The northern wind seemed to die. The silence that followed Seiko's revelation was total, a void that absorbed Rikk's weeping, the murmur of the trees, and the forgotten chink of Tyla's chisel.
Kael was the first to react. His fury had evaporated, replaced by the warrior's icy instinct. His eyes locked onto Seiko, accompanied by a doubt:
'What now?'
Everyone looked at him. Tyla, with the hammer and chisel hanging uselessly from her hands. Iris, her face pale, realizing that the history she had just rediscovered was about to be erased. Kael, ready to receive an order.
Seiko felt the weight of their gazes. Fear was a cold knot in his stomach. Forty soldiers. Steel-type Pokémon. Organized. And they were coming for them.
'They are marching here. They saw our smoke.'
His smoke. The smoke of progress. The smoke of the forge that had been his salvation was now his beacon of death.
Seiko's mind, the engineer who had been silenced by the awe of becoming a prophet for a tribe in a very backward age, took control again. The world became sharper. Problems. Fear transformed into something new, something analytical, the air of thought shifting back to his origins, to dividing and conquering the states of human thought itself, finding a solution to the problem.
"Iris," Seiko's voice cut through the silence. It was calm, cold, and absolute. It was no longer Seiko, the teacher. It was the Commander. "Take Rikk to the hut. Give him water. Bandage his wounds. And then," he crouched in front of the trembling scout, "I want you to get every last detail out of him. How did they walk? What armor (armour) did they wear? The sound of those beasts? The exact color (colour) of that green smoke? Every detail, Iris. Your memory is a weapon now. Use it for the good of the people."
Iris nodded, her own fear replaced by resolve. She and another member of the people helped Rikk to his feet and took him away.
"Tyla," Seiko continued, turning to his apprentice.
"The forge," said Tyla immediately, anticipating the order.
"No. Forget the forge," said Seiko, surprising her. "The bloomery furnace. The big one. Light it up. I need all the heat you can generate."
"We are smelting?"
"No," said Seiko. "We are boiling. Take all the clay pots we made. All of them. Fill them with water. And find the most acidic berries we have. The ones we use to tan leather. Bring them all."
Tyla was confused, but the urgency in his voice made her run.
"Kael." Seiko turned to the warrior. The man was a statue of tension. "You were right. I should have listened to you about the patrols."
Kael shook his head. "And you were right. Spears wouldn't have been enough. Oran..." He clenched his jaw. "We had six warriors. Now five. Plus those left in the Inner Village."
"We don't need them to fight," said Seiko. "We need them to work. Gather them. Everyone. Men, women, anyone who can lift something to fight. Bring them here. Now."
Kael nodded sharply and ran off.
In less than a minute, Seiko was left alone on the path with Acies. His Bisharp partner hadn't moved. His red eyes shone, fixed on the north, his blade-arms crossed.
"Forty, Acies," Seiko murmured. "Forty against us. Do you like those odds?"
Acies emitted a low metallic click. It wasn't a sound of fear.
'We won't win a pitched battle,' thought Seiko, his engineer mind scanning the terrain. 'So we won't fight one.'
He ran back to the forge clearing, now the center (centre) of a defense. Kael returned with the remaining members of the Earth People. Their faces were pale, some crying silently for Oran. They were miners, gatherers, weavers. They weren't soldiers, not yet.
"Listen to me," shouted Seiko, his voice echoing in the clearing. The chink, chink of faith was gone; only the reality of war remained. "Oran is dead. And the men who killed him are coming to do the same to us. They are coming to take our forge, to tear down our hopes, and to enslave us. They are coming for our home."
He looked at their terrified faces. "We won't let them."
"But, Seiko..." began an older man. "We are miners. Kael and his men are the warriors..."
"Today, everyone is a warrior!" roared Kael, stepping up beside Seiko. "Today, your pickaxes are weapons and your hands are the shield that will protect the children of tomorrow!"
Seiko pointed to a group of five men. "You, with Kael. Go to the cliffs. All the sentry Geodudes... bring them to the edge of the main path. And I want rocks. Piles of rocks. As big as your heads. I want an ammunition supply at every bend of the path!"
He pointed to the women. "You, with Tyla at the furnace. Help her keep the fire and boil those berries. It is our secret weapon!"
"Boil berries?" whispered a woman.
"Do it!" shouted Seiko. "The rest of you, with me. Bring the bags."
Seiko led the remaining group back to the path, just below the main ridge. They opened the sacks. Hundreds of small iron stars, sharp as needles, fell to the ground.
"I want you to cover every inch of ground on both sides of this path," ordered Seiko. "From here to the first bend. Leave the path clear. It is a trap. I want them to think it is safe, and when they try to step off it, their feet get shredded."
While the people worked frantically, spreading the area denial weapons, Seiko ran back to the Wall of Memory. Iris was there, having just returned from tending to Rikk.
"Well?" asked Seiko.
"They are coming at dawn," said Iris, her voice tense. "Rikk says the green smoke was like... burning sulfur. And the gear Pokémon... it wasn't one. There were three. And the pale metal... Rikk says it looked like tin. Soft. Their armor (armour) dented when Oran fell on them."
'Tin and sulfur,' Seiko's mind worked at lightning speed. 'They are making bronze. An alloy of copper and tin. It is easier to smelt than iron, but weaker. And the green smoke... A byproduct of smelting? Or a signal? And the Klinklang?'
"What else?"
"Oran's spear," said Iris. "Rikk said the shaft broke. But the iron tip... went through the soldier's bronze armor (armour) as if it were leather. It got stuck."
A grim smile crossed Seiko's face. "Good. That is good. Our iron is better than their bronze. Quality over quantity."
"What are you doing with the berries?" asked Iris.
"Chemical warfare," said Seiko. "Tanninum. Tannic acid. The same substance we use to tan leather and that blackened the handle of Kael's spear. If we boil it, we concentrate it. It is corrosive. And those Pokémon... Klinklang. They are Steel-type. What does acid do to metal?"
Iris's eyes widened. "It... It rusts it? It weakens it?"
"It dissolves it," said Seiko. "We will be throwing concentrated acid onto their strongest Pokémon from the cliffs. It won't kill them, but it will blind them. It will jam their gears. It will make them vulnerable."
Seiko looked at the wall of knowledge. The word ARCEUS stared back at him. Beside it, Iris and Tyla's story was half-carved.
"Iris," said Seiko. "Your job is the most important one. The Earth People will listen to you, you are the leader of the people."
"What must I do? Fight?"
"No. Pray," said Seiko. "Keep the people working. Remind them why they are fighting. Go to that wall. And don't stop carving."
Iris stared at him. "Carve? Now? We must prepare!"
"This is your preparation!" said Seiko, his voice resonating with the authority of the Prophet. "I want those soldiers to hear the sound of our faith when they attack. I want them to hear the chink, chink, chink of our history being etched into this mountain while Kael's rocks rain down on them and Tyla's acid melts their Pokémon. I want them to know they aren't attacking a group of miners. They are attacking a people who have a God on their side."
Seiko put his hand on the stone, next to the word ARCEUS.
"Work is worship, Iris. And tonight, our work is war."
He turned and ran toward the forge, where Tyla was already stoking the bloomery furnace into a roaring inferno, while the women crushed acidic berries into large vats of boiling water.
Night fell over the Fort. But there was no silence. The roar of the furnace, the crash of Kael moving rocks, and the faint, defiant, and constant CHINK... CHINK... CHINK of Iris hammering her faith into the mountain, became the war anthem of the Forge.
[A/N: I took a few days off for some rest and vacation, so sorry for not updating. I'll be posting more chapters right now. Since I've been away for several days, I'll be uploading 11 chapters in a row this time. But on Patreon, I'll keep the usual 10 chapter advance, just like I originally planned. You're all welcome to check it out. I hope you have a wonderful day, afternoon, or night. patreon.com/Nemryz]