I smelled them before I saw them.

Not literally—but close. My senses, engineered for battlefield awareness and environmental decoding, still worked even without augmentation. The patterns were all there: sudden silence in the wildlife, strange pressure in the air, and the scent of oil-treated leather on wind that hadn’t smelled like that before.

The Velkar had arrived.

And they weren’t marching with armies. Not yet.

They sent scouts.

It began with a rider.

A man on a black-coated beast unlike the local draft animals—sleeker, trained for speed, with armor lashed to its shoulders and legs. The rider wore dark green and iron, his face hidden behind a visor of polished bone, his spear longer than the village gate was tall. Behind him came two more—bows on their backs, short swords at their hips.

They did not announce themselves.

They simply rode through the fields, past the watchfires, past the frozen stares of farmers, and into the center of the village.

The people of Soruan parted like reeds before a blade.

I watched from the shadows near my forge, wiping soot from my arms. Erek stood behind me, eyes wide. The hammer in my hand wasn’t for metal anymore—it was for defense. I tightened my grip.

Then the lead rider spoke, his voice cold and imperial.

“Yul val Soriin?”

No one answered.

He said it again—louder. Then pointed his spear at the village elder’s hut.

Turo stepped out before the guards could move. His robes were clean. His face was calm.

“I speak for Soruan,” he said in their tongue. I understood maybe half of it, but the posture said enough.

The Velkar rider dismounted, walking with strange arrogance—like a man who already believed he owned this land. He began asking questions. Measured. Formal. They were not here to burn.

They were here to assess.

I walked out before Erek could stop me.

Eyes turned. Not just villagers. The Velkar noticed too. I was taller than all of them. Broader. Shirtless and smeared with ash. My body was unnatural to them—muscle wrapped in vascular threads of silver-black where dermal plating had once sat. Eyes that shimmered faintly, too still to be human.

The rider stopped speaking.

He turned toward me and tilted his head. “Va'tar?” he muttered.

I didn’t respond. Not yet.

He stepped forward. One of the other soldiers drew his bow. I heard the creak of the string. One wrong twitch, and they’d strike first.

Turo raised a hand and shouted something sharp. The rider raised his hand in turn—commanding the others to stand down.

Then he asked me something. A question. I recognized two words: name and origin.

I stepped closer, calmly, and answered in their tongue as best I could.

“Kalen. From... sky.”

He paused.

The Velkar looked at each other. Then laughed. Not mocking—more… amused.

The lead one turned back to Turo and spoke quickly. I caught fragments: “Interesting. Dangerous. Useful.”

Then he pointed at me.

They wanted to take me.

I shook my head. “No.”

He frowned.

I took a step forward. “You... leave.”

He stared at me, uncertain if he had heard me correctly.

“You. Leave.” I repeated, louder.

Then I did something I knew they wouldn’t expect.

I raised my hand… and struck the iron plate on my anvil.

The villagers winced.

But the scouts... flinched.

Because when I struck it, the shockwave from the hammer was amplified—not by tech, but by what I had built into the forge: a layered resonance trap of bone, crystal, and heated metal. A trick of physics and structure. It mimicked the frequency of impact weapons from my era.

A sound not just heard—but felt.

The ground trembled for a second. The birds fled the trees. A nearby jug shattered from the vibration alone.

The Velkar reached for their weapons, startled, confused.

I didn’t move.

The silence that followed was absolute.

The lead scout stared at me for a long moment. Then slowly backed away.

He said something to Turo—we’ll return or maybe we’ll report.

Then to me: “You are marked.”

He left.

They all did.

The moment they vanished into the tree-line, the villagers exploded with noise—panic, fear, argument. I turned to Turo.

“They’ll be back,” I said.

He nodded grimly. “With more.”

Later that night, the village elders gathered. I was invited—not with trust, but necessity. War was coming, and they had no illusions now.

Turo translated as they debated. Flee. Hide. Surrender.

Then he asked me, quietly, “What would you do, Kalen of the Sky?”

I looked at him. Then at the fire between us.

“I’d stop waiting to die,” I said.

They didn’t understand my words. But they understood my tone.

Before I returned to my hut, Erek ran up to me. He carried something small—a leather pouch, old and patched, filled with thin bone fragments shaped like keys.

“My father’s,” he said. “He was a builder. Before the Velkar took him.”

I opened the pouch. Primitive tools. But valuable.

“Thanks,” I told him.

Then I knelt.

“Do you want to build again?”

He nodded.

I looked toward the dark forest, where the Velkar scouts had disappeared.

“Then we start tomorrow.”