Dornheim was frozen in a gray mire.
Iron sat beneath the canopy. The canvas tarp sagged heavily; a fat drop tore from its edge and splattered directly into his bowl of cold porridge.
Outside, blurred silhouettes shifted through the murky mist. The dull thud of an axe echoed. Wet timber groaned. Noah hauled a heavy beam on his shoulder, his boots sinking deep into the sludge. He dumped the beam by the frame of a new barracks and wiped his brow with a filthy forearm.
Elyria hovered nearby. In the thick fog, her light seemed faint—a washed-out, bleeding smudge of green. She wasn't chattering anymore. She simply hung in the air, pointing out where Noah should drop the timber.
Walter emerged from the fog, dragging his leg. His old wound always flared up with the weather, making him wince with every step.
"Reinhart’s deadline is up," the captain rasped, stopping by the canopy. "The highway is completely empty."
Iron shifted his gaze down to his lap. His blanket was soaked through.
"Is silence a bad thing?" he asked.
"Better if that Count had just come and taken his ore," Walter spat. "This way... we're just sitting in a bear trap."
Iron wiped his wet palm against the blanket. It did little good—the wool was already saturated with water. He was hungry, but the sight of the gray sludge in his bowl made him nauseous.
What’s the verdict, Lumon? he asked internally.
[System Status: Critical]
Energy Channels: 1.1% (Conductivity disrupted)
Central Nervous Circuit: 2.1% (Neural connection restoration slowed)
Recommendation: Nourishment, warmth, sleep.
"Nourishment, warmth..." Iron smirked crookedly.
He stared at his feet. His boots were caked in mud, even though he hadn't taken a single step. Someone must have brushed past him in a rush. He focused all his attention, trying to simply flex a muscle in his right thigh.
A sharp, digital beep echoed in his head. His thigh gave an almost imperceptible twitch, and an agonizing, dull ache immediately clawed into his leg. He hissed through his teeth, his hand clamping down onto the armrest. The chair groaned. One of the wheels sank a bit deeper into the mire.
It bloody well sucks when everyone is putting their faith in you, but in reality, you're just a useless burden who can't even move out of the rain, Iron thought bitterly.
"Two point one," he muttered aloud. "Fine. At least it's not zero."
He picked up a file. He needed to finish smoothing down the component in his lap, or tomorrow Darwin would start whining again about the work grinding to a halt.
Five hours later, Darwin shuffled up to the canopy, his boots squelching through the mud. He dropped a chunk of smelted ore onto the edge of the workbench.
"Look at this," Darwin said, wiping his nose with his sleeve and smearing engine oil across his cheek. "Brittle. There’s so much slag in it I nearly broke my back shoveling it out."
Iron scraped the fragment with his fingernail. The metal flaked away, leaving a gray powder on his fingertip.
"Perfect," he grunted.
Darwin stared at him as if he had lost his mind. "Did you overheat under your tarp? We can't even forge a decent pickaxe out of this—it'll snap on the first stone. And you want to cast bearing joints for the hoists out of it?"
"Exactly." Iron pulled a sheet of parchment toward himself. The bottom of the paper had absorbed the moisture, turning soft as a rag; his charcoal smudged heavily, leaving thick, greasy black streaks. "Look here. I altered the tolerances in the bearings. Made them a fraction tighter than they should be. Just a tiny hair."
Darwin leaned in, squinting in the dim light. "They’ll seize."
"Not right away," Iron smirked crookedly. "First, they’ll grease them up, and everything will spin like a charm. Beautifully smooth. Quiet. For about five days. But then, when your 'glassy' iron begins to crumble inside... bang."
"An explosion?" Darwin whispered.
"Worse. The mechanism will turn into a useless hunk of scrap at the worst possible moment. Right when they load a literal ton of ore onto the lift."
Darwin scratched the back of his neck. You could practically see the gears turning in his head as he weighed the risks. "If they realize it’s sabotage... we're all dead. Reinhart isn't paying for this just to be fooled."
"Who's going to realize it?" Iron tossed the shard of ore back onto the pile. "His engineers are likely used to working with flawless steel and magical reinforcement. They won't understand why a brittle metal bound up in a tight slot. They'll write it off as an unforeseen accident. Either way, it's make or break."
"Go on, Darwin. Cast the parts. Just make sure they look good. Polish the outside so it shines."
Darwin silently took the chunk of iron and trudged back toward the furnaces, melting away into the fog.
Iron was left alone. He was thirsty, but the energy required to reach for his mug felt monumental.
That night, they gathered around the campfire before sleep to discuss Reinhart’s impending arrival. The firewood was damp, smoking far more than it heated. The acrid smoke stung their eyes, drawing tears. Walter sat down on a fallen log next to Iron’s chair.
"There are no patrols," the captain said hollowly. "For two days now, not a single soul on the highway. Completely dead."
Noah, sitting across from him and gnawing on a bone from his broth, spoke up: "Maybe they just changed their schedule? Or they're stationed on a different sector?"
Walter shook his head. "No. I walked down to the old watchpost myself. Desolate. There are hoofprints—fresh ones—but they all lead back toward the city. It’s like they were all recalled at once."
"Could Reinhart be having trouble?" Noah looked at Iron. "Like, maybe someone attacked him and he has no time for us? Or political nonsense at court. Maybe we have time to pack up and run?"
"Run where?" Iron scoffed. "Trudging through the forests with a wheelchair? We'd make it real far."
Besides, a thought flickered in his mind: "Why would we leave? It's still our home, whatever state it's in."
"We could build a makeshift litter," Noah muttered.
"And starve to death or get slaughtered by the first monster we cross," Walter cut him off. "If the patrols are gone, it doesn't mean they've forgotten about us."
"I think," Iron began slowly, "if they pulled back, it means they don't need to guard us anymore. Either they're certain we have nowhere to go, or..."
"Or we’ve already been written off," Walter finished for him.
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