The bodies were gone by dawn.
Wrapped in burlap, buried in the forest under moonlight, far from the eyes of villagers. Emil made sure no one said a word — not even Bran, who'd started humming old soldier's marches again, his nerves catching up to him after the adrenaline had passed.
"Doesn't feel right," the serious guard muttered as they shoveled soil over the fifth corpse. "Not hiding the dead — that's just war. Hiding it from our own?"
Emil glanced at him. "We're not ready. If the village turns on us now, we die. If they stand with us before we're strong? They die too."
He finished burying the last body. "Silence is mercy. For now."
Back in the village, Emil donned a plain tunic and returned to his daytime routine — delivering supplies, tending tools, checking fences. He forced himself to smile at the baker's wife, to nod at passing farmers.
Everything had to look normal.
But beneath the surface, things were already shifting.
The workshop, now shielded behind a false wall and a locked trapdoor in an old wine cellar, had doubled production. Emil had split the team into pairs: two for barrels, two for flint mechanisms, one for powder measuring, one for maintenance.
They'd built thirteen muskets. Six pistols. Three of them already hidden in dry wells and roof beams around the village.
They called it the Red Forge, in hushed voices. A name whispered like prayer.
On the fourth day after the killing, the village chief summoned Emil.
She sat alone in her office, a tiny room above the granary, her fingers wrapped around a cup of bitterroot tea. Her eyes didn't match the weathered softness of her face. They were sharp, steel-like — too aware.
"Tell me, Emil," she said, not bothering with greetings. "Why did a scout and five soldiers from the Loyalists vanish after stepping into my village?"
Emil didn't flinch. "They probably took a wrong road."
She snorted. "Don't insult me."
Silence.
"I've seen the barrels," she said. "I've heard the clanging from the wine cellar at night. I've seen young men sneaking away with crates under sacks of hay."
She leaned forward. "I don't know what you're planning. I don't want to know. But my people won't be slaughtered in some half-born rebellion."
Emil nodded. "Then let me do what I need to — before they come."
She studied him. "What are you building?"
"A shield," he said. "And a spine."
By the end of the week, the village began to change.
Under the pretense of "storm defense," Emil organized a volunteer corps — six villagers trained in secret drills behind the sawmill at night.
Workshops expanded. A hidden tunnel was dug beneath the well for smuggling weapons and hiding fugitives. A crude printing press was constructed using scavenged parts.
Bran began writing pamphlets — passionate things titled:
"Why the Crown Feeds on Your Blood"
"What is a Union?"
"When God Falls Silent, Stand Together."
Emil began assigning literacy lessons to children. Alric helped. Harst drew pictures for the pamphlets. Even the serious guard, Aldwin, volunteered to design uniforms for the first militia once they had enough material.
None of this was loud.
None of it was public.
But every nail driven, every musket carved, was a word unspoken but deeply understood.
One night, standing atop the granary roof, Emil looked out over the village — his village — and whispered:
"History doesn't begin with banners. It begins with fear… and then with courage."
Behind him, Wilf climbed the ladder and handed him a new musket.
"What do we call this one?" the boy asked.
Emil smiled, cradling the weapon.
"…Liberty."