Seiko remained still long after Iris had disappeared. The iron knife she had given him felt like a sentence, not a gift.
"Three days," he said to the Pawniard. "She's given us three days before an army falls on us."
Acies hissed, a low, vicious sound. His hatred for the Ursaring had been personal; this was territorial.
"And she was right," Seiko continued, his mind already racing, discarding panic and embracing logistics. "My barricade is wood. It won't stop twenty coordinated predators. Not the 'Sawtooths.'"
'Krookodile,' he guessed. 'Ground/Dark type. Hunt in packs, led by an alpha. Diggers. Smart. Shit. Shit. Shit.'
His chevaux de frise had been designed to stop a frontal charge of brute force, like the Ursaring. It wasn't meant for a siege by enemies that could dig, flank, and think tactically.
"We can't win a direct fight," he said, pacing in front of his cave. "One against twenty is a bad equation. We have to change the equation."
He stopped. He looked at his pile of ore. He looked at his furnace.
"We can't make them weaker," he said, "so we have to make ourselves stronger. We can't be stronger, so we have to be deadlier. And we can't stop them, so we have to channel them."
The plan formed in his mind, a series of interconnected engineering problems.
Priority One: Weapons. Priority Two: Fortifications. Priority Three: Survival.
"Acies," Seiko ordered. The Pawniard straightened. "You are the sentinel. I cannot be interrupted. Hunt if necessary, but watch that ridge. If anything bigger than a Patrat moves, warn me."
Acies nodded and leapt to the highest rock above the cave, becoming a statue of black steel.
Seiko turned to his forge.
The first day began.
There was no time to sleep. The CLANG… CLANG… CLANG… of his hammer became the only sound across the plains, a bell marking the passage of hours.
The "mass production" problem was fuel. He needed intense, constant heat. The charcoal he had made was good, but it burned fast. He spent the first six hours of Day One furiously chopping young trees with his axe, dragging them into the cave and stacking them.
Then, he began smelting. He was no longer a craftsman. He was a one-man factory.
Crucible after crucible of molten iron was poured. He no longer sought perfection; he sought function.
'I don't need a king's sword,' he thought, hammering a simple triangular form. 'I need a spike. Something that can kill. Fast.'
He was making spearheads.
His two-meter spear was an excellent defensive weapon, but it was one. Against twenty, he needed force multipliers. He needed ranged weapons.
He forged one head. Then another. And another. His hands, already calloused, blistered. The blisters burst. He wrapped his palms with rawhide strips from the Ursaring and kept working.
By mid-Day Two, he had a pile of twelve sharp, deadly spearheads. They were smaller than his main spearhead, designed to be light, aerodynamic, and disposable.
But a spearhead is not a weapon. He needed shafts.
He used his axe to cut the straightest, strongest branches from the felled trees. He peeled them, roughly straightened them over the forge's heat, then carved notches for the heads. He secured them with more rawhide strips and pine resin—the same he had used on Acies.
By sunset of Day Two, he had six complete javelins and a main thrusting spear. He felt a little better. Now he had an arsenal.
As the forge cooled, he moved on to Priority Two: Fortifications.
"Channel them," he murmured, studying the terrain in front of his cave.
He couldn't build a wall. But he could build a trap.
Using his main spear as a lever and his axe as a hoe, he began digging. It was exhausting work. The plains' soil was hard and full of roots. Acies, seeing his struggle, jumped from his watch post.
'SKREEE!'
The Pawniard used his Metal Claws. He wasn't an Excadrill, but he was better than a wooden shovel. Together, they dug a trench. Not deep, maybe half a meter, but wide. They dug it in a semicircle about ten meters from the cave entrance.
All the soil they removed, Seiko piled on the inner edge, creating a small embankment.
Then, he took the remaining logs from the original chevaux de frise and the stakes he had cut for the smokehouse. He planted them in the bottom of the trench, angled outward.
It wasn't Hadrian's Wall. It was a nightmare for anyone trying to charge.
'Concentrated force,' he thought, his engineer's mind buzzing despite exhaustion. 'If they charge, they trip in the trench. If they jump, they land on the spikes. If they stop, they are easy targets.'
Finally, he rebuilt his main chevaux de frise. Denser, stronger, tying the wood with the Ursaring's rawhide straps. He placed it right behind the embankment, blocking the cave entrance.
Now, to reach him, the Sawtooths would have to:
1.- Cross the line of fire of his javelins.
2.- Navigate the spiked trench.
3.- Jump the embankment.
4.- Break the main barricade.
All while he and Acies attacked from an elevated choke point.
'It's a death zone,' he thought with grim satisfaction.
Night fell on Day Three. The new moon.
Seiko was exhausted. His hands were raw flesh. His eyes burned from smoke and sleeplessness. He had eaten nothing but raw smoked meat strips and drunk water from the stream.
He sat behind his final barricade. Acies sat beside him.
The Pawniard had methodically cleaned himself. His blades glinted under the starlight. Calm. Ready.
Seiko, on the other hand, was vibrating with adrenaline and exhaustion. He looked at his hands, blackened with soot, blood, and dirt.
'The work of our hands is our prayer,' he remembered his own theology. 'Good. I just prayed a lot.'
He took his main spear. Its weight felt reassuring. The six javelins were stuck in the ground beside him, within reach.
The air was still. Too still. The plains, usually alive with the sounds of nocturnal Pokémon, were silent.
Seiko looked at Acies. The Pawniard was already staring west.
Slowly, Acies rose. He turned his head, and the sound Seiko had learned to fear and respect echoed through the cave.
'CHING.'
"They're here," Seiko whispered.
He rose, placing the base of his spear against the rock behind him. He looked into the darkness beyond his trench.
At first, he saw nothing.
Then, a pair of yellow eyes gleamed in the darkness.
Then another pair. And another.
Ten. Fifteen. Twenty.
They were spreading, forming a semicircle, just beyond the reach of his dying forge light.
No roars. Only a low, multiple sound, like rocks grinding. A clatter of teeth.
Seiko could see their silhouettes now. They were larger than he expected. Low, muscular, covered in armored plates. Definitely Krookodile.
A low growl, deeper than the rest, rumbled. A massive Krookodile, almost twice the size of the others, advanced. Scars on its snout, eyes shining with malevolent intelligence. The Alpha.
The Alpha looked at the cave. He saw the embankment. He saw the spikes. He saw the smoke from the smokehouse.
He smelled the food. He smelled the defenders.
He raised his snout and let out a guttural roar that shook Seiko's bones.
And the pack charged.