The funeral pyre was immense.
It had been built in the main clearing, not far from the Wall of Memory, using the charcoal wood that Eria and Mako themselves had helped stack. The bodies of the four fallen, Oran, Eria, Mako, and Tor, rested on top, wrapped in their sleeping blankets.
The whole town was gathered. The fifteen survivors of the Earth People and the twenty prisoners of the Legion, the latter watching in a tense and guarded silence, surrounded by Kael's warriors.
Seiko stood in front of the pyre. He carried no weapons, only his tools on his belt. Iris was by his side, holding a lit torch.
There were no long speeches. There were no poetic eulogies. The Law of the Mountain was pragmatic, even in grief.
Iris stepped forward. "Spirits of the Mountain, Ancestors of the Celestica Clan," she began with the old formula, her voice echoing in the silence. "Receive your children. Oran, the Warrior. Eria, the Builder. Mako, the Seeker. Tor, the Young."
She paused and then looked directly at Seiko. "They return to the fire they defended."
She turned and offered the torch to Seiko.
Seiko took it. He felt the heat on his face. This was his duty. The duty of the leader who had sent them into battle.
"I didn't know them as you knew them," said Seiko, his voice clear and without forced emotion. "I didn't share their seasons. But I shared their work. I saw Eria and Mako master the charcoal furnace. I saw Tor carry water without complaint. I saw Oran die defending his leader."
He looked at Kael, who nodded stiffly, a single tear tracing a clean path through the soot on his face.
"The Bronze Legion follows the 'Truth'," continued Seiko. "Their truth is that we are savages. Their truth is that we are weak. Their truth is that they can take what they want from us."
He raised the torch. "Today, we showed them a new truth. We showed them the Truth of Iron. We showed them the Truth of Work. And Oran, Eria, Mako, and Tor... they were the first to write that truth. Not in stone."
He brought the torch closer to the dry wood. "But in history."
The fire caught with a roar, flames rising quickly, consuming the charcoal wood with an intense white heat. Smoke rose in a straight column toward the morning sky.
No one spoke. The only sound was the crackling of the fire. It was a sound of loss, but also of transformation. It was the sound of the forge.
While the pyre burned, Kael approached Seiko. "I have answers," he murmured, his voice low so only Seiko could hear.
"Let's go," said Seiko. He let Iris and Tyla lead the rest of the funeral rite. His work there was done.
They returned to the west mine, where the Commander was being interrogated. Kael had been efficient. The Commander was now sitting against the wall, pale and sweaty, and a crude map was drawn in the dust at his feet.
"His name is Commander Valerius," said Kael, and Seiko froze for a split second.
"What did you say?" asked Seiko, his voice dangerously quiet.
"Valerius," repeated Kael. "He says it is a common name in the lowlands. Why?"
'Coincidence,' Seiko told himself. 'It can't be. My father... my family... they don't have this organization.'
"It doesn't matter," said Seiko, forcing his mind back to the present. "What did you find out?"
"They call themselves the 'Legion of Truth'," said Kael, pointing to the map in the dust. "Their main fortress is here, three weeks march to the south, at the mouth of the great river. They call it 'White City'. It is ruled by the 'White Hero', a man who, according to him, speaks directly with Reshiram."
Seiko nodded. 'A theocratic cult. Like mine, but older and probably bigger.'
"They have hundreds of soldiers," Kael continued. "All with arsenical bronze armor (armour), as he called it. They have Steel Pokémon, but Klinklangs are rare. He says most commanders use Pawniard and Bisharp."
This caught Seiko's attention. "Bisharp? Like Acies?"
"Yes. But he says theirs are... different. Wilder. Harder to control."
"And their iron weapons?" asked Seiko.
Commander Valerius looked up, his face a mix of fear and defiance. "We have no iron. It is forbidden. The White Hero says iron is impure. It is the 'Dark Earth'. Only bronze, blessed by the green flame of Truth, is pure."
Seiko stood still, processing the information. It wasn't a technological gap they had. It was a religious dogma.
"They don't have iron," whispered Seiko. 'They are choosing not to use it.'
"We use 'witchcraft'," said Kael, spitting the word. "And now they know we have iron. They will come back, Seiko. Not just with forty men. They will come with hundreds."
"I know," said Seiko. "And they know where we are."
"What do we do? Do we move? Do we hide?"
"No," said Seiko, his engineer mind accelerating. "We don't hide. We dig in. Kael, I want you to take your warriors and ten of the prisoners. The strongest ones. I want you to start digging. We are going to build a wall of truth. Not of wood. Of stone. And we are going to widen the path to create more kill zones."
"And what about you?" asked Kael.
"Me," said Seiko, turning toward the sunlight, "I am going to give them a reason to fear us even more. I am going to give them a new God."
He left Kael organizing the work crews and returned to the forge clearing. The funeral was over. The people were eating in silence, the mood somber. Iris was comforting Eria's widow.
Seiko walked straight to Tyla, who was standing next to the neutralized Klinklangs, a set of iron levers at her feet.
"Are you ready?" asked Seiko.
Tyla wiped her eyes. She saw the intensity in Seiko's gaze, the fire that had supplanted the grief. She nodded.
"Good. First, the cleaning."
They spent the next hour using water and wire brushes (a quick invention of Seiko's that morning) to clean the corrosive paste from the gears. The tannic acid had done its job; the metal was pitted and stained with rust in the places where it had adhered.
"They are dead," said Tyla, pointing to the dull red eyes.
"They are disconnected," Seiko corrected her. "This is not a brain, Tyla. It is a machine. And machines can be understood."
He knelt next to the first Klinklang. "Look. This outer plate. It isn't welded. It is bolted." He pointed to some strange-headed bolts. "I will need a tool for that."
He went to the forge and returned in thirty minutes with two pieces of wrought iron, filed with precision to fit the bolt heads. The world's first "wrench."
With a screech of rusted metal, the first bolt gave way.
They worked methodically. Seiko taught Tyla to identify the moving parts, to label each piece with charcoal chalk before removing it, to draw its location on a slate slab.
It was the opposite of the forge. The forge was heat, brute force, and creation. This was cold, precise, and deconstructive.
After two hours, the outer casing of the Klinklang was removed, revealing its guts.
It was a mass of copper and bronze gears, all interconnected with amazing complexity. And in the center (centre), floating in a weak magnetic field, was the core: a red metal orb that still pulsed with a faint light.
"Incredible," whispered Tyla.
"It is an engine," said Seiko, his voice full of wonder. "No... it is more than that. It is an electromagnetic generator."
He pointed to the copper wires coming out of the core. "This creates power. Electric power. And it sends it to the smaller gears, which then move the larger gears. It isn't a Pokémon, Tyla. It is... incredible."
He followed the wires to the Klinklang's brain. There, instead of an organ, they found a metal cylinder perforated with thousands of tiny holes, like a metal scroll.
"Memory," said Seiko. "Like our Wall. But for a machine. This is where its orders are."
He touched the cylinder with reverence. "They were sent with an order: 'Destroy'. And they followed it blindly."
"Can we... can we give it new orders?" asked Tyla.
"We can," said Seiko. "But we aren't going to do that. We are going to do something better. We don't want a blind soldier. We want a worker."
Seiko looked at the pulsing core, then at the cold bloomery furnace, and then at the river flowing in the valley below. An idea, so big and terrifying it made him smile, began to form.
"Tyla," he said, his eyes shining with an almost manic light. "Do you see that core? It generates power. Do you see that river? It flows with power. The Legion uses this power to destroy. We will use it to build."
"We are going to dismantle all three," ordered Seiko. "We will take their cores. And then, Tyla... you are going to need to learn about the water wheel. Because we are going to give this mountain a heart that never tires."
They wouldn't just make iron anymore. They were going to make energy.
[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]