aging Soldier Defending a Quiet Life
CHAPTER 1: THE WEIGHT OF THE BLOW The sound of the bald man’s jaw shifting against the metal stanchion of the shelter was wet, sudden, and final. It wasn’t the clean, sharp crack of a cinematic punch; it was the dense, heavy thud of a sixty-year-old shoulder putting forty years of manual labor into three…