Star-Metal

“Fire does not only consume; it transforms. What enters as loss may return as strength.” — Words of the Forge-Singers

The forge became the heart of the camp. Its glow beat against the shadows of the mountains, pulsing like the steady flame of a temple lamp. Day after day, the settlers laboured around it, the ring of hammer on metal echoing against the sheer cliffs like prayers returned from the gods.

Torren presided over it as though it were his sanctuary. His broad hands, scarred by years of shaping iron and bronze, moved with certainty. He knew the temperament of each piece of metal by the colour it took in the fire—the deep orange of readiness, the dangerous white of overheat. Sparks leapt with every strike of his hammer, bright and brief as stars flung from Enlil’s hand, scattering upward into the dark. Children watched from a safe distance, wide-eyed, whispering that the smith was pulling stars from the mountain itself.

Beside him, apprentices and volunteers worked the bellows, sweat pouring down their faces despite the cold mountain air. The great leather skins wheezed and sighed as they breathed life into the fire, each rhythmic motion feeding the heart of the forge until it glowed like a miniature sun.

The offerings from the first sacrifices lay piled nearby—tools, ornaments, fittings, all now stripped of their identity. Torren took them one by one, consigning them to the crucible. The hiss of metal meeting fire was sharp, almost painful to the ear, as though the objects cried out in protest before being reborn.

“Strike true,” Torren told a young man nervously holding the hammer. “Metal does not forgive the weak or the careless. But if you give it your strength, it will remember you.”

The boy struck, clumsy at first, until Torren caught his hand and corrected his grip. “Not with rage. With rhythm. Like a drummer calling soldiers to march.” Soon the blows fell steady, ringing across the camp in time with the bellows’ breath.

Amara moved among them often, her healer’s hands ready with cloths soaked in cool water to soothe burns and blisters. Yet she did more than tend wounds. When a worker faltered, she laid a hand on their shoulder and murmured old words of blessing—chants learned from her mother in the wilderness, invoking Gibil, god of fire, to temper the flames rather than devour. “The fire tests,” she whispered, “but it also blesses. Let it burn away fear, not flesh.”

At night, when the forge still roared, the settlers gathered close, drawn to its glow as if to a temple hearth. They began to sanctify the work with ritual of their own making. Women sang weaving songs, their voices lilting like the twist of rope. Men beat time on wooden bowls or clapped in rhythm with the hammer-strokes. The forge became more than a place of labour—it became the centre of a shared rite, each spark rising into the sky a prayer unspoken.

One evening, as Torren lifted a glowing ingot from the crucible, a child’s voice piped up from the crowd: “Is that star-fire?” The question was innocent, but it caught the imagination of all who heard.

Torren paused, meeting the child’s wide eyes. His gruff features softened. “Aye,” he said at last, his voice low but carrying. “We borrow the fire of the stars to bind our wheels. May it carry us as far as the stars themselves endure.”

The settlers murmured assent, some touching charms, others bowing their heads. From that night onward, they began to call the reforged bronze star-metal, a name that lent it both pride and sacredness. Each strapping hammered into shape was more than a piece of metal—it was a piece of their endurance, sanctified by sacrifice and fire.

Not all moments were solemn. There were quarrels too—tempers frayed by exhaustion, arguments over whose possessions should be given next to the fire. Gideon’s voice was often sharpest, his doubts quick to flare. But even he was drawn into the rhythm of the forge. One night, when a rope frayed and a ladle nearly spilled molten bronze across the ground, it was Gideon who leapt forward, seizing the handle and steadying it, his hands blistered but his face set. When asked why, he muttered, “Better blisters than broken bones.” He said no more, but none failed to note the change.

The days stretched into one another. On the third morning, the first bronze strappings were fixed to a wagon axle. Kiya herself knelt to inspect it, running her fingers along the cooled metal, nodding in satisfaction. “This will hold,” she said. “The mountain may strain it, but it will not break.” Her words spread quickly, a spark of hope caught like kindling.

By the third night, the camp had become a living workshop. Fires burned across the shelf of earth, bellows wheezed in unison, hammers fell in rhythm. Smoke and sparks rose together into the mountain air, as if carrying their determination to the gods above. The settlers no longer worked as scattered individuals but as parts of a great machine, each effort feeding into the whole.

Azariel often watched from the edge of the circle, silent, his gaze fixed on the glow of the forge. More than once he was seen murmuring softly to himself, though the words were lost to the wind. Those who listened closest swore they caught the same phrase repeated like a prayer: Light the fire.

And the fire answered, day after day, as the mountain itself looked on.