Steel and Sorrow: Rise of the Mercenary king - Chapter 817

Chapter 817: Back home(4)

A long silence stretched between them. Alpheo’s gaze lingered on the scaffolds, the pulleys creaking as buckets of soil rose and fell, on the masons trimming stones with careful, measured strikes. Yet his eyes weren’t truly seeing the work as much as he was daydreaming about his other business.

Pontus, meanwhile, was nearly sick with worry. He could feel the weight of that silence pressing down on his shoulders.Had he miscalculated? Had his estimate displeased the prince?

“Is everything… fine, Your Grace?” he ventured at last, his voice betraying the unease that gnawed at him. “If there is concern about the time, I assure you the optimistic projection is far more likely than the conservative one. We have yet to encounter any large stone deposits in the other sewers, so there is little indication this one will present such obstacles.”

The prince did not answer. He kept staring at the workers below, his face carved in unreadable stillness.

Pontus swallowed, nerves tightening around his throat. The silence grew unbearable. “If Your Grace wishes,” he blurted, “we could extend shifts into the night. Force the laborers to continue,speed the work even further. It could shave weeks from the completion.”

Finally, Alpheo turned his head toward him. Pontus stiffened under that sudden weight of attention, but the truth was another…. Alpheo had really not heard a single word of what the man had just said.

It was only the naked worry on Pontus’s face that pulled him back to the present. Alpheo read the anxiety in the man’s expression and, realizing the architect mistook his silence for displeasure, he forced his lips into a faint curve.

“You have done well,” he said at last, his voice calm but distant, as though the words were meant more to dismiss than to praise. “I commend you for the work already completed.”

Relief washed visibly over Pontus. It was a natural enough fear, after all every stone of his current standing had been laid by the hand of the prince.

If Alpheo judged his work inadequate, there would be no shortage of hungry young architects eager to snatch his place. It was not only duty that drove Pontus to personally oversee so many projects, but also that edge of fear, coupled with his obsessive desire to perfect every line and every stone.

Something that the prince shared.

“I have been told you personally oversee much of this work,” Alpheo said at last, his tone mild, though his sharp eyes caught the slight puff of pride in Pontus’s chest.

The pride collapsed like a punctured bladder the moment the prince added, “Have you been neglecting your other duties?”

Pontus paled and bowed his head quickly, words spilling out of him in a rush. “Of course not, Your Grace. I assure you I take care to visit the works only once I am certain my other tasks are fulfilled.

For example, I have already seen to the repair of the Romelian road all the way to the capital, for it is the lifeline of the princedom. And, I believe there will be a surplus of some seven thousand silverii from the budget you allotted us. If it pleases Your Grace, I would humbly propose it be diverted to rebuild the bridge destroyed during the campaign—”

Alpheo’s eyes narrowed slightly, his thoughts darting back. The bridge. He had all but forgotten. Lucius’s ambush, shattering the foundation, collapsing the beams as the enemy lord’s men marched across, brilliant in war, disastrous in peace, especially since he was wishing to improve the weight of trade between Oizen and his state.

Without it, caravans bound for Oizen would choke at the riverbank, trade stifled like a throat under a boot.

“Yes,” Alpheo said slowly. “That is… good to hear. And as for your proposal, it is sound. Let the surplus be spent there. But know that this is only a secondary matter. There are greater works I require of you.”

Pontus blinked, his brows arching. “May I ask, Your Grace, what manner of works?”

He glanced back over his shoulder, his eyes glinting faintly. “How else would you work on them, Pontus, if I did not tell you?”

The architect flushed and hurried after him as he started walking , bowing again as the prince continued, his tone tightening with a new gravity.

“As you are aware, one of the concessions we secured from Oizen at the close of the war was the Malshut Mines.”

Pontus nodded quickly, lips pressed together, the name alone heavy with wealth and promise.

“Well,” Alpheo went on, his voice like a whetstone scraping against iron, “what passed into our hands was only the mine itself. The furnace used to smelt the ore into iron was never part of the transfer. The late-late prince of Oizen, it seems, was careful, he had built his smelting works near his capital, no doubt so he could keep them close under his eye, and ensure that not a single ingot was lost to the fingers of corrupt overseers.”

By then, Pontus already knew where this was going. He could almost feel the weight of the prince’s expectations pressing against him.

“I intend to do the same,” Alpheo continued, his hand brushing the neck of his stallion as if grounding himself. “Not in the capital itself, but close enough. I want a complex of furnaces, a proper operation capable of handling every ounce of ore those mines can yield.

He turned his full gaze on Pontus now, the words heavy, brooking no hint of argument.

“You will design it.”

“It would be my honor,” Pontus began quickly, bowing his head. “If Your Grace permits, I would recommend placing the furnace near the western forest. There will be ample wood for fuel—”

Alpheo shook his head before the man could finish. He reached into his horse’s pouch and pulled out a tightly rolled paper. “There is no need for that, for wood I mean” he interrupted coolly. “The furnace I will have you build is not like the others.”

He handed the parchment down. Pontus unrolled it with eager fingers, his eyes scanning the unfamiliar design. His brows knitted almost at once, the furrows deepening with each line he traced.

“I… I have never seen such a design,” he admitted, glancing up at the prince with open confusion.He did not understand jack-shit of it “Your Grace, I am not certain this will work.”

Alpheo’s mouth curled into a thin smile. “Of course you haven’t seen it,it is new. But trust me, Pontus. It will work. And when it does, it will be unlike anything this land has ever seen.”

Pontus hesitated. His throat worked before he finally dared to ask, “May I ask… in what regard?”

Alpheo’s eyes hardened, his voice lowering with deliberate weight. “Because it will not run on wood. Nor on charcoal. The heat those fuels provide is too weak, too inconsistent. This furnace will reach far higher temperatures than any simple kiln you have ever known. The only fuel that can achieve such fire is coal.”

Pontus’s eyes went wide. His breath caught in his throat as he nearly dropped the parchment. “Coal, Your Grace? That…with all due respect… that is impossible. It cannot work. The ore would be ruined! The fumes alone would poison the iron, and the stench, gods, the stench would drive the workers mad. No man will labor in such a hell for the salary they are paid.”

His panic was not unfounded. Everyone in Yarzat knew coal as the “wood of the poor,” fit only for desperate households to burn in their hearths when wood grew scarce. The smoke clung to clothes, to skin, to breath,it choked the lungs and fouled the air. In smelting, it was worse still. Raw coal spat thick vapors that contaminated metal until it cracked and turned brittle. There was a reason the masters of craft had rejected it for centuries.

But Alpheo did not mean to use normal coal, but instead coke coal.

“We will have to refined the coal before using it. We will burn the impurities out first, feed the natural coal to the ovens until it is transformed into pure fuel. No smoke, no poison, only fire strong enough to devour stone and give us clean iron.”

Pontus’s lips parted as though to protest again, but the look in his prince’s eyes warned him better. Skepticism gnawed at his thoughts, yet he swallowed it down, deciding he could always conduct small experiments later in private before committing to the design.

With forced composure, he cleared his throat. “May I ask, Your Grace… what is this furnace called?”

Alpheo allowed himself the smallest of smiles, the kind that was closer to a smirk than to warmth. “Blast furnace,” he said deliberately, as though savoring the name. “It is called a blast furnace. And you, Pontus, will be the first man in all these lands to raise one.”

“Blast furnace…” Pontus repeated under his breath, rolling the unfamiliar words on his tongue as though they might reveal some hidden sense. What the hell was a blast?

His gaze flicked from the parchment to Alpheo. “If I may, who conceived of this device, Your Grace?”

Alpheo should have dismissed the question, , but the temptation was too sweet to resist.

“Keep it between us, Pontus, but the design is mine. My mind conceived it, and my hand drew the lines you hold.”

Pontus’s skepticism, already sharp, nearly doubled. His prince was many things, a commander, a reformer, a ruler of uncommon will, but an inventor? That was harder to swallow. He lowered his eyes quickly, masking his doubt with a stiff bow. “Then I shall do my utmost to bring it into being, Your Grace.”

Alpheo watched him carefully and then, almost amused, tilted his head. “I can see it in your face. You believe it won’t work.” He did not speak the words in anger, but with patience. “That is all right. Skepticism is a craftsman’s shield. So here is what I ask,test it. Take the coal, burn it as I have instructed, and see if it becomes what I claim it to be. If it does, then you will build me the furnace. Step by step. No leaps of faith required.”

Pontus hesitated, then nodded slowly, his voice subdued.

“As you command, Your Grace.”

After all what was he to do?Refuse?

Good luck with keeping your job after that….