As you pass through the makeshift gateposts of Camp Dragon, the first sound to greet you is not voices, nor laughter, nor music — but the hammering of iron.
To the left of the main road, nestled between the carpenter’s awning, the millhouse, and the fly-buzzing stables, stands a stark, unwalled smithy, open to the jungle air and roaring with heat. There’s no sign, no greeting, no painted nameboard — only the rhythmic thunder of metal meeting metal.
The smithy is a simple lean-to of blackened timbers, its forge sunk low into stone. Two brawny young men man the bellows, driving twin blasts of air into the flame as a giant of a man hammers away, each strike ringing through the camp like a war drum. He is shaping the glowing orange blade of what looks to be a shovel, but the care he puts into it makes it seem like a weapon of war.
To his right stands a teenage girl, bare-armed, barefoot, and strong as any of her brothers. Muscles ripple beneath soot-streaked skin as she hauls iron stock, pumps the secondary bellows, and assists in quenching and shaping. Her eyes are steady, cold, and alert — not the eyes of a child, but of someone who’s seen fire, blood, and worse.
There is no laughter here. No idle chatter. Just heat, effort, and a tension that clings like soot.