Clang! Clang! Clang!...
The sound of blacksmiths hammering rang out from rows of smithies, clear enough to hear even from the Temple atop the Pyramid. Clearer still were the wisps of blue smoke rising from the forges. The thicker smoke came from the Honeycomb Kilns smelting ore; the paler smoke came from the Low Kilns where iron was being worked. Even the air carried a faint scent of charcoal fire, calling to mind the volcanoes of the Mexican plateau.
"Main God above! I haven't come back for a year, and the blacksmithing district has expanded again... Chief Priest Tomatl, how many blacksmiths are there in Iron Bay Town now?"
"About four or five hundred. Blacksmith apprentices make up eighty percent of them, ordinary blacksmiths twenty percent. As for Master Blacksmiths, there are still only the two captured shipboard smiths—one from the Castle Great Tribe, the other from the Porto Great Tribe."
Chief Priest Tomatl wore a feathered crown and the plain robes of a High Priest as he stood on the Pyramid Temple more than ten meters high. Priest Xiu Maoying stood beside him, watching the southern side of Iron Bay Town with him.
The southern side of Iron Bay Town was the workshop district of the entire settlement. Upon the red hills stood all manner of newly built or expanded workshops. The smithies vented blue smoke, the bronze workshops vented blue smoke, the pottery kilns vented blue smoke, and the brick kilns also vented blue smoke. This industrial heavy town, rare in Cuba and even in Mesoamerica, was like a giant beast from myth, breathing out blue smoke as it crouched upon the northern ore belt of the Mayari Great Iron Mine.
The ironware and bronze vessels produced here supplied the entire Caribbean Eastern Sea and more than a