The frontier castle of Iron Bastion was built to withstand the wrath of gods, but it couldn’t withstand a bad plumbing job. Eighty feet above the frozen tundra, outer edge castle walls stood in massive stone slabs of lodestone and granite. Every low roof wall bristled with giant crossbows the size of siege towers, strung with dragon sinew.
Yet Frank’s ox-cart rolled through the inner outer gatehouse. Then, the only thing he heard was the wet, metal rattle of water hammer.
THUMP... THUMP... SSSSSSS.
It was a rhythmic, painful percussion that pulsed through the stone floor every seven seconds.
Frank grimaced, leaning over the side of the cart. “Listen to that pipe whip,” Frank said, shaking his head. “They’re running high-pressure cooled water through unanchored bronze headers. No spreading loops. No swing joints. Just straight pipe run into solid stone.”
Shen Shitou pulled the oxen to a halt near the guard post muster grounds. Princess Jiang Ling’er tilted her head, catching the scent on the wind.
“Master,” Ling’er murmured, touching her heat wand. “That isn’t just steam. The fluid is white-hot to four hundred degrees, choked with sulfur.”
Niu Mang hopped down from the tailgate, his boots thudding against the flat stone slabs. He leaned on his trench shovel and peered down at a drainage grating where sickly yellow steam hissed into the frosty air. “Smells like rotten eggs and burnt bacon, Master. The ditch under this street is backing up.”
“They packed the flanges with pigskin and tree resin,” Frank said, stepping down. His eyes scanned the upright stone face of the guard post’s main armory tower. A massive eight-inch bronze pipe ran up the outside stonework. It glowed with a dull, cherry-red heat that made the surrounding air shimmer.
A neon-cyan test display flared in his vision.
Frank whistled through his teeth. “Eighteen thousand four hundred PSI. Running twelve percent beyond critical yield. Whoever stamped the permit on this boiler line should be hung by their ankles from a crane.”
Ahead of them, a crowd of iron-armored officers had gathered around the base of the heating pipe hub. At the center stood General Zhao, Supreme Commander of the Northern Frontier. Zhao was a towering warrior with a grizzled beard and scars from thirty years of border warfare. His heavy dark-steel layered-scale armor creaked as he paced back and forth, dark circles hanging beneath bloodshot eyes. Flanking him were three scribes in midnight-blue robes stitched with silver star wheels from the Thousand-Rune Guild.
“Elder Chen!” General Zhao bellowed, slamming a gauntleted fist against the stone wall. “The northern watchtowers have lost all heat wards! My men are sleeping in frostbite. Meanwhile, the core heating pipe rattles so wildly it shakes the mortar from the castle walls! When will the repairs be finished?!”
The eldest scribe, Elder Chen, stroked his white beard with smooth peace. “General Zhao, you must understand the subtle harmony of the Dao. The Heaven-Locking Barrier across the border is experiencing heavenly perturbation. The old family leylines are agitated. To pacify the fire-dragons within this bronze channel, the Guild must conduct a Seven-Day Cleansing Ritual.”
“A seven-day ritual?!” Zhao roared, veins pulsing on his forehead. “The Deep-sea Deep gap is rumbling three leagues north! We don’t have seven days! My soldiers are freezing to death!”
“Patience, General,” Chen replied, his smile carrying the greasy arrogance of an entrenched monopolist. “The ritual needs sixty flasks of Heavenly Dragon Blood Ink and three hundred top-grade Warm-Jade Magic charm Flags. The total cost is merely four hundred thousand high-grade spirit stones. If the guard post pays upfront, we can begin inscribing the calming scrolls tomorrow morning.”
General Zhao’s teeth ground together like iron on a file. “Four hundred thousand?! You already took half our seasonal provisions last month for array upkeep! And the pipe is shaking worse than before!”
“Spiritual building is costly, General,” Chen sneered gently. “Without our guild’s seal, no formation in this castle is allowed to operate. If you try to touch the sacred pipe hub yourselves, the heavenly backlash will eat your souls.”
“It’s not going to eat their souls,” a dry, flat voice cut through the courtyard. “It’s just going to blow their legs off.”
The entire assembly went dead silent. General Zhao spun around, his hand dropping to the handle knob of his broadsword. The three formation scribes blinked in shock. They stared at Frank, who was strolling toward the red-hot pipe hub with his hands in his overall pockets. Behind Frank walked Shitou. It looked like a granite column with legs, while Jiang Ling’er adjusted her shop apron and Niu Mang rested his shovel over his shoulder.
“Who let these ragged vagrants into the command courtyard?!” Elder Chen barked, his face darkening with anger. “Guards! Clear this rubbish from the military grounds!”
General Zhao held up a scarred hand, stopping the guards. His sharp eyes locked onto Frank’s calm, calm stance. Zhao had survived thirty years on the frontier. He knew that men who walked toward an exploding pressure vessel with hands in their pockets were either fully mad or unfathomably dangerous.
“Who are you?” Zhao demanded, his gravelly voice cutting through the steam.
“Frank. General builder,” Frank said, coming to a halt six feet from the cherry-red bronze pipe. He didn’t look at the soldiers or the scribes. He pulled an eight-inch adjustable wrench from his back pocket and pointed the jaw at the shaking junction. “Your pipe isn’t angry with heaven. It has bubbling blast. You’ve got an eight-inch line necking down into a two-inch orifice right at this ninety-degree elbow. The fluid speed is spiking, creating vapor bubbles that collapse against the pipe wall. That thump you keep hearing? That’s micro-implosions eating away the bronze from the inside.”
Elder Chen’s face flushed purple with outrage. “Nonsense! Total lunatic gibberish! That elbow is the Dragon-Throat Convergence Node! It concentrates spiritual fire into pure defensive majesty!”
“It concentrates high-pressure rough churning into an unshielded pipe bomb,” Frank countered evenly. He tapped the side of the bronze pipe hub with the flat of his wrench.
CLANG.
The hollow, papery chime that answered was horrifying.
Jiang Ling’er winced. “Wall thickness is down to barely three tiny fractions of an inch, Master. The metal is fatigue-softened.”
“Three tiny fractions of an inch on an eighteen-thousand-pound steam loop,” Frank muttered. He shook his head in disgust. “You don’t need dragon ink and jade flags. You need an angle grinder, a spreading loop. A spring-loaded pressure relief valve set to twelve hundred PSI.” He turned to General Zhao. “General, if you pay these clowns four hundred thousand spirit stones, all you’re buying is a front-row seat to a heavy-duty disaster. In about forty-eight hours, that elbow is going to rupture. When it does, this courtyard will be hit with two thousand gallons of white-hot flash-steam. Anyone within fifty yards will be peeled like a boiled shrimp.”
General Zhao took a reflex step back, his skin prickling with cold sweat. He looked at the cherry-red pipe, then at the scared formation scribes whose eyes were darting nervously.
“You speak with huge certainty, craftsman,” Zhao said, his voice dropping into a deadly rumble. “Can you fix this pipe hub?”
“Takes about forty minutes,” Frank said, shrugging. “Cut out the pinch-point, run a looped bypass with four-inch copper, and install a clockwork pop-off valve. But I don’t touch uninspected commercial lines without the right permits.”
Elder Chen seized upon the word, his arrogance rushing back like an ugly tide. “Permits! Exactly!” Chen shrieked triumphantly, thrusting a bony finger at Frank. “He has no formation license! By royal decree, only approved Formation Masters of the Thousand-Rune Guild are legally allowed to modify, repair, or inspect defensive leylines in the Hegemonic Frontier! Unlicensed tampering is high treason!”
Chen turned to General Zhao, his sneer returning. “General Zhao, if you allow this unranked vagrant to touch the royal pipe hub, our Guild will right away revoke the castle’s defensive warranty and withdraw all barrier technicians! The entire border will be left defenseless!”
General Zhao’s fists clenched so hard the leather bindings of his gauntlets creaked. He was trapped. The military might held the swords, but the Thousand-Rune Guild held the technical monopoly. Without their approved runes, the castle barriers were blind, deaf, and mute.
“Is that how your guild operates?” Frank asked, tucking away his wrench. “Build code violations, skip safety valves, then extort the guard post for dragon ink when pipes shake?”
“Our Guild represents the sacred heritage of the First Epoch!” Chen declared haughtily. “Only those who have studied the sky red stone arts for forty years can understand the flow of leylines! A mere dirt-covered tinkerer like you couldn’t pass the 1-Star apprentice trial if your terrible life depended on it!”
Frank looked at Chen, then turned back to General Zhao. “Where is this guildhall?”
General Zhao blinked, startled by the question. “The Thousand-Rune Guild is located in the Upper Bastion. The triennial sign-off exam is convening today. But craftsman... Their examinations are notoriously lethal. They’re designed to preserve the high-born red stone monopoly.”
“I don’t care about their monopoly,” Frank replied, scratching his chin. “I care about trade pricing. My ox-cart needs four hundred feet of heavy-gauge copper magnet wire and two crates of load-bearing steel spikes. The merchant quarter won’t sell me bulk spark scrap without an artisan trade credential.”
General Zhao stared in utter confusion. The man was standing before an impending fiery steam explosion, facing the wrath of a royal guild. His main motivation was obtaining a trade discount on scrap metal.
“If you obtain an official Formation Master token,” General Zhao said slowly, his voice carrying the weight of an iron contract, “the military will grant you total supply order power. You can take whatever materials you need from our royal depots, tax-free. I’ll personally authorize your repair contract for the entire castle.”
A faint chime sounded in Frank’s mind.
Frank nodded once. “Deal.”
He turned on his heel, walking back toward his wagon. “Shitou, leave the heavy pry-bars in the cart. Ling’er, bring the wire cutters and the padded tape. Niu Mang, grab the sack of six-inch iron spikes.”
“Yes, Master!” the three students chorused with military crispness.
Elder Chen burst into mocking laughter, shaking his stitched sleeves. “Madness! Pure madness! You think you can pass the Grand Guild’s trial with rusty nails and wire?! Elder Gu is head over the 1-Star hall today! He will flay your skin before you can even dip a brush in ink!”
Frank didn’t bother looking back. He climbed up to the cart seat, gathered the reins, and clicked his tongue to the oxen.
“Circuitry isn’t about ink,” Frank said softly as the wagon began to roll toward the Upper Bastion. “It’s about current. And those guys are about to learn what happens when you short out a closed loop.”
Above them, the cherry-red steam pipe gave another violent shudder. It echoed across the castle like a ticking clock.