They wound their way between the dead iron; the slumped bodies serving as their own gravestones. A sudden blast from the furnaces lit the yard, unveiling the towering silhouettes for what they were; the Forge Born covered in burial shrouds of rust standing in irregular rows, crowding the inner bailey.

Slouch Hat kept a daily count.

One hundred and nine currently stood and the Red Caps never stopped working, hauling a newly reconstructed warrior to its feet every few hours. According to the husk, only six hundred were ever made, and they almost destroyed all life on the isle.

The foundry sat in the center of the Cog Yard, belching flames and smoke from its chimneys and furnaces. Through the steam, the goblin ironmongers smote the anvils and pumped the bellows, reworking the separated limbs and bodies with heat and pressure, molding them whole. Padric and Svala flinched away from the blistering heat as they passed, the sharp hiss of cooling metal adding a painful note to the cacophony of hammers. One goblin emerged from the press of workers, staggering and coughing. He made it a few steps, then fell against the leg of a completed Forge Born, heedless as his skin began to sizzle against the iron. Wracked with spasms and choking, the wretch vomited blood on the Forge Born’s foot before slumping lifeless to the ground. Padric kept walking, his jaw clenched disdainfully.

For all their belief, Red Caps were still goblins, and goblins were Fae. Iron killed them, quickly if it pierced the flesh, slowly with exposure. The Red Caps defied this weakness with maniacal delusion, wielding iron weapons to better slaughter their kindred and wearing their heavy iron boots over layers of wrapping to keep the metal from their flesh. But the crafting of living iron was a taxing, noxious labor, and the smiths quickly weakened, collapsing into shriveled, blind, wheezing shells before they were dragged away and given to the Fire, feeding the flames of unnatural life to their last measure. New workers came to replace the fallen, and the labor continued uninterrupted, day and night, an ugly unending cycle of death and creation. The Red Caps gave their lives to birth the Forge Born, that they might bathe in the blood of the isle.

The Cog Yard was a horrifying garden, growing thick with metal monstrosities and its center was a hot, stinking, suffocating heart of industry and sacrifice. Padric defied his fear and looked, willing himself to witness the source of all this insanity, the creature he would risk everything to destroy.

The Flame Binder.