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  Miners and Empire

  Merchant and Empire: Book Five

  Alma T. C. Boykin

  Copyright © 2019 by Alma T. C. Boykin

  Cover Design: SelfPubBookCovers.com/KimDingwall

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Created with Vellum

  Contents

  1. Three Smelters

  2. Clay and Stone

  3. High Water and Stone

  4. Cracks, Rain, and Walls

  5. Stone and Stone

  6. Spring and the Smelters

  7. Smelter Foundations

  8. Fire and... Feathers?

  9. Dung and Solutions

  10. City Walls and Freedom

  11. Preparing for the Storm

  12. Closing the Gates

  13. Red War, Blue War

  Afterword

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Also by Alma T. C. Boykin

  1

  Three Smelters

  “What think you?"

  Miners and townsmen alike waited as Winfrith stared west, down the valley toward the lowlands and the blue-distant hills far toward the sunset and the sea. Dark green trees covered the slopes, broken in two places by bright green openings, old burns or young pastures.

  Winfrith nodded once. "Here." He took a carved wooden rod from Turold's bundle and jammed it into the ground, knocking a bit of loose stone out of the way. "Primary smelter here." He paced off twenty steps to the south and accepted a darker stick. "Secondary here." Then he descended to the next little flat and set an almost black rod into the thin soil. "Middle smelter here, for the black copper."

  Aedelbert Starken considered the sites. They certainly had enough good stone for building the smelters, both black and grit-stone, and wood aplenty—unlike the old site, which Winfrith had pronounced too timber-poor to repair after the storm flood. The stone looked fresh, too, making life a little easier, perhaps. Looks could deceive, especially with stone. It had probably rotted from behind, the way his winter had gone, or would be drusy—too dry and powdery to use. He folded his arms. The wind sweeping up from the valley brushed his cheeks with cool, faint fingers. Winfrith swore that they'd not need blowers for the smelters if they built them here. Aedelbert did not intend to change his design despite the older man's pronouncement. Wind failed when you needed it the most, just like water.

  "Good wood," Turold grunted. Aedelbert blinked at the high praise. "Krameich—can't build with it, too wind-twisted, good fuel. Weide too, thick stand not too far," he tipped his head to the south. Both were good charcoal woods, and no one built with either or used them for tools. Perhaps Winfrith did know something, Aedelbert allowed. Turold rarely sounded so pleased.

  The men trudged up-slope, and Turold marked a site for a workers' shelter. Then the men found the red-bearded priest of Korvaal. He waited beside some large boulders, watching the others. Or was he? Unfocused dark blue eyes turned to the miners, builder, and other townsmen. "No conflict arises here." The priest blinked several times and shook a little all over. "The gods have no special claim to this site."

  "What about Lord Aldread?" Paegan's thin voice cut through the tree murmurs and wind sound. Several of the others snorted or growled, depending on their experience with the local lord.

  The squat priest shook his head and touched the insignia hanging from the chain over his brown and green tunic. He'd worn tunic and trews with good boots, not temple robes. Aedelbert approved. "What of him?" the priest asked. "When did he last come over the mountains?"

  "Our sire's sire thought once during his lifetime," Dunstan said, and Boernrad mirrored his twin's nod.

  "The land is not a hunting preserve, if that is your question," the priest stated. "Nothing on this side of the bald is reserved beyond the founding list."

  Smiles appeared on many faces. Turold grunted.

  The priest looked to Aedelbert. "Have you heard or seen ought of the lords of Aldread?"

  "No, Father. Not to the south or west. I've not been north for three winters." No one bothered going north beyond the ruined fort. Marsh and worse extended for two days hard travel at least past the final little hills.

  "All have witnessed the decision?" Winfrith sounded impatient.

  A chorus of "aye," filled the still-cool air. The priest raised his hands, mouthed something not meant for men's ears, and lowered his hands once more. Several of the men pulled hand-axes from their belts and blazed trees at Winfrith and Turold's directions, marking the full extent of the new smelter site. Work would begin in six days, and blazing should discourage any who thought to move the marker stakes. Even so, Aedelbert hunted around the boulder and along a small stream until he found pale, darker, and almost black stones and piled them around the bases of the marker stakes. Blaze, stake, and cairn—no one dared change what all three announced.

  Another slight breeze moved past his face. Aedelbert glanced toward Winfrith, but the smelter-expert had turned his back, deep in conversation with Turold. The builder glanced away. Looking at Turold's face... and the scars and old burns had to go farther on the man's body. As warm as the afternoons were, no one had seen Turold roll his sleeves or open the throat of his shirt since he'd been carried out of the mine. Or so it was said, and Aedelbert believed the murmurs.

  He returned his thoughts to the smelters. Now, he believed that the site would do for the work and a wind-smelter. He'd still leave spaces in the walls for puff-pipes, though. If they didn't use them, good. If they needed them, he'd not have to do the work twice. And Winfrith might change his mind and want them after spending more time at the site. It would not be the first time that practical on-site experience overwhelmed hope.

  A lean, small man who might have been a walking krameich left the others and scrambled down to stand beside Aedelbert. Wassa Pakson glanced down the long fold in the mountains, then turned his eyes to the ground. "Too much sky," he grumbled. "If the road goes like so, from the mine" he used his staff to make a circle in the leaf-mold and dirt, then drew a line to a rock, "to the smelters here, where will we cache the ore?"

  Aedelbert glanced from map to valley and back. "Where's the crushing mill going to be? Or is it staying at the mine-head, sir?"

  "Staying. No reason to haul unsorted ore all this way, grind, sort, then grind again." Master Wassa spat and shook his head. "Seen it done, but down slope, not up. Had a water-grinder. Had to go where the water did."

  And here the mines used bird and man-power to process the ore, so the ore-grinders needed no water. Aedelbert studied the land around them, then estimated how much room a stack of ore-sacks might take. "I'm not Master Winfrith, but I'd put it there," he pointed to a flat, south-facing shoulder almost hidden by brush at the edge of the dark tree-shadows. "Sheltered from weather, up from the smelters, and away from the water-paths."

  Both men looked south, to where a little stream gurgled over rocks, then danced between low banks. The banks on the south side had been higher until last year's storm, when the stream washed them down to the plains, along with a number of trees, or so Aedelbert had heard from the priest of Korvaal. The men of the town and the miners had pulled the trees free of the flood before they reached the city gates. Why spend time and effort cutting down trees when you could just pull them out of the stream as they floated past? Neither the priest of Korvaal nor Donwah's acolytes had objected, so long as the men paid a proper tithe.

  "Good." Wassa nodded, planting his staff more firmly in the ground. "Can you work this winter?"r />
  Aedelbert considered the site and what would be needed for construction. "Aye. We can cut rock, move the fire-earths, stock-pile firing wood, and prepare everything, then build in spring. Or late winter, if the snows don't prevent." Winters this far up the mountain reminded men why the Great Cold had been so terrible. Legend had it that the town's roots went back to the very end of the Great Cold, and Aedelbert wondered who had dared settle so close to the last ice. Probably people who had been cast out of the lands farther north, but that was twenty generations and more before his time. He had stone and clay and wood to worry with now, and getting started on the work. If he didn't work, he didn't eat. All men needed to eat.

  "We'll have enough ore to keep three smelters running. Scavenger willing and Radmar be kind," Master Wassa added in a rush. "Closer's better."

  "Aye that, sir." Aedelbert made a little warding sign, lest Radmar of the Wheel take notice of the master's words. A wise man avoided attracting the gods' attention, or men's attention for that matter.

  The miners would be very pleased to know that they'd only have to travel half as far with the ore now. Transportation cost a lot in the mountains, but trying to move that much wood and charcoal to the mine? Aedelbert snorted to himself. If a man lived beside one of those flat, ever-flowing rivers, perhaps. Or near the sea, as the Five Free Cities did with their bog-iron, but then they shipped in everything save water and wind, so it didn't matter to them what moved where.

  "We'll bring a crew up after the next rest day and begin clearing the site. Some of the charcoal men have already started moving, and two agreed to stay up over winter, Korvaal and Valdher willing." Winfrith raised one white eyebrow and looked to Aedelbert. Aedelbert nodded a little, just to show that he'd heard. That made some things easier, assuming the burners didn't use his stone and clay for their huts. Not that anyone with sense used sealing clay for building more than once. Just the stench alone would clear men, women, children, and great-haulers out of the building. Even the Scavenger's rats would probably flee, holding their noses as they departed.

  With that final decision made, the priest of Korvaal began leading the others down the narrow track away from the smelting site. Aedelbert's thoughts turned from siting smelters and locating materials caches to watching his footing. The track would need more than a little improvement if men and great-haulers were going to use it for business. At least, use it without having roots and low-brush grab their ankles, or climbing over two fallen trees. He heard Boernrad mutter about wood wasted in the forest, and didn't trees know better? Master Wassa chuckled, but quietly, and Aedelbert flicked the fingers of his left hand to ward off trouble. The zwurge had never bothered men above ground, but the builders and smelter workers would be digging into the mountain's skin, trespassing into the lands of the mountain dwellers. It was better to avoid offense than to have to make amends later.

  Aedelbert looked at some of the tall, old trees hiding among their shorter fellows and wondered if they'd been marked for specific uses yet. If not, there was one they'd passed that he intended to claim if he could. "How long since the wood-laws were changed, Father?" he asked the priest.

  "Three generations, so the books say. If the lords of Aldread changed them without telling us," the back of the priest's shoulders rose and fell in a shrug. "No one has made timber claims for eight generations, per the books, not since long before the Scavenger's Gift opened at least."

  Master Wassa coughed. "The first timbers for the Gift came from south of Grimford."

  Surely the the thick woods around them couldn’t be so young? Aedelbert boggled a little, then shrugged. He was a stone-worker first and not a woodsman. Stone matured so slowly compared to trees.

  Dunstan coughed as well. "Our grand-sire told our sire that the priests of Korvaal and Valdher commanded the end of wood-cutting. A few trees still stood, and the priests ordered that they be left to grow more and to keep the mountain from washing away.

  "One man didn't listen, and they found him with a staabeich limb through his back, pinned to the ground as if by a spear. No more cutting after that, " Dunstan said, glancing around and keeping his voice low. "Not had a priestess of Valdher since grand-sire's time, but Korvaal listens too."

  "That he does," Aedelbert agreed, and the others nodded or grunted their agreement. He glanced left and right as well, but nothing appeared or felt out of place. Still, after that the men stayed quiet as they walked the forest trail. Once they cleared the trees from the flatter areas, schaef could come in, and some of the great-haulers perhaps, if the grass and browse grew well enough. Some land grew nothing save trees, rocks, and more rocks, only Korvaal knew why.

  They threaded their way around some odd boulders before the trail widened into a track. Aedelbert felt more comfortable here. "Better. Not so much sky," Master Wassa declared. Truly, he was Scavenger Born, to be happier with rocks over his head as well as under his feet. Aedelbert preferred stone around him and under him, not over him, baked-stone tiles being the exception.

  The track widened into almost a road, and the men heard the sound of water. "Have any of the new men tried to drink from it, Wassa?" Turold grated.

  "One. Did it in front of others. No," Wassa raised one scarred hand. "There wasn't a wager, either. He might not last if he doesn't have more sense than that."

  Everyone chuckled or winced. One of the first things a man learned when he came to Garmouth's lands was not to drink waters from Iron Stream. Fish could, and plants, but a man would do better eating iron nails or taking one of the healing mages' potions without water. Iron and sulfur flowed in the water, or so it was said. Washing with it healed skin sores, but only the truly ill drank any. If the miners used part of the stream in the mine, then turned it back out downstream, no loss to anyone. Better than using the Gar or Silver Stream and fouling good waters.

  Now that he had mind to spare from watching his steps, Aedelbert considered what to do next, as the sun warmed his shoulders. Caedda should have drawn up the initial list of materials and locations for him by the time they reached the gates. Clay first, and wood Aedelbert decided. The wood would have to season before use, although they'd not need much since Winfrith wanted to use the sandy stone for fire-rock. But enough clay for three smelters and for repairs? That'd be work and they couldn't have winter's frosts do the labor for them as they could with the sandy stones. Depending on which sites Caedda had found, they'd do better to dig clay first and carry that up to the site, build a shed over it once the coal-burners arrived, and then start on the rock. Unless they could drill the rocks now, easily, and then do the clay and return to the rocks once frost arrived... No matter what they did, they'd be working all winter. That much both men knew, and that much they'd contracted for. Aedelbert's right hand half-ached at the thought of working in the cold.

  "What said that merchant, the one who went to the mine?" Paegan asked Beornrad.

  "Lead and copper both priced higher, silver steady, iron higher too. No trade from the south this year, not south of the Comb. Liambruu said war, or so he'd heard rumor claim. Jens'd know more."

  "Jens knows more than he ought," Turold said, then coughed and shook all over. "Comes of having two gods over him."

  "Not his fault, sir," Dunstan protested. "Man can't set the time of his birth."

  The former fire-miner grunted his agreement. He'd already said more since noon than he did for most eight-days, and Aedelbert wondered if he'd used up his store of speech.

  The screech and groan of wooden wheels fighting against both brakes and drag drowned out all other sounds, and the men all hurried to the outside of the road, the valley side, as they passed a wagon going down-hill. The great-haulers leaned back against the weight and Aedelbert saw odd lumps and bits of twig and branch sticking up over the small wagon's sides. The grey-brown birds walked heads back, long necks angled up-slope, legs straining. The man with the wagon hurried back and forth around behind it, splashing water on the iron brake-shoes and wooden blocks behind the iron.
They didn't steam yet, but they might before they reached the shallower slope. His wouldn't be the first wagon to catch fire because the drag was too light or the birds too few. By unspoken agreement, the smelter men and miners sped their steps, rushing ahead of the laboring birds until they passed the wagon-way. Aedelbert had dodged enough run-aways in his life already, Radmar knew.

  At speed, Turold's left leg kicked oddly, another sign of fire's kiss. He began coughing as they reached the flat ground below the mines' level, but waved off Wassa's concern. Miners earned all they made, fire-miners even more so. All the more reason to stay with stone on the surface, not stone from the Scavenger's own lands, unless hunger left no choice. Aedelbert nodded once to himself.

  Once they reached the old city walls, the men parted ways. Aedelbert looked to the left, then right. Should he go straight to his rooms, visit the market, or get something to eat? His stomach growled. He turned right, walking toward the market and the Golden Loaf. His preferred inn still needed a few more repairs in the kitchen, and the Golden Loaf served a good ale as well as breads.

  "Hela, Mistress Godgifu, you know that I need spice-loaf to live," one of the millers teased the matron working behind the long counter. "Two pennies per eight weight's leb-bread price."

  "And if spice-loaf is leb-bread, then white-flour twice sifted is ten-copper per hundred weight." She nodded to Aedelbert and reached up for his mug, showing her strong arm under the rolled sleeve as she did. "Or do you want my dough-paddle to chew on?" The sturdy matron smiled as she made the threat, and handed Aedelbert his mug.

  The miller sighed and handed over the proper payment. "You bargain harder than one of those merchant masters, Mistress Godgifu."