Day 84.
The wind whipped against Rian's face as he clung to the leather harness of the Titan-Hawk Matriarch, whom he had named "Storm-Wing."
Below him, the world was a map. And on that map, a black stain was spreading.
A raiding party of 200 Orcs was marching toward Gray Creek Village—Grom's hometown.
They were dragging siege ladders. They intended to burn it to the ground.
"They think they are safe because the fort is miles away," Rian shouted over the wind to Varg, who was riding a smaller male hawk nearby. Varg looked green; he preferred wolves to birds.
"Drop altitude!" Rian commanded. "Bombing Run Formation!"
Rian didn't have impact detonators yet. He had Wind-Shielded Fuses.
He held a clay pot grenade. The fuse was tucked inside a hollow bamboo tube to protect it from the rushing air.
The First Air Raid
The Orcs were marching in a tight column, confident in their strength.
Suddenly, a shadow fell over them.
They looked up. Not a cloud. Not a dragon.
Giant Birds.
"Shields up!" the Orc Commander roared, expecting arrows.
But arrows didn't fall.
Clay Pots fell.
Rian lit the fuse. Hiss.
He calculated the drop. Speed of bird + wind resistance.
"Drop!"
Five pots released from the hawks' talons simultaneously.
They whistled as they fell.
The Orcs raised their wooden shields, laughing. "Stones? They throw stones?"
BOOM!
BOOM-CRACK!
The pots exploded above the heads of the Orcs (airburst due to timing) and directly in the center of their formation.
Shrapnel rained down. The shockwave shattered the wooden shields.
The tight formation turned into a meat grinder.
"SCREEEE!" Storm-Wing dived, her massive talons snatching an Orc officer off his mount and dropping him from 500 feet.
It wasn't a battle. It was an execution.
The Orcs broke. They couldn't fight what they couldn't reach. They scattered into the woods, leaving their siege engines burning.
[Ding! Battle Won: The First Air Raid]
[Casualties: 0]
[Enemy Casualties: 120+]
[Terror Level: Maximum]
Rian pulled up, soaring back toward the clouds.
"Let them run," Rian signaled. "We saved the village. Now, we build."
The Concrete City
Day 90.
A week after the raid, Fort Blackiron was unrecognizable.
The refugees from Gray Creek (mostly women, children, and elderly who fled the Orcs) had flooded the gates.
The population was now 540.
Tents and wooden shacks were not enough. Disease would return if they lived in squalor.
Rian stood in the center of the expanded perimeter.
"Tear down the shacks," Rian ordered Lara. "We are building a City."
He unrolled a blueprint on a table.
It wasn't a medieval village with crooked streets. It was a Grid.
"We use the Roman Concrete," Rian explained to his Masons.
"We build Insula (Apartment Blocks). Three stories high. Thick walls to keep the heat in."
The Design:
Foundation: Stone and gravel.
Walls: Concrete poured into wooden molds (Slipforming).
Heating: The Hypocaust System (Underfloor heating) was expanded from the greenhouse to the residential blocks. Hot smoke from the Blast Furnace would run under the floors before exiting the chimneys.
"Concrete?" A mason scratched his head. "Liquid stone? It will crumble in the winter."
"No," Rian said, patting a dried test block. "This stuff gets harder when it gets wet. In a thousand years, the mountain will erode, but these houses will stand."
Work began immediately.
The serfs mixed the gray sludge. The carpenters built the molds.
Day by day, gray, brutalist, but incredibly warm and sturdy buildings rose from the snow.
Fort Blackiron was becoming Blackiron City.
The Sky Riders
While the city rose, Rian faced a new problem.
The Titan-Hawks were restless.
Varg was too heavy. Kagan was impossible. Even Rian was barely light enough for the Matriarch.
The other hawks refused to carry heavy men.
"I need lighter riders," Rian muttered, watching the fledglings flap their wings. "Under 60kg. Agile. Fearless."
He looked at the refugees from Gray Creek.
Among them were teenagers—boys and girls who used to hunt squirrels in the treetops. They were small, wiry, and desperate to prove themselves.
Rian set up a test. The High Beam.
A narrow wooden plank suspended 20 feet in the air between two unfinished concrete walls.
"Walk across," Rian announced to the gathered youth. "No safety rope. If you fall, you break a leg. If you cross, you fly."
Fifty tried.
Thirty froze.
Ten fell (into a hay pile Rian had secretly placed).
But ten crossed. They ran across the beam like squirrels.
One of them, a girl named Elara (not the Alchemist, but a 16-year-old hunter with sharp eyes), didn't just walk. She did a handstand in the middle.
"You," Rian pointed at her. "What is your name?"
"Lyra, My Lord," she corrected him, grinning. "And I don't fear falling. I fear boredom."
"Good," Rian nodded. "Because where you are going, falling takes a long time."
[Ding! Unit Unlocked: Sky Riders (Light Cavalry)]
Requirements: Agility > 15, Weight < 60kg.
Weapon: Short Bows & Drop-Grenades.
Captain: Lyra (The Sky Dancer).
Rian handed Lyra a leather flight helmet.
"Welcome to the Air Force. Your job is to make sure no Orc ever sleeps soundly again."
End of Chapter 39