Gold, unlike volcanic cement concrete, possessed no crushing strength whatsoever. It was soft, heavy, and structurally useless. But it remained the universal lubricant of town logistics.
Inside the baronial conference room on the ground floor of the gatehouse, Giles Croft unrolled three sheets of double-entry accounts across the polished cedar table.
Opposite him sat Guildmaster Raymond Barlow.
The merchant prince had shed his wine-colored velvet cloak. He showed a silk waistcoat stitched with silver coins. His glasses sat perched upon his bulbous nose as he inspected a gray concrete metal tube that Giles had placed upon a brass bullion scale.
“Five thousand pounds of pressure,” Barlow read aloud from Giles’s lab chart.
He touched the smooth gray metal tube with his manicured fingers. He rubbed the fine powdery texture of the high-pressure surface.
“And you say this stone hardens beneath running water?” Barlow asked, his voice low and respectful. “Underwater? Without drying in the sun?”
“It’s a high-pressure calcium aluminosilicate matrix,” Giles replied, clicking his brass slide rule. “The reaction is chemical hydration, not sky evaporation. In fact, concrete sunk in river water gains twenty percent higher ultimate thickness because the moisture prevents drying shrinkage microcracks.”
Master Duncan Stone-Splitter stepped forward from the doorway. He carried a small clockwork screw-press that Borin had forged for material testing.
Duncan placed a second concrete metal tube into the iron jaws of the press. He pushed in a four-foot steel lever into the lead screw.
“Watch this, Guildmaster,” Duncan grunted.
The dwarf hauled on the lever with all his burly weight. The heavy iron screw turned, applying thousands of pounds of crushing force onto the four-inch test metal tube.
Normal lime mortar would have crushed into white dust under half that pressure.
The gray volcanic cement metal tube didn’t crack. It didn’t shed a grain of aggregate. The steel plates of the press groaned under the strain, and Duncan let go of the lever. He grinned through his braided beard.
“Harder than quarry granite,” Duncan said proudly. “You could build a sea-wall with this. The winter waves would break before the mortar loosened.”
Barlow picked up the metal tube. He turned it over and over, weighing it in his palms with the fierce concentration of a jeweler inspecting a flawless diamond.
“Do you know what the port authorities of Oakhaven and Dunwall pay for imported granite piers?” Barlow asked, looking straight at Giles. “Ten silver marks per dressed block. Half the stones crack when the winter ice takes them. If I can deliver bags of this gray powder to the coastal shipyards, we can pour harbor quays straight into the tide.”
Lady Millicent Croft sat at the head of the table, her brass-bound tally-book open and her iron pen freshly inked.
“Our nonstop upright shaft kiln produces four tons of calcined high-pressure binder every twenty-four hours,” Millicent stated with calm care. “Master Duncan’s quarrymen currently stockpile twenty tons of graded dark rock aggregate per shift. We have the heavy-duty capacity to fulfill a forward contract for sixty tons of high-pressure cement per month.”
Barlow rubbed his hands together, his diamond rings catching the lantern light. “Name your price, my lady.”
“We don’t want coin alone,” Millicent said, leaning forward. “Coin doesn’t stop an iron broadhead. We need material commodities.”
She pushed an itemized supply order list across the cedar planks.
“Twenty tons of cold-forged mountain pig-iron,” Millicent read. “Four tons of refined pyritic sulfur from the southern solfataras. Two tons of copper wire coils. And three thousand bushels of winter rye.”
Barlow squinted at the list, his mercantile instincts instantly computing margins.
“Iron is tight across the province,” Barlow murmured. “The Royal Legions have requisitioned sixty percent of the mountain forges for the eastern border campaigns. Sulfur is controlled by the Alchemists’ Guild at twelve silver coins per hundredweight.”
“Our new bypass road reduces round-trip transit time between your southern depots and the High Marches by three full days,” Giles cut inin his dry, flat tone.
He tapped a map of the valley roadbed.
“By using our concrete arch bridge and macadam bypass, your freight wagons avoid Baron Cedric’s fraudulent toll-checkpoint entirely,” Giles continued. “That represents an immediate saving of four hundred gold sovereigns per quarter in arbitrary tariffs, plus an eighty percent reduction in wagon axle repair costs.”
Before Barlow could object, the door swung open. Mistress Pippa the Fermenter entered the room.
She carried a wooden tray bearing a heavy pewter flagon and two polished horn cups. The liquid inside was a pale, glistening amber, topped with a thick, creamy head of white foam that gave off the fresh, crisp scent of wild mountain hops and cold well-water.
“Taste this, Master Barlow,” Pippa said, setting a cup before the merchant. “Brewed from our new mountain spring water. Zero swamp rot.”
Barlow took the horn cup with skeptical pause. He took a sip, paused, and then drank the entire cup in three eager gulps.
A look of pure, pure commercial ecstasy spread across his fat face.
“Sweet Fortune on high,” Barlow whispered, wiping foam from his mustache. “It’s clean. Crisp as autumn frost, without a trace of the sour marsh-tannin that ruins every barrel from the low valleys. The taverns of the capital will pay three gold sovereigns a hogshead for this alone.”
He slammed his open palm onto the table, making the inkwells jump.
“Done!” Barlow declared, his voice ringing through the vaulted room. “The Trade ring will accept your forward cement contract. We’ll deliver twenty tons of pig-iron, four tons of sulfur, and the rye within seven days. And I’ll advance five thousand gold sovereigns against your future export deliveries.”
Millicent dipped her pen with razor-sharp smooth speed. “Paragraph six: all deliveries must be made in broad-tired wagons meeting royal track standards.”
“Agreed,” Barlow laughed, signing the parchment with a gold-nibbed quill and pressing his heavy carnelian signet into the warm red wax. “By Fortune, Lord Croft, they told me at court that you were an exiled madman digging mud ditches in the snow. You’re not a madman. You’re an economic spider spinning a web of gold across the mountains.”
“I’m a town engineer, Guildmaster Barlow,” Giles replied, blotting the contract. “I simply prefer efficient transit halls.”
The merchant stood up, dusting velvet lint from his breeches. He walked to the window. He looked out over the quiet stone forum and the roaring nymphaeum fountain.
Then Barlow’s smile faded.
He looked back at Giles, his plump face suddenly tight with genuine anxiety.
“Lord Giles,” Barlow said, lowering his voice until it barely carried across the table. “You have built a commercial marvel here. But you must understand... The hunting beasts have smelled the meat.”
Kenneth Drake stepped out of the shadow of the doorway, his hand resting on his sword handle knob. “Warlord Bronn.”
“Not just Bronn,” Barlow whispered. “Bronn is a brute with five hundred cutthroats, yes. But three weeks ago, two unmarked freight wagons left the royal arsenals at Dunwall under armed guard. They carried secret military stores bound for the northern hills.”
Giles adjusted his glasses. “What manner of stores?”
“Experimental munitions,” Barlow said, glancing nervously toward the stone ceiling. “Cast-iron canisters filled with potion-made propellant and fire-crystals. Weapons developed by the Ministry of Fortifications for siege work. Baron Cedric paid three thousand silver marks to have them diverted to Bronn’s camp.”
Kenneth cursed softly under his breath. “Potion-made fire canisters. If they lob fire-pots over our stone walls, the timber roofs of the insulae will ignite in minutes.”
“They won’t lob fire over the walls if we eliminate their siege engines at the ditch line,” Giles said with total calm.
“Bronn has three iron-headed battering rams,” Barlow warned. “Each ram is mounted inside an armored tortoise lined with boiled ox-hides and iron plates. An arrow won’t scratch them. A giant crossbow bolt will glance off the sloped roofs. If those rams reach your outer gatehouse gates, sixty men swinging a five-ton tree trunk will shatter any timber drop-gate ever framed.”
“Timber portcullises fail in shear under dynamic impact,” Giles agreed. “Which is why we’ll not allow the ram crews to swing.”
Giles stood up and rolled up his trade blueprints.
“Thank you for the warning, Guildmaster Barlow. Your twenty tons of pig-iron will be put to immediate use.”
Barlow bowed, his ermine fur rustling. “May the Golden Scales weigh in your favor, Lord Croft. The Trade ring has five thousand gold invested in this valley. I’d be terribly grieved if Warlord Bronn turned my investment into charcoal.”
The merchant left under heavy guard, his turquoise carriage rolling swiftly southward across the concrete bridge.
Lady Millicent stood beside the table, her iron pen calculating the treasury allocations in swift, neat figures.
“Five thousand sovereigns,” Millicent said, looking up with genuine satisfaction. “Fifteen hundred gold allocated right away for pig-iron and coal deliveries. Eight hundred gold for Sister Teresa’s sick room stores. It was clean linen, honey, medical vinegar, and razor-sharp shears. Five hundred gold for new hardened saw blades for Caleb’s mill.”
“And the leftover balance?” Giles asked.
“Two thousand two hundred gold sovereigns in reserve in the stone vault,” Millicent replied. “For the first time since we were marched into this frozen valley, Grey Crag is fully, indisputably solvent.”
Giles nodded, stepping out onto the raised stone road.
Near the fountain basin, Sir Gareth the Cleaver sat on an overturned stone trough, resting his braced arm. The captured knight stared at the departing turquoise carriage, his scarred face slack with disbelief.
“Raymond Barlow,” Gareth muttered as Giles approached. “The chief factor of the High Marches. He doesn’t stop his carriage for dukes. And he just bowed to an engineer.”
“He bowed to a thirty-two percent reduction in freight overhead,” Giles corrected.
Gareth shook his head, staring down at his rough boots. “You don’t understand what Barlow told you about those fire canisters, Croft. I saw them tested at the royal proving grounds in Dunwall. They’re iron spheres packed with fire-oil and potion-made brimstone. When they burst, the fire clings to stone, wood, and flesh. Water won’t douse it.”
“Chemical burning sustained by inorganic oxidizers can’t be put out by water alone,” Giles agreed calmly. “It needs oxygen deprivation via sand smothering or holding.”
Giles turned toward the foundry yard. There, Master Borin was stoking the small roof-dome with new charcoal.
“We need area-of-effect close-quarters moving crushing weight,” Giles said. He pulled a fresh drafting sheet from his satchel. “We need to redesign the blunderbore battery.”
He looked at Kenneth with cold, steady eyes.
“We’re going to build the Dragon’s Mouth.”