3.34: Setbacks (🌶)

The next morning, a gentle kiss on the lips pulled me from the sweet embrace of sleep.

“Wake up, Jack,” Aprilia said softly. “The sun’s already up.”

“Lemme sleep.”

I rolled onto my side, pulling the quilt over my head.

“What happened to all the work?”

“I did plenty yesterday. Need a break from all the excitement.”

“What excitement?”

Her voice was soft.

Dangerously soft.

Curse my half-asleep brain.

I slowly opened my bleary eyes. Bright light was spilling through the shutters. Not that I could see them, as the view was blocked by a cute face hovering above me, eyebrows scrunched in annoyance.

“What excitement?” she repeated.

I pushed myself upright and took a deep breath.

She leaned back.

I yawned and stretched, buying myself a few seconds.

She would find out soon, even if I didn’t tell her.

“I told you that we were working on a boat yesterday, right?”

“Yes.”

“Well, the boat kind of… capsized.”

“What?”

Her voice shot up two octaves.

“We were still in the harbor. There were plenty of boats around to rescue us.”

“You shouldn’t need rescuing in the first place! You said you’d be more careful!”

Her glare could cut steel.

I got too excited by the potential discovery of oil.

I didn’t say those words out loud. I wasn’t that stupid.

“It wasn’t that dangerous. I know how to swim, and the other men were expert sailors,” I said, spreading my arms, hoping my well-built naked body would distract her.

It didn’t.

Her eyes remained narrowed.

“Then how did they manage to capsize a bloody boat?”

“We were testing a new sail design, and the wind became a little… uncooperative. Setbacks are a part of improvement! I can’t just make them disappear.”

“But why take the risk yourself? You said you would delegate.”

“I did,” I said, taking her small hand in mine.

Her fingers remained stiff.

“The experience was enough to light up a fire under Wolmar, but I did have to show him what I knew first.”

She narrowed her eyes at me, then slowly breathed out, some of the tension leaving her shoulders.

“You still haven’t changed.”

“I’m trying. It’s not going to happen in a day.”

“I know. Just…”

She squeezed my fingers.

“Promise me you’ll do your best. I don’t want you to stop being yourself, but I don’t want to be alone, either.”

I pulled her against me.

“I won’t,” I whispered, hugging her.

Her arms came around me.

For a while, we held each other, listening to the rhythm of each others’ breathing.

Then her soft, warm weight began stirring something else.

Kissing the top of her head, I pulled back to look into her eyes.

“I’m in no hurry to die. In fact, I want to live a long, long time. To see you grow.”

Her eyebrows scrunched in confusion.

“I’m twenty-one. I was done growing years ago.”

“Oh, but you can,” I said in a low voice, then placed a hand on her flat stomach.

“Here.”

Her eyes dropped to my hand. When they rose, they were a lot less stern.

“And…”

I moved my hand up her torso, my fingertips tracing her smooth skin until they were nestled between her enticing handfuls.

“…here.”

She shook her head.

“You are a true lecher. No wonder I can’t keep up with you. Promise that you won’t leave me?”

“I do.”

She leapt back, then yanked the quilt away.

As I shivered from the sudden cold, she climbed onto the bed and straddled me.

My body instantly responded to the press of her thick thighs.

“Now, time to make me a big girl,” she whispered, leaning forward for a kiss.

For some time, the room echoed with our gasps, moans and the creaking protest of the poor bed that we abused every night.

She was still breathing hard from our rigorous morning exercise, lying on top of me, when the door to the house began rattling beneath a series of sharp knocks.

Loud, but not urgent.

Aprilia rolled aside to let me up.

I put on some clothes, then turned back.

She was still lying on the bed, naked and enticing.

“Who’s lazy now?”

“I need to catch my breath,” she said, scowling. “Not everyone has the stamina of a Messiah.”

I suppressed a smile.

I could take them all at the same time.

The next series of knocks poured ice over that fantasy.

Sighing, I turned, closed the bedroom door and walked into the living room.

“I’m coming!”

Bright light poured into the living room as I opened the front door.

The two guards who ought to be there stood to the either side of the door, along with Theo.

“What are you doing here?” I asked. “You’re not my bodyguard anymore.”

“I have something to tell you, Sire.”

“It couldn’t wait?”

“I did wait until… um—”

“Get on with it.”

He leaned in closer to whisper.

“One of the rifles blew up.”

“What?”

For a moment, I just stared at him.

“Was anyone hurt?”

“Noah was using it. He’s got a few nasty cuts, but Master Darron says he will fully recover.”

I breathed a sigh of relief.

Thank God I hadn’t jumped to smokeless powder, or this could have been much worse.

“Give me a minute.”

I went back, properly dressed myself, then got on my horse.

“What happened exactly?” I asked Theo, as our horses guided themselves out of the castle.

“The rifle just… split open, like a ripe banana. Right in the middle.”

“Hmm…”

Either Kovar had made a mistake while forging the barrel, overworked as he was, or maybe the inconsistent grain of our iron had finally bitten us.

I sighed.

The current quality of our steel was good enough for crossbows, but nowhere as good for firearms.

Without better metal, we might have to halt production.

Ethan and Helad were standing outside the hospital like guards, their rifles slung over their backs, hidden under cloth, their hands covered in blood.

The stout Helad held a bundle of cloth smeared with blood in his arms.

“The ruined rifle,” he explained.

“Let’s check up on our boy first,” I said, stepping inside.

The hospital smelled of alcohol, wet bandages and crushed herbs.

We found Noah sitting on a chair in one room, covered in blood and wincing, while Darron leaned over him. He snipped a suture with a C-shaped pair of scissors, then straightened.

“There. As good as new.”

No, he’s not.

The young man had two large angry-red scars on his face, in addition to many small ones. One slashed his left cheek diagonally and one ran vertically on the right side, from his brow ridge to his scalp, which had been shaven to allow for better stitching of the skin. The fresh bruise on his right cheek shone violet and blue.

It was a miracle he hadn’t lost an eye.

Or a hand.

Or his life.

“Anything else beyond what we can see?”

Darron turned around.

“No, my lord. A pleasure to see you again.”

“The feeling is not mutual.”

“Why?”

“You’re a physician.”

“Oh.”

“You sure you didn’t miss anything? Something that might have embedded itself deep in the wounds?”

“No. I ‘irrigated’ them with clean water as you told us. Got everything out. Though I am curious what caused such odd wounds. It’s like he fought a bear with iron claws. None of the men will tell me.”

“They can’t. Not unless you officially join Chadom.”

“I’m already pledged to your service. Isn’t that enough?”

“No.”

He considered it for a moment.

“Hmm. I can see you are building something special here. Something that will change the world. I want to be a part of it, but… I also don’t want to leave my brothers-in-arms.”

“A very admirable sentiment. How is your work here.”

He leaned forward to whisper.

“Um… the lady in charge, Matilda. She’s scary.”

I couldn’t help but smile.

A bear of a man calling a small, old, hunched woman scary; but he wasn’t exactly wrong.

“She knows quite a bit about herbs and whatnot,” he continued. “I learned a few things from her myself.”

“The others?”

“Well, she’s a little too old from me to teach her my techniques, so I am working with the rest. They are a sharp bunch, especially that Emma girl. They’ll catch up with me in knowledge in a matter of months, if not experience.”

“Good. Thank you for all your hard work.”

As we began to turn, Noah got up to accompany us.

“Not you,” I said. “You are being given a leave of…”

I looked at Darron.

“A week.”

“A week. Relax and have fun, and make sure those wounds heal properly. I’ll see you later.”

“But Sire, the training—”

“Will be postponed. I’m not risking another incident like this. You know it could have been a lot worse, right?”

He hesitated, then nodded.

We found an empty room in the hospital, where Helad put the bundle on a table and opened it.

The smell of burnt powder filled my nose.

It was a twisted monstrosity. The barrel had split, warped and peeled apart.

I wasn’t an expert blacksmith, so I couldn’t tell whether it was a defect in forging or the metal itself.

Then I saw the number stamped on it.

#01

The one I had tested the bullets with.

I fired it dozens of times. Why didn’t it fail back then?

I covered the remnants.

Ruminating was pointless.

“Give the rifles back to Kovar. They’ll have to be remade.”

The three men nodded together.

We needed better metal.

I did tell Ansel to work with Master Almar to build crucibles for the Huntsman process.

Together, the three of us visited Master Almar’s kiln, inside the industrial district.

A small water-wheel was turning under the power of the stream next to the compound, which now had two soldiers posted at the gate. Gray smoke was rising from the inside.

“This place didn’t have guards before,” Ethan mused as we disembarked.

“Before,” I replied, “this place made refractory bricks and shiny tableware. Now it is developing the most advanced metallurgical process in Chadom, and very likely the world. Can’t have a random person taking a peek.”

The roar of the bellows stoking embers intensified as we approached.

A small coke furnace, half dug into the ground, was radiating intense heat, the black coals glowing red.

Ansel and Master Almar stood nearby, drenched in sweat, looking at it in disappointment.

“Something’s not working?” I asked.

They turned toward us with a jolt.

“Sire,” Master Almar spoke first. “We used the grog from the refractory bricks of our furnaces, as you told us. The crucibles still weren’t surviving the heat until we added the flux Ansel refined from glasswort.”

“So now they survive?”

“They do, but…”

“But?”

“They crack the moment we take them out.”

I exhaled.

“Thermal shock.”

“Sire?”

“They’re not surviving the sudden, massive change in temperature.”

That wasn’t much of a problem with our massive blast furnace, as it was kept hot at all times.

A small crucible simply didn’t have the thermal mass to maintain it.

How to keep it from cracking?

“Hmm. What material can survive high temperatures?” I said to myself.

Tungsten!

Shut up, brain.

If I could melt Tungsten, I’d already be king of the world.

Graphite!

Shut… huh. Good one.

Graphite, despite being just another form of carbon, could survive very high temperatures and corrosion, hence its use in rocket nozzles.

I looked to Master Almar.

“We should have some graphite in the stores. Get some from Aramid, grind it to a fine powder and add it to the mix. It should make the crucibles more resistant to thermal shock.”

He nodded.

“Oh, and make it your only priority. I want a functioning crucible as soon as possible. We’ve had a setback that only your work can fix.”

“It’ll be done.”

“Uh, Sire?” Ethan broke me out of my thoughts as we left the compound.

“Huh?”

“Maybe it’s not the iron.”

I stopped in my tracks.

“What do you mean?”

“Could the powder be the culprit?”

“Did you not keep it dry?”

“We did!”

“Then what makes you point the finger at it?”

He hesitated.

“It… didn’t always go off.”

Oh, for fuck’s sake.

I was getting sick of all these setbacks.

At this rate, Chadom would remain without firearms when I left it, again.