Re: Steel and Gunpowder

Valerio also knew that escaping via the macadam-paved highways was a death sentence.

The Ironstorm Jaegers patrolled the roads with their telescopic sights, and the checkpoints were impenetrable.

His only viable exit strategy was the river...

According to Valerio’s meticulous surveillance over the last month, a convoy of low-riding timber barges departed from the southern industrial docks at exactly seven-thirty every morning.

They carried excess lumber down the Lech River, eventually feeding into the Danube.

It took the steam-powered cranes exactly forty minutes to load the heavy pine logs onto the flat-bottomed vessels.

Valerio possessed a window of opportunity to slip aboard. If he missed it, he would be trapped in this smog-choked city for another twenty-four hours, and every hour increased the likelihood of Princess Elise discovering her files had been tampered with.

Today was the day he vanished.

SCREEEEEEECH!

The secondary factory whistle pierced the morning air, signaling the final rotation of the blast furnace crews.

Valerio peered through his greasy window and watched the gray-clad workers file into the doors of the manufacturing bays.

The streets were momentarily empty.

He pulled on an oil-stained worker’s coat and secured a belt around his waist. Hidden inside the lining of his heavy boots were his lockpicks, a stiletto, and exactly fifty gold florins.

Tucked securely against his chest, wrapped in oilcloth, were the charcoal rubbings of the traction engine.

He opened the door of his tiny room and descended the creaking wooden stairs of the boarding house.

The matron of the house, a stout, red-faced woman, was scrubbing the floorboards with a harsh lye soap.

"Going out in this miserable sleet, are you?" the matron grunted, pausing her scrubbing to eye him suspiciously. "The foreman at the mill said your shift didn’t start until noon."

Valerio had spent the last month playing the role of a deaf-mute iron puddler named Tomas.

He had even burned his own forearms with hot iron to make the disguise flawless.

True to his role, Valerio did not utter a single word in response.

He simply kept his head down, tapped his ear with a dull expression, and walked straight out the front door into the freezing drizzle.

Valerio navigated the alleys toward the river, sticking to the shadows of the towering brick chimneys.

By the time the boarding house matron realized he had left his room permanently, he would be miles downriver, floating safely toward Austrian territory...

As he approached the expanse of the southern docks, Valerio spotted his salvation bobbing in the dark water of the Lech.

Under the watchful eyes of the Swabian port authority, massive iron cranes hissed and vented steam as they lowered bundles of heavy pine logs onto the deck of the leading barge.

Valerio crouched behind a stack of rusted iron gears, carefully counting the security detail.

There were four Ironstorm Jaegers patrolling the wooden piers.

Valerio formulated his final move. He would wait for the crane’s claw to swing back toward the shore, creating a temporary visual obstruction.

Then, he would calmly walk up to the dockmaster.

He would flash a handful of gold florins, offering the man a choice: accept a fortune that would feed his family for a decade, or catch a stiletto directly in the carotid artery.

So long as he could wedge himself tightly beneath the lowest layer of pine logs, Valerio was confident the sheer weight of the bribe would keep the dockmaster silent until the barge crossed the Bavarian border.

Just as the steam crane hissed, releasing a cloud of white vapor that provided his perfect cover, Valerio gripped the gold in his pocket and tensed his leg muscles to sprint.

"Do not take another step, ghost."

Valerio’s stomach plummeted into his boots. The voice had come from directly behind him.

He turned around, his eyes widening in shock.

The alleyway he had just traversed was no longer empty. Over two dozen Ironstorm Jaegers had materialized from the surrounding shadows with silence.

Behind him lay the rushing currents of the river. He was entirely boxed in.

Stepping through the ranks of the rifles was General Voss, his saber resting against his shoulder.

Valerio instantly dropped to his knees in the freezing mud and threw both of his hands high into the air, interlacing his fingers behind his head.

So long as he kept his heart beating today, he could negotiate. He could offer up Kinsky’s cipher codes, or he could pivot and offer his exceptional talents to Princess Elise as a double agent.

A spy with a pulse could always broker a deal; a dead spy was just rotting meat.

But as the Jaegers stepped forward, pressing the steel muzzles of their grooved rifles against his forehead and his chest, a singular question burned through Valerio’s mind.

He had not spoken a word in five weeks. He had left no footprints in the Princess’s study. His infiltration was a masterpiece.

How in God’s name did they find me?

...

Valerio sat still on a riveted iron bench.

The holding cell deep beneath the Ministry of Logistics was a stark departure from the damp, rat-infested dungeons of the old world.

It possessed smooth concrete walls, a steel door, and a network of exposed copper pipes that radiated a dry heat.

Valerio needed to understand how General Voss and two dozen Ironstorm Jaegers had known exactly which alleyway to block.

"The matron..." Valerio whispered to the empty room.

Three years ago, King Konrad had mandated a universal set of hand signals for the foundry workers.

The drop-forges were so deafeningly loud that verbal communication on the factory floor was impossible, and many workers naturally lost their hearing anyway.

A genuine deaf-mute iron puddler would have fluently responded to the matron using those precise Swabian hand signs.

Instead, Valerio had simply tapped his ear and walked out the door like an uneducated peasant.

The matron must have recognized the glaring discrepancy immediately. Princess Elise was likely paying a bounty of five silver thalers to any citizen who reported a suspicious discrepancy in the labor force.

That stout, soap-scrubbing woman had sold him to the secret police for a handful of coins.

The tumbler of the door clicked. Two Jaegers stepped into the cell. They grabbed Valerio by his elbows, hauling him off the bench and dragging him out into a brilliantly lit corridor.

They marched him up a flight of stairs and shoved him into a spacious office.

In the center of the room sat a table. Princess Elise von Frundsberg sat behind it. Standing directly behind her right shoulder was General Voss, his hand resting on the hilt of his saber.

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