The test fields around Harar flourished, and with their success came something greater: trust. Farmers who had once doubted now brought their sons to work in Tafari's irrigation ditches. Nobles, cautious but curious, sent messengers asking about "the prince's strange methods."
But Tafari was already thinking further. Grain filled bellies — but iron would defend them.
At night, in the quiet of his chamber, he drew sketches from memory: furnaces, bellows, waterwheels, and, most dangerous of all, the shape of a bolt-action rifle. He remembered the stories of nations that had crumbled because they relied on foreign weapons. In his past life, Ethiopia had imported rifles too slowly, too unevenly. When war came, they were outgunned.
Not this time.
One morning, Tafari approached his father.
"Father," he began, unrolling a parchment covered with designs, "food is our shield, but iron is our sword. We cannot rely on Italian or French rifles. We must make our own."
Ras Makonnen studied the sketches — a crude forge, molds for parts, the outline of a rifle bolt. He exhaled slowly.
"You dream dangerously, Tafari. Forging blades is simple, yes, but rifles? That is the work of whole nations, with foundries and engineers."
Tafari met his father's gaze with calm intensity. "Then let us begin as a nation should — small, but determined. Give me blacksmiths, scrap metal, and a place to work. If I fail, we lose nothing. If I succeed, Ethiopia will hold her future in her own hands."
Makonnen's silence stretched. Then, with a faint smile, he said, "Very well. You shall have an old workshop outside the city walls. But mark me, Tafari — if you draw the eye of foreign spies too early, you will bring fire upon us."
The workshop was a dusty stone building that had once stored caravan goods. Tafari transformed it into his first forge. He gathered the best blacksmiths in Harar — men who had hammered spearheads and horseshoes all their lives — and laid before them a new challenge.
"This," he said, holding up his sketch of a rifle, "is the weapon of tomorrow. With it, one man may fire five shots before reloading. We will make it here, in Ethiopia."
The blacksmiths muttered among themselves, shaking their heads. One grizzled elder said, "We are smiths, not magicians, young prince. This is work for Europeans."
Tafari knelt before the man, pressing the sketch into his calloused hands. "Every machine they have, every weapon they build, was made by men no different from you. With patience, fire, and iron, we will do the same."
His conviction silenced their doubts.
---
The weeks that followed were filled with fire and sweat. Bellows roared day and night. Tafari, though a prince, worked beside them, his robes traded for soot-stained cloth. He showed them how to temper steel longer, how to file pieces with precision, how to measure and re-measure until a bolt slid smoothly.
He borrowed from his memory of factories — breaking down the work into steps. One smith shaped barrels. Another forged bolts. Others carved stocks from seasoned wood. For the first time, Ethiopia's craftsmen worked like an assembly team rather than lone artisans.
It was slow, grueling, full of failure. Barrels warped. Bolts jammed. Stocks split. Yet Tafari pressed them on.
"Every failure teaches us what not to repeat," he told them. "Every mistake brings us closer to success."
At last, after months of toil, they stood in the dusty yard with the first completed rifle. Its barrel gleamed faintly in the sunlight, its bolt locked cleanly, its wooden stock solid and smooth.
The blacksmiths looked at it with awe — half disbelief, half pride.
Tafari held it with reverence. This is more than a weapon, he thought. This is proof that Ethiopia can forge her own destiny.
He lifted it to his shoulder, aimed at a clay jar set on a post, and fired. The crack split the air. The jar shattered into shards. Smoke drifted on the wind.
Cheers erupted from the blacksmiths. Abebe, standing nearby, grinned wide. "Tafari, you've done it. Ethiopia has made her own rifle!"
Word spread like wildfire. In Harar's taverns, men whispered that the prince had built a gun without foreign help. In the markets, mothers pointed at their children and said, "He will grow up in a land that makes its own weapons."
Makonnen himself came to see. He picked up the rifle, tested the bolt, and fired into the fields. The weapon answered with sharp certainty. His stern face softened into pride.
"You have done what even I thought impossible," he admitted. "Perhaps Ethiopia's future truly rests with you."
Tafari bowed his head, though inside, his thoughts burned with resolve. This is only the beginning. From one rifle, we will build ten. From ten, a hundred. From a hundred, an army. Industry will rise from our soil, and no foreign hand will chain us again.
That night, he looked at the rifle propped against the wall of his chamber. It gleamed faintly in the moonlight, a promise of what was to come.
"This time," he whispered, "Ethiopia will be the forger of fire, not the beggar