“Too much,” Lizanne said, stepping back and raising an arm to shield herself from the sparks fountaining from the bulky granite flask.
“Want it melted, don’t you?” Morva replied.
“Yes, melted, not exploded. Watch.” Lizanne concentrated her gaze on the next flask and the three copper ingots it contained. “Think of the Red as a pool and you the stream that flows from it,” she said, the air shimmering as she sent a steady, narrow wave of Red into the flask. The copper took on a glow before the ingots started to sublime into one another. After a few minutes the flask was full of steaming liquid metal.
Lizanne nodded to the team of workers, all clad head to toe in thick leather. Two of them stepped forward to clamp the flask with iron poles before lifting and tilting it to pour the contents into the prearranged row of moulds.
“Try again,” Lizanne told Morva pointing to another flask, this one full of brass.
Thanks to Madame Hakugen’s reluctantly surrendered product and Lizanne’s employing all the settlement’s Blood-blessed in the forge, they had quadrupled the output of components in a single day. The woman’s warning that such profligate use would soon exhaust their supply was undoubtedly correct but Lizanne argued the need to produce finished weapons outweighed any concerns about defence. “One thing I have learned, madame,” she said. “In war moderation is not a virtue but an impediment.”
Using so much product so quickly also gave her the chance to fulfil her educational obligation, though Morva was a frequently recalcitrant student. After completing a shift at the forge Lizanne had her assist with moving the moulded components to the assembly line. The Varestian woman’s first attempt had an entire row of workers ducking for cover when she propelled a crate full of components across the manufactory with all the force of a cannon-shot.
“Only ever used it to throw things,” she said with a shrug of what Lizanne discerned to be studied indifference. “The Okanas family needs a Blood-blessed that can fight, not push things around like a glorified cart-horse.”
“I’ve seen you fight,” Lizanne returned. “And you’re no better a cart-horse than you are a fighter.”
That earned a glaring sneer, Morva turning on her heel to stalk from the manufactory, then freezing in place as Lizanne’s Black closed around her. She held her still for a second then slowly lifted her off the ground, turning her around and setting her down close to the stack of crated components. She could feel the woman struggling in her grip, lashing out with her own Black in a series of undisciplined blasts that were too unfocused to have any effect. Lizanne maintained her grip until Morva exhausted her reserves, then released her after a final squeeze to empty her lungs.
“Ethilda says you’re not really an Okanas,” Lizanne said, moving to stand over Morva as she knelt, clutching her chest and gasping. “Is that true?”
“That . . . whore is . . . no Okanas either,” Morva rasped, raising her gaze to glare at Lizanne.
“She says they bought you.” Lizanne went to her haunches, bringing her face level with Morva’s. “Why are you so loyal to a family that sees you as just a useful slave?”
Morva gritted her teeth and looked away. “Uncle Alzar always told me I was free to go . . .”
“Go? A lone child in the Red Tides. Where exactly would you go?”
“You don’t understand. The High Wall, it’s my home.”
A child taken from a life of bondage and abuse, given a home, told she had a family. Even if it was all just a contrivance to win her loyalty, clearly it worked. “Your home will burn,” Lizanne said. “Along with everything else if we don’t win this war. Make no mistake, I have seen the face of our enemy and it is all too real. This is the first battle.” She inclined her head at the busy lines of workers. “Every minute spent here is another step to victory. Every bolt, screw and lever we make is worth a thousand bullets.”
She took a fresh vial of Black from the pocket of her overalls and held it out. “Let’s try again, shall we? Shift me five tons by the end of the day and I’ll show you how to shatter a knee-cap with just a drop of Black.”
The first Growler came off the production line a week later, followed by the first Thumper two days after that. Jermayah had given manufacture of the Smokers over to the small band of gunsmiths and armourers who had escaped Lossermark. Their progress was slow and they shared a tendency to ignore entreaties to forsake long-ingrained perfectionism for speedy production. However, after another week of cajoling and a liberal ration of Green to stave off fatigue the gunsmiths’ workshop was producing the new carbines at a rate of five a day.
With the assembly lines running at reasonable efficiency Jermayah focused his efforts on ammunition, Lizanne and the other Blood-blessed exhausting all but a small amount of their Red to once again kick-start the process. The shell casings and projectiles were soon coming off the lines in decent quantities but the propellant needed to fill them required a more prolonged and hazardous process.
“The Varestians only gave us black powder,” Jermayah said. He had established a separate workshop to manufacture the ammunition, an old warehouse situated at a decent remove from the town. The mostly female work-force had been hand-picked for their dexterity and many were former seamstresses or print-setters. They all wore overalls fastened with laces rather than buttons, Jermayah having forbidden the smallest scrap of metal in the place.
“Works fine for cannon but it’ll foul the workings of the Growlers and Thumpers,” he went on. “We need to add flakes of nitrate and grind it into a fine dust.”
“As long as it works,” Lizanne said. Watching his head sag a little as he nodded, she said, “Get some sleep. You’ve done more than enough for now.”
“This lot needs watching . . .”
“Then send them home.” A faint smile formed on her lips as an idea occurred to her. “Tomorrow will be a holiday,” she said. “I think these people deserve a small celebration.” The smile slipped from her lips as she turned away, knowing that for many whatever festivities she organised could well be the last they ever saw.
CHAPTER 23
Clay
It was only thanks to the Green in his veins that he was able to make out much of anything below the surface. The undulating lake-bed stretched away beneath him, featureless but for a sand-covered hump almost directly below. He angled his body towards the hump and kicked with all the enhanced strength his body would allow. His objective became clearer as he descended, resolving into something vaguely boat-shaped. It was almost entirely covered by silt but for one section near its narrow prow that appeared to have been scraped away.
A gondola, he realised as he swam closer, the sight of a hatch resolving through the murk, an open hatch. An aerostat’s gondola.
Clay’s lungs began to burn as he forced his body lower, coming to a thrashing halt a good forty feet short. Got too much air in me, he knew as a renewed bout of kicking failed to push him any lower. He stopped moving, focusing his gaze on the half-open hatch and reaching out with Black. It took two hard tugs before the hatch came free revealing something round and shiny in the gloom within. Kriz, Clay thought, recognising the helmet and using Black to draw her out of the gondola. His vision was already beginning to blur thanks to the lack of air and there was no time for finesse. Kriz’s helmet thumped against the side of the hatchway as he dragged her clear, opening his arms to catch her as she shot upwards.