Harar had never seen such fever before. The clang of hammers rang from dawn until dusk, echoing through the valley. Sparks showered from forges, new brick kilns belched smoke, and carts laden with ore and timber rolled in from distant villages.
Tafari strode among it all, his white robe dusted with soot. Beside him walked Abebe, taking careful notes on wax tablets, and Gebre, shouting orders at a group of workers struggling with a waterwheel axle.
"Raise it higher!" Gebre barked. "This wheel must turn smooth, or the forge shall drink water like a drunkard!"
Tafari smiled faintly. Every improvement mattered. The waterwheels now powered hammers and bellows, letting smiths produce metal parts faster than muscle alone. What once took weeks could now be done in days.
But Tafari's vision stretched beyond rifles.
He called a gathering of elders from nearby villages, their weathered faces lined with doubt.
"I ask much of you," he admitted, unrolling a rough map drawn on parchment. Roads traced out from Harar like a spider's web. "Stone roads, cut wider than a cart. Bridges strong enough for oxen and men alike. With these roads, your crops will reach markets before they spoil. Traders will come, bringing coin, salt, and cloth. Your villages will prosper."
One elder, chewing khat leaves, frowned. "And who shall build these roads? My men are farmers, not stone cutters."
"Your men will work," Tafari said evenly. "But I do not ask them to abandon fields. I will provide wages, tools, and food during the building. The roads will serve all. Ethiopia must rise together — not city against village."
The elders exchanged glances. Some nodded. Some still frowned. But the idea had been planted.
Within weeks, gangs of laborers were cutting through hillsides, laying stone, and raising timber bridges. Harar's dusty paths began to transform into arteries of trade and power.
At night, Tafari often climbed the fortress walls, looking at the glowing forges and the lanterns of road crews beyond. His mind raced with plans: granaries to store surplus grain, mills to grind flour, irrigation channels to tame dry lands. Ethiopia could not fight wars on empty stomachs. Food was the first weapon.
"Modern armies march on bread as much as bullets," he muttered, sketching new designs by candlelight.
Abebe, peering over his shoulder, asked softly, "Do you think the emperor will allow this much change?"
Tafari's lips thinned. "He has no choice. Hunger weakens empires. Roads feed armies. And I will make sure Ethiopia never bows again."
Yet far away in Addis Ababa, in candlelit chambers of noble houses, other voices whispered a different vision.
The rifles Tafari had presented had spread fear as much as awe. Old nobles saw their power slipping away. If a boy could arm villages, if peasants marched with rifles forged in Harar, what use were the ancient titles of nobility?
One noble, Ras Welde, leaned close across the table.
"This child is dangerous. His forges pour fire into peasants' hands. Today he arms villages, tomorrow he commands them. Shall we sit idle while a stripling builds a throne from iron?"
Another spat into the fire. "We cannot strike openly. Menelik favors him for now. But… what if an accident befell his forges? A fire in the night? A raid blamed on bandits?"
The nobles exchanged grim smiles.
Far away, Tafari drew another line on his map, dreaming of roads that stretched like veins across Ethiopia. He did not yet know that as he built stone paths for his people, shadows were laying snares in his own.