The Forge of Loss

“What we surrender to the fire is not destroyed — it returns to us in another form.” — Saying of the Mountain Clans

The camp had barely been raised when the arguments began. Shadows lengthened at the mountain’s feet, the jagged peaks turning crimson in Shamash’s dying light, and still the settlers’ voices rose and fell in uneasy murmurs. Everyone knew the wagons would never survive the climb as they were. Eadric’s warning had cut to the bone: the mountain would tear them apart unless they were reforged. But knowing the truth and accepting it were not the same.

Kiya stood before the gathered crowd, her tablets spread across a flat stone, the marks of her stylus as sharp as a general’s commands. She had already sketched out her solution—bronze strappings and reinforced axles—but the means of obtaining them hung heavy over the assembly.

“We must melt what we carry,” she declared, her voice calm but unyielding. “Bronze fittings, tools, ornaments—anything that can be reforged into strappings and joints. Without it, our wagons will break upon the slopes like clay pots dashed against stone.”

A murmur ran through the settlers like wind through dry reeds. One man lifted a bronze sickle, its curved blade gleaming faintly in the firelight. “This is my livelihood,” he said. “How will I reap without it?”

“You will reap nothing if you do not first survive the mountain,” Kiya replied, her eyes flashing.

Another settler, a woman clutching a bronze-framed mirror, shook her head vehemently. “This belonged to my mother,” she whispered, her voice breaking. “She brought it from Uruk itself. Am I to feed her memory to the forge?”

At this, Torren stepped forward, his broad frame dark against the forge-fire that had already been kindled. He held out his hand for the mirror, his voice low and steady. “Metal remembers better than men do. It will live on in the wheel that carries your children safely across these stones. Better that than to lie broken in the dust.”

The woman hesitated, eyes darting from the mirror to Torren’s calloused palm. Slowly, reluctantly, she placed it in his hand, her tears catching the firelight. Torren bowed his head slightly in respect before turning away, as if to spare her the sight of him consigning it to the melting pot.

Gideon’s voice cut through the moment like a chisel. “And what of the gods’ gifts?” he demanded, holding aloft a bronze amulet in the shape of Enlil’s eagle. “Shall we melt down our protections too? Is there nothing sacred in this march? Must every treasure be devoured by the mountain before we even set foot upon it?”

Azariel stepped forward then, his cloak stirring in the mountain wind. He placed a hand gently but firmly on Gideon’s arm, lowering it until the amulet no longer caught the firelight. “The gods’ true gifts are not in metal, Gideon. They are in the breath we draw, in the strength of our hands, in the will to endure. This amulet will protect no one if a wagon’s axle shatters and crushes its bearer. But reforged into a strapping, it will carry us all.”

Gideon’s jaw tightened, but he said no more. Slowly, reluctantly, he lowered his gaze, and after a long pause he pressed the amulet into Torren’s waiting hand.

From there, the offerings came more quickly. A farmer handed over a bronze-tipped ploughshare. A child brought forth a small statuette, once placed on a household shrine. Even a trader who had been reluctant to join the march at all surrendered the ornate clasps of his cloak. Each item was received by Torren with grave solemnity, laid carefully beside the forge as if onto an altar.

Meanwhile, Eadric led another party to the edge of the ridge where stunted pines grew crooked and stubborn. Their resinous scent filled the cold air as axes bit into the wood. “The mountain takes and gives,” Eadric said to the young men beside him, his breath misting in the chill. “Take only what is needed. Fell too many, and the slopes will slide beneath us.”

One youth swung his axe clumsily, splintering bark rather than cutting true. “These trees are thin, twisted,” he muttered. “How will they bear the weight of a wagon?”

“They are small,” Eadric replied, steadying the boy’s hands, “but their hearts are hard. They have clung to this stone since before your grandfather was born. The mountain makes them stronger, just as it will make us stronger.”

The first tree fell with a cracking groan, its branches snapping against stone as it tumbled. Others followed, each one marked with a prayer spoken by Amara, who moved among the workers offering whispered blessings to appease the spirits of the forest. “Forgive us,” she intoned, touching her palm to each fallen trunk. “Your strength becomes our strength.”

As the fires deepened and the forge roared hotter, the settlers gathered again, watching sparks leap skyward like stars torn from the earth. One by one, their possessions vanished into the crucible: mirrors, tools, trinkets, blades. Each hiss of molten metal was like a sigh, each hammer-strike upon the anvil like a heartbeat.

By the time Shamash’s light had faded entirely from the peaks, the first sacrifices had been made. The camp was quieter now, subdued, but something had shifted. They had begun to surrender not just their possessions, but their illusions—that survival could be bought without cost. The mountain demanded tribute, and they had paid it.

Azariel looked upon the glowing forge and murmured softly to himself, words lost to all but the fire: “Light the fire.”

The flames answered with a shower of sparks, and the work of transformation had begun.