The Forge-Crawler ‘Perun’ moved into the shadow of The Anvil Heart, and the open sky vanished. The city was not a collection of buildings but a single, repurposed factory arcology, a mountain of rust-stained ferro-concrete and blackened steel that rose into the permanent smog of its own making. The air, thick enough to taste, was a mix of hot metal, ozone, and coal smoke. The ground itself trembled, not with the shudder of decay, but with the rhythmic, percussive beat of a thousand power hammers. It was the Foundry Chorus, a constant, deafening song of work that held the city’s memory together. Sineus stood at an armored viewport, his body still aching with the deep exhaustion of the Mnemonic Bridge crossing. The price for their passage had been a piece of his own stamina, and it was a debt his nerves had not forgotten.
He and Irina Pavlenko walked from the docking bay into the city proper. The noise was a physical force, a relentless battery of sound that vibrated in his bones. They moved through a cavern of soot and steam, past crews of men and women whose faces and arms were smudged with grease. Their authority was measured in calluses, their rank in the skill etched into their hands. They were the people of Union 9. They were a tribe forged in labor. Sineus and Irina were led to a grated platform high above a river of molten steel, the council hall of the masters.
The Forge Council did not sit on thrones. They stood around a massive workbench of scarred iron, their faces lit from below by the orange glow of the forge. They were eighteen men and women, their heavy leather aprons worn over practical jumpsuits. They were the master craftsmen and engineers who led Union 9. Their eyes, when they fell upon Sineus, were hard and cold. His clean Eurasian Federation gear, even stained with the dust of the wastes, marked him as an outsider, a man from the sterile bunkers who knew nothing of the sweat and fire that kept the world turning. The hostility was a palpable force, thick as the heat rising from the forges.
Sineus saw it then, on the hub of a colossal gear turning slowly in the machinery below them. A maker’s mark, worn but clear: a three-spoked gear. The same symbol stamped into the steel of his father’s wrench. A sigil of a forgotten age of craft.
Irina stepped forward, placing herself between Sineus and the council’s collective glare. She was risking her own standing, the reputation she had earned over decades of service, to speak for him.
— His methods are not ours, — she said, her voice sharp and clear, cutting through the din. — But they saved the ‘Perun’. He fights the same enemy that dissolves our rails and murders our crews.
The Forge Council Master, a broad-shouldered man with a beard singed grey at the edges, wiped his hands on a rag. He looked from Irina to Sineus, his eyes missing nothing.
— Words are wind, Engineer Pavlenko. The Federation watches our caravans starve and calls it fate. They trade their grain for our grease and count every drop. Why should we trust one of their ghosts now?
The Master’s gaze settled on Sineus. It was a heavy, physical weight.
— You want our help? You want access to our history, to our relics? Prove your worth. Not with words. In the forge.
The council members murmured their assent, a low rumble that blended with the hammering of the city. This was their way. Trust was not given; it was forged. The Master picked up a hammer and a blank plate of steel, its surface clean and ready.
— We will grant you a trial. If you succeed, we will help you. But there is a price. A Union Debt. If we give you our aid, your people—whoever they are—will owe us one task of our choosing. A debt to be called when we see fit.
To accept was to bind not just himself, but the fragile alliance he hoped to build, to a promise whose cost was unknown. But to refuse was to fail before he had even begun.
— I accept the terms, — Sineus said, his voice steady.
The Master nodded once, a gesture of finality. He held the steel plate on a small anvil.
— Then the trial is set.
He spoke again, his voice carrying the weight of a verdict.
— The Foundry Heart has gone cold. The casting line that forges the rails for our crawlers has forgotten its purpose. The crew has lost its will. Their morale is a cold ash in the bottom of a furnace. Go there. Remind the machine of its fire, and the men of their hands.
The Master’s hammer fell, striking the plate with a single, ringing blow that echoed the great hammers of the city. The sound was the sealing of a contract, a promise made in steel. The trial was set.
