Ecdysis

Chapter 42. The Die is Cast

“These runes are mocking me, I swear…” I huffed as I peered down at the multiple designs in front of me.

“Hmm?” Isra cast a glance in my direction and turned back to her furnace. “These look like properly drawn resistance runes. They are simple but they get the job done. What seems to be the problem?”

“In what they do! They are simple and impossible at the same time. A few scribbles and some wermage mojo are enough for them to dictate where physics should go and cry.”

“They just make things stronger.”

“Not quite. From what I can tell, they are making things ‘more’. Imagine a werbow for example — it is riddled with them, yes? Both the limbs and the string.”

“Well, yeah. That is how they shoot.”

“But the string stays flexible despite getting stronger. While limbs are getting less flexible and pull harder.”

“Yes, the string resists the tension and the limbs resist the pull. Simple.”

“Those limbs don’t move faster, however. At least not enough to be statistically significant. I’ve checked it myself. They can throw a bolt a few times heavier than a murk bow would, but they can’t throw the same arrow a few times faster.”

I twisted a small wooden token in my fingers as my thumb traced the lines of the rune engraved on it. “It feels like it simply makes more of the same thing. There is not a single string but ten, there are not two limbs but twenty. Yet, they do it without any increase in mass or inertia!”

“I am a smith, Erf.” Isra reached into the furnace and a tiny ball of molten steel floated out. “You need to ask such questions to philosophers and Rhetors. Why are you asking, anyway?”

The flying droplet stretched into a thin rod and Isra made it spin in the air until the blinding white turned into an angry red. A sharp hiss of boiling water and the quickly darkening stick sunk to the bottom of the bucket.

“I wish to make the best armours we can make at the moment for my wives. I will use the most appropriate alloys that I can get and I know that I can’t ignore runes either. Both of them are capable of Flow manipulation and both of them can keep runes active.”

She scratched her horn with the sample rod in contemplation. “Well, I heard that there are anchoring runes that help you keep it afloat, but other wermages can grab and yank them too so they are impractical. Exquisite armours also have runes of cold engraved in them — both to keep the wearer comfortable and block heat from fire spells. Most usually rely on resistance runes alone, however. Anything else is like a golden filigree on a hammer — it will make it look pretty but it won’t make it strike harder.”

I blinked and mentally added a note to my list for an armour temperature control system. I had to pay attention to the small details like this — things that I considered unobtainable at my current tech level while wermages saw them as something pedestrian and barely worth mentioning.

No, I wasn’t jealous. I was too busy for that right now.

Stupid mages.

In the meantime, Isra put the rod on the grinding wheel and scrutinised the shower of sparks. A grin split her face. “Another pace or two and the steel will be ready!”

I nodded back to her. She might still be new to the whole alloy chemistry thing, but Isra Haleh breathed all things metal. Her previous experience allowed her to pick up practical aspects without relying on the underlying theory and within mere days she was sufficiently precise with the spark test for me not to trouble myself with a partially working lithoscanner.

Granted, this was possible because I managed to sufficiently isolate my lithoscanner from the wermage ‘anti-technology’ field in the first place and obtain precise readings for Isra to learn from. It was still wonky and was lying through its nonexistent gears right into my face but I’d gotten sufficiently precise reading anyway. It gave her a significant push without making her reliant on critical and extremely rare technology and the benefits were already showing themselves.

Isra wasn’t the only one who I showered with knowledge beyond measure. Emanai divided the day into the light and dark, which were divided into periods and those were then divided into paces. The period length changed through the seasons but two paces of a summer day were about equal to an hour. The pour window was approaching quickly but I wasn’t in a rush — I knew that Wrena was almost done carving the template, while Yeva oversaw the mixing of the casting sand.

Both tasks should be completed by now and the casting mould would be ready right on time.

It was quite tempting to hold my knowledge close to me and give it out piecemeal for greater concessions. I would have gained significantly more leverage and wealth if I’d gone that route. Instead, by keeping my gains relatively modest, I gained loyalty. Moreover, I gained the loyalty of masters who were becoming more experienced than they could’ve been otherwise.

By teaching Isra how to recognise carbon content in steel, I didn’t need to sneak out samples for every pour. My blueprint drawing sessions with Wrena, where I carefully explained the reason and purpose for every single part as well as my methods of drawing things, allowed me to give her a drawing of the shape in question and expect the result to be exactly as I wanted it to be.

All that meant that now, when time was pressing, I could achieve much more with skilled and independent help compared to what I would have to do if I were forced to supervise everything myself.

“Finally done!” Wrena walked in. “Should I say congratulations to that new wife of yours?”

“Anaise?” I blinked. “She isn’t here.”

“No, I meant the smith over here.” Wrena gasped and covered her mouth. “Or was it a surprise?”

Isra sputtered and dropped her furnace tongues. “I am not!”

I rolled my eyes. “Stop your gossip, Wrena. No one is marrying here.”

“Huh.” She shrugged and dropped her luggage on the ground. “I assumed this was part of a dowry. My bad.”

A minotaur’s hand grabbed my shoulder and yanked me around.

“Erf!” Isra pointed at the wooden shape. “That is an anvil! Is that what the steel is for?”

“Yes, Isra.” I bent down and started gathering the runic symbols that had been scattered by the vigorous smith. “I told you that you will get a proper anvil as soon as possible. Well, time is pressing.”

“Proper? It’s huge!”

I chuckled. “Well, you are a big girl. Big girls need big anvils.”

The hand, which was just minotaur-handling my shoulder, grabbed me by the waist and pulled me into a bear-crushing hug. But, before I could wheeze for her to stop, I was suddenly let go.

“You were planning on casting it like bronze? Right? We need to make a form right now! There is not much time left!”

“I swear.” I wiped the dirt from my lips, slowly getting up. “You make it very hard to give you things, Isra Hale—“

“No time, Erf!” she wailed, as she yanked me and shook me in the air once again. “The forms!”

“Isra Haleh!” Yeva’s voice rang out and I kissed the earth once again. “Don’t you have something more important to do?”

“Ah…Yes!”

I heard some rustling at the furnace while a chuckling Irje dusted off my clothes. My wives had brought the final component.

“What is that?”

“Green sand.”

“But it’s black.”

Yeva sighed. “The green is not the colour. It is like a young green wood that is both flexible, strong, and ‘wet’ with special sap that keeps it together. Seriously, Erf, you need to be more strict or she will constantly wipe the floor with you.”

I shrugged. “It keeps her curious and asking questions. Makes it easier to know what she does and doesn’t know without probing too much into the secrets of Enoch Manor.”

“Oh?” Wrena perked up. “How come I wasn’t told that this was an option? I can roll you on the ground once or twice too if that gets me some new machinery of yours.”

“You see this?” Yeva pointed at Wrena. “While you might not care — others notice. And they draw conclusions.”

I rolled my eyes and turned to a smirking Wrena. “You already belong to Kiymetl — I can just demand to know the secrets either directly from you or through our Domina. I would suggest that you start looking for more apprentices in the meantime. A lot more.”

“For what? Domina has enough looms that some of them sit idle, waiting for spools of thread.”

“For everything.” I nodded at the roaring-hot furnace. “Now that we have access to decent amounts of consistent cast iron and steel, we can start working on precision lathes, mills, and drills. As well as other industrial machinery. That means there will be thousands of screws, gears, and bolts that need to be carved. I don’t need master carpenters for that nor do I need master smiths — just people with a head on their shoulders that are capable of learning basic but new tasks.

“I have no time for that at the moment, unfortunately. Yeva will resume this task once I am gone. Right now I need weapons and armour that will protect my sadaq. Which is why I needed these shapes as soon as possible, starting with the anvil.”

“You are right, kid. The safety of your family is what’s important.” She patted my shoulder and turned around to leave. “Expect the second form to be ready before the day’s end.”

I nodded and turned back to Isra, who was already busy pressing the sand into a casting mould. While Emanai smiths didn’t cast their steel, they did cast bronze, silver, and gold and Isra was quick to transcribe her previous experience onto a new medium.

“Isra Haleh.”

She lifted the wooden form out of the sand and showed me the resultant imprint like a proud child presenting a sand castle. “Look! It has my mark on it too!”

“It will be your anvil, Isra. Not mine nor Domina’s. I do not break my promises. But you need to keep yourself in check, especially when others are around.”

She glanced away. “That is what my sisters would usually say. Before sending me to work on something trite.”

“For a similar reason, I would guess. But I am not getting you this anvil just so you can forge me nails day in and out. In the coming days, you will be busy forging both armour and weapons at least for Irje and Anaise. Swords, kattars, shields. Brigandines. But my wife is right — I can’t have you drag me around like a rag doll when others are looking. Appearances are key both for you and for myself and, while you might not care about yours as long as you have work to do, I do. The times are over when I was the Alchemist of Kiymetl. Now I am the first husband of Anaise Hilal and Daimon of this Manor.”

Isra scratched her horn. “As long as I am allowed to work with this steel, I don’t mind.”

“Or you could hold yourself in check,” Yeva spoke up. “Why are you acting so happy about this anvil? A few sets of runes and you can forge on a stump.”

“It is as your husband said. Runes make more.” Isra gratefully took another basketfull of casting sand from Irje and continued working on the mould. “Flow doesn’t replace the material with something else — it improves its quality. The better something is from the start — the greater the improvement becomes. Runes would make a wooden anvil as strong as a metal one, but they would make a steel anvil as strong as a thousand.

“Smithing doesn’t stop with mere creation. A kattar isn’t made once — it is honed and fixed throughout its life. While any runed anvil might be enough to forge a clean blade, once the runes are carved into the weapon it becomes impossible to maintain on a weaker anvil.”

Her fingers trailed over the blank. “It is the dream of every smith to maintain one of the artefacts. To have an anvil strong enough to bear the strength of a blade runed by Gods themselves.”

“Well,” I scratched my chin, “if that’s what it takes to make my wives decent armour, so be it.”

Irje tussled my hair. “If Anaise was here she would have killed you for such words.”

“No matter. They came and went but we are still here. Still struggling.”

“You really don’t like the prospect of having a second husband, do you?”

I let myself think as I helped Isra to assemble the mould. I chose the classical design that gave a lot of options for Isra to work with, including two holes through the anvil’s face. One for punching holes and the other to insert different swages or chisels for more specialised work.

Another task for Isra in the future. Her previous swage kit was mostly designed to be wedged into a woodblock or a stump, rather than inserted into a square hole. But many of these tools were made out of poor steel and had to be replaced anyway.

But the holes in the anvil meant custom inserts in the mould and a short lecture to Isra on their purpose.

“I wouldn’t disagree with you about second husbands. Damn thieves want to take my treasure, I tell you!” I spoke with a fake grumble. “But this constant treatment, or the lack of it, made me aware that I can’t hide under Aikerim’s skirt forever. I can’t work on my projects and naively expect others to patiently sit back and wait until I outgrow them all.”

With a grunt, I placed a heavy weight on top of the casting mould. Molten steel, as expected, was as heavy as normal steel and significant pressure was required to hold all that molten metal in the desired shape until it solidified enough.

“I can’t simply react to whatever else they decide to pull off next time. No defence is perfect and something will eventually slip through. We have to stay at least a step ahead of them. They try to worm into our sadaq? Then we are busy with the service to Emanai.”

Isra checked the furnace and gave me a nod. I nodded back to her and watched as the stream of molten metal poured straight from the flames and into the cast. Molten steel was extremely dangerous to handle and I was rather happy that Wermage telekinetic spells could handle it as any other liquid without worrying about the temperature. It also allowed Isra to stir and mix it within the furnace with significant ease.

All that was left was to get decent protective gear for wer and murks. Yeva and I had modified vision and Isra could shrug it off by being a wermage, but Irje had to step away from the heat and light.

“When they start preparing for our eventual arrival,” I continued once Isra was done, “it will be too late. Because our progress back here will not just continue in our absence, but it will explode to levels that most wermages would find unthinkable.”

I sighed and looked at my other wife. “I am sorry, Yeva, for making you carry such a burden.”

“Don’t be.” She shook her head. “You know me well enough to realise I find even the company of wermages preferable over the loud screams of battle. At least this way I will be at ease, knowing that I have a task to complete for the safety of our sadaq. My battle to fight on terms that I can dictate.”

“Umm.” Isra scratched her horn and glanced at the smoking cast between us. “Am I coming with you too? To maintain the weapons?”

“No. I would assume there will be other smiths in the arms for that task. Emanai arms can field thousands of warriors and not everyone can afford a personal smith to travel with them. I need you to continue producing consistent batches of metal and creating new generations of machines for this Manor. Yeva will have plenty of projects to occupy you for the foreseeable future.”

Isra faltered for a second when she glanced at Yeva but a small grin was quick to return on her face as she looked back at our project. “Ah, yeah, I can do that.”

“Good. Help me clean the sand off — it should be cold enough to maintain its shape.”

“Do you want me to cool it further?” She waved her arm and the form pieces started to fly off.

“Not precisely. What do you know of quenching?”

“You want to temper it with water? But we don’t have any!”

I silently glanced at the enormous aqueduct above our heads that brought water directly to my estate. A concession by Samat, that not only powered my water turbine but was also a source of clean, fresh water. The Shara river that ran through Samat was also the end-point of the entire sewer system and stank accordingly. Only the ports and nearby fish markets could mask the smell with their own, distinct odour.

“Not that kind of water — we need good quality water that runs from the heart of the mountains! Or even better — purchase some from the springs of the mountain clans themselves.”

“Isra, the so-called quality of water doesn’t matter much. As long as it is moderately clean that is. What matters is the type of steel you are planning to quench.”

“It doesn’t?” She grabbed her chest and sighed with relief. “That is good. So only the pure steel can be quenched?”

I looked around and nudged Irje. She blinked at me and thought for a second, only to shake her head in denial. Without saying anything else, I reached into the pile of discarded casting sand and drew a rune.

And then I looked at Isra again.

With a quiet “Oh” she powered up the rune of silence.

I nodded at the glowing lines and turned back to her. “What do you think the difference is between ice and snow?”

Isra glanced at Irje and Yeva nearby and harrumphed as she cleaned up the glowing anvil from casting imperfections and leftover sand. “After that talk about the nature of iron and steel, I do not want to answer this question.”

“Fair enough. Irje, can you get us some water in the meantime? A whole barrel would suffice, thank you. Both ice and snow are made of the same material but shaped differently. Like chain mail and a solid piece of armour. Both are made from the same stock but are drastically different. One is malleable and soft, while the other is hard and brittle. Obviously, we don’t have tiny hammers to forge tiny snowflakes but we can make snow by spraying mists of water on a very cold day.

“This is a very bare-bones explanation, but if I were to delve into details right now I would spend years explaining to you the principles of metallurgy and we are strapped for time. For now, you should remember that alloy content and speed of transition from hot to cold are the major factors that dictate what type of steel you will end up with.”

“Mist…” Isra frowned for a second, only to look at me owl-eyed. “The coal inside!”

“Bingo.” I smiled. “Just as I’ve told you before — it is not iron alone that makes steel, but the impurities within. And we aren’t dealing with just ice and snow here — there are many different outcomes that serve different purposes. Iron or very mild steel aren’t quenched simply because there are too few impurities that you could affect.”

“So, you want me to put it in the water?”

“No. I want you to spray the water only on the working surface of the anvil.”

In less than a second, a liquid snake jumped out from the large barrel and smashed into the glowing anvil, hissing with steam. Isra had many shortcomings when it came to social relations but, when it came to anything related to smithing, her mind was quick and sharp beyond measure. A true savant in her craft.

All I had to do was gently guide her forward.

“The use of a stream is three-fold,” I kept talking while Isra kept pouring water on the anvil while simultaneously maintaining the silence rune. “The steel we have is rather simple and it requires extremely rapid cooling to achieve the most optimal results. That is why we are using water and not oil or air. At the same time, if you were to simply dunk it in water, the heat would form a layer of steam around it and slow the cooling process.

“Lastly, you don’t want to quench the entire anvil — you want a hard surface to resist your strikes and a softer, limber body that would soak the strike without shattering.”

“Like true fulad would.” Isra grinned. “A sharp shell to hold an edge and a flexible body to take the hit.”

I scoffed. “Fulad might be better for swords, but the steel you made is better for anvils. There is no best steel for everything, each one serves a role it is designed for. And, sometimes, you need to combine multiple steel alloys to achieve greater or even unusual effects. Combine a few layers of steel with increasing hardness and you end up with a blade that sharpens itself from use. Combine hard and soft layers together and you will have perfect striking surfaces, whether they are anvils or armours.”

“Oh?” Irje perked up. “Is she going to make us an armour from this anvil steel as well?”

“Nah. This is better suited for thick plates. Despite your large assets, you are not a battleship. But we don’t need to rely on steel alone for everything — that is the beauty of composite armour. You, my dear wife, will get the best armour we can craft for a long while. A true composite brigandine.”

“We need to start right away!” Isra perked up as well.

I could tell by the glint in her eyes that it was the prospect of working with yet another alloy that made her this eager, not the lack of time available.

“We shall see how you speak five days from now.” I reached into my khalat and pulled out a pouch. “Keep the furnace roaring and start the next batch that we prepared.”

The trip to the shuttle didn’t enrich me with just advanced technology. I brought bags of scrap as well. The special kind — rusted and corroded leftovers of rare or hard-to-obtain elements at the current technological level of Emanai. While I didn’t account for armour production when I was scavenging the shuttle bulkheads, servos, and circuitry, I managed to scrape enough at least to equip both of my wives.

“There is a lot of work ahead of us.”

XXX

“Is that…all?” Aikerim raised her eyebrow at me.

“Time is critical and full armour will take days to finish. This is just a test sample,” I replied. Isra nodded as well but stayed quiet.

Tarhunna hummed. “It is rather hard to judge the strength of a whole armour by a single piece.”

“If it was made to be solid, which it isn’t,” Ramad butted in. “It looks awfully thin, daimon. What makes you think that something like this would trump a bronze breastplate, for example? Or, better yet, a Creature’s carapace?”

“Because it is not an armour. It is an armour system. Rather than rely on a single piece to do everything, this armour is made out of multiple layers. Each of them is designed to excel at a specific task assigned to them.”

Tarhunna smiled. “Including silk?”

“That is the trick. This is not the silk you assume it is.”

“The spider silk, then?” Aikerim spoke up. “The one you’ve been producing for the Feast?”

“Closer, but this one is even more special.” I patted the white fabric on top of the few brigandine plates. “This is a military-grade aramid silk fibre. Not only is it extremely resistant to tears just like the usual spider silk, but it also has insulating properties. Oh, and it doesn’t burn.”

Before I could say anything else, a stream of fire emerged from Ramad’s fingers and slammed into the kevlar-like material. I watched the piece just as intensely as the rest of them, but for a different reason. Just as Shahin once told me, the wermage flames were quick and precise but they weren’t particularly hot. They were hot enough to set wood on fire or kill a man, but that looked to be the apparent limit of these spells.

Well, Shahin did say it was possible to overcharge the flames, but that would strip the wermage of their body heat in turn.

Ramad grinned. “Impressive for a cloth, but utterly useless. Fire resistance runes will make any cloth behave in a similar manner.”

“Resistance to fire isn’t its main purpose, merely a nice side-effect. Remember how I said that the fibres are extremely hard to tear apart? Now look at this cloth and see it for what it really is — an unbreakable net. Capable of catching anything flying through. Slap resistance runes on it and it will become anathema to all piercing damage.” My words wiped the smirk off his face. “Flying shrapnel from boulders, spears, stabs… arrows.”

He stood up. “Show me.”

I nodded and pulled out a small writing kit — a bit of ink and a brush. An extremely temporary measure in terms of runing but sufficient enough for the task at hand. After drawing the correct rune, I smirked and put the patch of armour right on my chest.

Isra goggled, Tarhunna raised his eyebrow, and Ramad narrowed his eyes ever so slightly.

“Erf!” Aikerim growled at me.

“I have faith in our creation. What is the point of bragging about armour if I don’t trust it to protect myself?”

“Do you trust my aim as well?” Ramad asked as he twirled an arrow in his fingers. “Tar?”

With a nod, Tarhunna extended his fingers and powered up the armour runes.

I shrugged. “You’ve served in Emanai’s arms for longer than I’ve lived under this sun. If you haven’t learnt to aim by now, Aikerim would have divorced you a long time ago.”

He barked a laugh and slammed an arrow into me. A powerful hit, even stronger than that of Anaise but ultimately futile. Because there wasn’t just one rune active — each steel plate that was riveted to the outer layer had a personal resistance rune carved right into it. Right beside Isra’s mark.

She took enormous pleasure in stamping those herself.

Ramad put the werbow aside and walked over to inspect the damage. “This is!?”

“The second layer.” I pulled a single plate out of my khalat and gave it to him. “While the first layer catches the attack, the second layer breaks it. It’s steel that is hard enough to take a hit and spread it across a wider area.”

“Did you forget my warnings about Fulad?” Aikerim frowned.

“It is not Fulad. Different content and structure. Different purpose.” I shrugged. “Fulad is simply not good enough.”

Tarhunna coughed on his wine while Aikerim rolled her eyes. “What is it called, then?”

Ramad was surprisingly quiet, a contemplative warrior rather than a boisterous fighter.

“Isrite? Isralite?” I shrugged again and nodded at the beet-red smith. “The alloy doesn’t have a proper name. I can give you the number it is closest to, but it would mean little.”

“Isrite? Why not Erfite?”

“Because I gain more by naming it after her. Claiming it for myself wouldn’t change my status much. Those who see me as a daimon would accept it as something expected, while those who see me as an upstart merk would refuse to believe the rumours anyway. No one will question the name of a mastersmith when no other mark is present on this steel. This is what famous smiths do!”

Aikerim smiled at me. “And you suddenly gain a famous mastersmith in your retinue. Clever. But can she handle the scrutiny?”

I smiled at the still-silent Isra and turned back to Aikerim. “Why, she is a mysterious famous mastersmith! Enigmatic and occupied by her extremely important tasks. Your uncle refuses visitors left and right, why can't she be the same?”

My smile faltered for a bit. “It will also take some heat away from Yeva.”

“What’s the third layer?” Ramad suddenly spoke up. “Just a cushion for the blows?”

“The foam inserts are there to absorb impacts, yes. But it is also very breathable so that there is very little sweat accumulation.”

With practised ease, Ramad yanked his kattar out and showered the piece with a flurry of stabs and slashes. He even placed it on his knee and tried to stab it a few times. The blade frayed a few of the outer layers but the armour still held.

He harrumphed and turned to Isra. “How quickly can you make them?”

The minotaur glanced at me. “I will have both ready within a tenday.”

“And then?”

I shook my head. “There is a very limited amount of steel available. And the other layers take significant time to produce as well. This isn’t something that I could supply to the entire arm.”

“To the hells with arms! What about this Manor?”

“Not even an entire Manor. Especially if we upgrade shields as well. Five more, perhaps.”

“Well, I want one.” He turned around and dropped onto the couch. “If you ask me, tell them to fuck off!”

What?

Aikerim glanced at her other husband. “Tarhunna?”

He lifted his wine cup and took a sip. “Well, It appears that I need to make a visit.”

“Yes,” Aikerim mused, “it appears so.”

She glanced at me and smirked. “Tarhunna. As my husband, please visit the Kamshad Manor and tell them to fuck off.”

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