3.37: Huntsman

The walls of our house drummed from the midday drizzle, as I sat at the living-room table.

Aprilia ladled out the fragrant, steaming thick stew into my bowl.

I ate a spoonful.

Mushroom and vegetables, seasoned with salt and long pepper. The spices made the third ingredient, fish, considerably more palatable.

“Hmm. Not bad.”

She sat down next to me.

The smile on her face quickly faded, replaced by a controlled mask.

Uh oh.

“I don’t see you resting, as you promised me,” she said quietly.

“We’re struggling to produce better steel. Ansel and your father could use my help figuring out the process. Once we have it working, the others can take it from there. Then I can relax a little.”

“Is it dangerous?”

“It can be, but I am not handling molten metal. I just talk with the experts and check their results.”

She nodded, then narrowed her eyes at me.

“You didn’t say you would rest.”

“For that, I’ll have to see our soldiers armed and proficient with the new weapons.”

She sighed, taking a sip of the stew herself.

“Why is my father making steel? He’s a potter.”

“He’s much more now. He’s my ceramics expert. The new steel needs special crucibles capable of surviving temperatures hot enough to melt iron.”

Her eyebrows scrunched.

“How does clay survive that?”

“I don’t know. I just know a few bits of knowledge that sometimes come handy. Do you want to come with me and watch?”

“I wish I could, but I have work, thanks to you. We’re planning on holding the election by the end of this week.”

“Good.”

“Why did you order the paper ballots to be cut in that odd shape?”

“So they can be used for something else later.”

“Weapons?”

I nodded.

Gray smoke was already curling over Master Almar’s workshop.

Hot air met me the moment I crossed the fence surrounding the place.

“Already have a crucible in?” I asked the two men wearing steaming leather aprons, staring at the coke furnace thrumming with fire.

“It could rain heavily today,” Master Almar replied. “Just trying to make the best of the time we have.”

“That won’t do. We’ll extend the building.”

He gave me an uncomfortable smile before nodding.

It meant more manpower diverted from construction of houses. It couldn’t be helped.

After a while, the two men stepped closer to the furnace and pushed its heavy lid aside. The younger man reached inside with a very long pair of tongs and carefully pulled out the red-hot crucible.

I waited with bated breath at a safe distance as he carefully placed it on a heated brick.

It remained intact.

“Yes!” I shouted in relief.

They had finally found the right ratio of clay, grog and graphite.

The faces of the other two men, on the other hand, were wilted.

“What?”

They slowly turned the crucible around.

The side previously hidden from me showed itself.

Half of it had melted.

“Huh?”

I just stared at it.

But graphite is supposed to survive extreme heat!

“What the hell?”

What did I miss?

When nothing came to mind, I shook my head.

“Let it cool. We’ll inspect it afterwards.”

We spent an hour rolling clay mixture meant for dinnerware into balls that fit in our hands.

Ansel looked at the growing pile.

“What are you going to do with this many balls, my lord?” he asked.

“Put them in a tower.”

“Tower?”

“Where our chemical industry will be born. I’ll show you when we’ve built it.”

After an hour, the crucible had cooled down enough to be handled by hand.

Carefully holding it with a leather glove, I took a closer look at it.

The slag was as black as night and as smooth as glass. Vitrified, with pockmarks and flecks of dark brown scattered throughout.

Almost like rust.

“It’s not the heat. What else could it be?”

“I noticed the embers were hotter in that direction.” Ansel remarked.

“Huh. Too much oxygen?”

“Sire?” Master Almar said in confusion.

Handing him the crucible, I took a peek inside the furnace, which was still radiating heat.

Sure enough, one of the tuyeres was crooked.

The airflow wasn’t uniform.

I turned back to them. “I think the oxygen in the air is oxid—eating the graphite.”

“So we go back to the mixture without it?”

“No. We fix that crooked tuyere. Then let’s try decreasing the amount of air in the furnace. Can you sustain the same temperature with less air?”

“How much less?”

“As little as possible.”

He glanced at Ansel.

“It’ll be difficult, but we’ll give it our best.”

Ash rose in the air as we cleared the spent embers from the furnace and shoveled fresh coke into it. Then we connected the bellows, pumping air into it until it was like a mythical monster’s maw, roaring and glowing red-hot.

When it got hot enough that even standing close to it felt like our skin was being cooked, we cut off the bellows and put some bricks at the tuyeres to limit the airflow.

The two masters had years of experience in maintaining and controlling temperature and airflow, which I didn’t know much about, so I left them to it and headed to the lathe workshop.

There, the cannon had been fitted on its carriage, its bore polished to an almost mirror finish.

We took it out into the valley and fired it. It survived the firing, and the cartridge didn’t get stuck this time.

We tested it again.

It worked.

I tried again, this time with an extra-large charge.

It survived that too.

I heaved a breath of relief.

We finally had a working design.

“Good job,” I told the machinists and three Ducklings. “Two finished. Only ten more to go.”

“Ten?” Tobin asked in dismay.

“Yes. We have a lot of land to defend. Did your enthusiasm die with the novelty?”

His face held the answer.

“If you are looking for novelty, I have something new in the works.”

Their eyes lit up.

I took the three of them to a separate building that was being constructed a bit away from the workshop. From stone, instead of the usual wood.

“What is that, Master?” Aldren asked.

“This is where we will produce Sulfuric acid, the granddaddy of chemical industry. Not much industry at first, but enough for making a few useful things.”

“Like what?”

“A contact explosive.”

After some intermediate steps. Please let them be easy.

Tobin broke me out of my thoughts.

“It explodes when you touch it?” he asked.

“No, but close enough. With it, the riflemen won’t have to worry about their matches getting wet. There is more I can show you, if you promise to work hard.”

“We do!” they said together.

As we walked toward the Master Almar’s kiln, the short Runa jogged ahead to look up at me.

“Um, Master? Why did you allow Frida to leave the workshop?”

“She didn’t want to make weapons.”

“And that is… fine?”

“Yes. We are a republic, not a dictatorship.”

Despite the stupid title I chose for myself.

“Everyone should get to make their decisions in life,” I added.

“That… doesn’t sound right.”

“It’s what I want for you, but can’t give you right now.”

She watched me carefully.

“We are not in a position where everyone can be truly free,” I continued, “so I’m trying to guide you towards the best future possible.”

“What about Fennar?”

“He volunteered.”

“Um… I think he just wanted to be close to Frida.”

“I know. I took precautions.”

The boy had finally noticed her advances. I had agreed to let him accompany her on the condition that they actually work. He had nodded quickly, but his smile had dimmed when I had assigned one of Kovar’s apprentices to supervise them.

We really weren’t in a position to make mistakes.

When we crossed the fence of the compound, Master Almar and Ansel were already wearing their leather aprons with thick gloves, pouring water over each other.

We remained at a safe distance as they gingerly pushed the heavy lid aside.

My pulse quickened as Almar clamped a pair of tongs on the crucible and slowly lifted it up.

The white-hot cup emerged from the red-hot interior of the furnace.

Whole.

It had survived. Ansel straightened, carefully lifting it away, and--

Snap!

It deformed and fell back into the maw of the furnace, spilling the white-hot liquid steel on the coals.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake! It barely holds a few kilograms!”

“It did survive the firing,” Tobin said.

“I can see that,” I said testily.

“We’ll test more ratios,” Master Almar said cautiously. “I’m sure we’ll get it. I can feel we’re close.”

“No.”

I looked at the two tired men, wiping sweat off their faces.

“We don’t have the time for more experimentation. I needed that steel yesterday.”

I took a long breath to calm myself.

“I’ll have a special pair of thick steel tongs made to cradle the crucible.”

“Cradle?”

“Like holding a bowl with both hands. That way, its weight won’t concentrate on any one point. It just has to remain intact. Coat the tongs in a refractory lining and they should work.”

“Still, I don’t think the crucible will survive more than one melt,” Ansel said, removing his leather gloves.

“Then make a new one.”

His eyebrows disappeared into his hairline.

“A new crucible for every melt?”

“Yes. Try to improve the composition when you have some free time.”

They hung their heads in reluctant acceptance.

The failure only hardened my resolve.

We would keep moving forward, whatever this world threw at us.

I went back to the smithy complex and worked with the smiths to make a pair of thick, heavy steel tongs that ought to not deform from a few seconds of intense heat.

The next day, they gave it another try.

Ansel reached into the furnace with the new tongs and carefully clamped them around the crucible, while we watched with held breaths. He lifted the heavy tongs with a groan.

They came out, holding the crucible like a pair of large hands. Waddling to the side, he tilted the crucible into an iron mold.

White-hot steel poured out, sending orange sparks flying as it flowed into its dark sibling.

He slowly placed the tongs on the ground and wiped the sweat off his brow.

The compound erupted in cheers.

A few hours later, both of the men arrived at the lathe workshop with the now cool steel billet.

“Here’s the new steel,” Master Ansel said, handing it to me.

It shone like silver, but its surface wasn’t exactly clean.

I took a rough file from the table and pushed it across the billet.

It skittered away.

I put some force into it.

It bit.

The steel underneath was as shiny as silver.

I clamped it in a vice and began sawing it.

It took a while. By the end, the poor saw blade was ruined.

A good sign.

I took it out, others following me, and turned it under the open sky.

No voids and no large grain.

“This, gentlemen,” I said, lifting it up, “is proper, high quality steel.”

They could produce only ten kilograms after a whole day of work. It didn’t matter.

This was proper, high quality 19th century grade crucible steel, or close enough.

The door to stronger tools, longer-lasting machine parts and high-quality springs had just opened up.

Forget guns, we could even make steel artillery now.

You’re reaching too far.

Shut up, brain. Let me dream.

The thought doused my excitement.

Machining and forging steel wasn’t as easy as bronze. Our lathe was too primitive to handle it, in addition to other challenges that would definitely pop up.

We would have to first rebuild the lathe with the steel itself, which I couldn’t afford to spare.

Not now.

Not until every Hunter was armed with a rifled muzzleloader of his own.

I turned to the blacksmith turned machinist.

“Kovar?”

“Sire?”

“You’re back on making guns. This time with proper steel. Make sure that every Hunter is armed with one.”

His tired eyes lit up.

“I will.”