Five days.
Dornheim had finally crawled out of the mud. Literally. Ditches were dug, and drainage was laid. The water after the night's rain went past the walls, no longer turning the main street into a bog. The stone grit beneath the wheels of the chair no longer sank.
The hybrid houses stood in even rows. The roots drawn out by Elyria tightly locked the old stone and fresh wood together. Thin smoke rose from the chimneys—Walter had established a strict distribution of firewood.
The refugees integrated into the system. Marek turned out to be a sturdy man. Right now, he and two other people from the south were breaking the remnants of the burnt wall into gravel with sledgehammers. They worked hard, breathing hoarsely, but they did not panic.
The forest was silent. The scouts returned with nothing. Neither mutants nor patrols.
In the morning, Darwin even joked loudly about them building a bunker for protection against squirrels.
Iron sat on the wooden decking of the watchtower above the gates. Four meters above the ground. Count Wayland stood nearby. His posture was straight, his hands locked behind his back.
"They think the war is over," Wayland said evenly, looking at the square.
Iron checked the brake on the left wheel. Click. The mechanism was normal.
"Let them think so. A relaxed psyche yields fewer defects in production."
Wayland shifted his cold gaze to the black tree line in the distance.
"It's dangerous. You know it yourself."
Iron only turned his chair toward the ramp leading down.
"I'm heading to the workshop. I have an unresolved problem."
The workshop smelled of machine oil and burnt dust.
On the table was a lens system twisted with copper wire. A primitive microscope. Under it was a pinch of dust, the remains of the gadget belonging to the man named Z.
Iron stared into the eyepiece until his eyes stung. He wiped his face with his palm.
"The composition is light. But... the blueprint didn't add up. How did this tiny piece of garbage generate an ultrasonic wave of such power? Where was the emitter? Where was the cooling system?" Iron muttered to himself. "This thing should have melted in the first ten seconds, not worked for three days. Either physics worked differently here, or a key element was missing."
His head throbbed. Iron hadn't slept for more than two days. Construction, calculations, patrols, and now this dust. Gray specks swam before his eyes.
The door creaked quietly.
Noah stepped into the room.
He walked up to the table, looked at Iron, then at the pile of gray trash.
"You look like a corpse."
Iron blinked, trying to focus his vision.
"Don't bother me."
Noah calmly reached out and slid the lenses aside. Iron lurched to put them back in place, but his fingers weren't obeying well.
"His blueprint doesn't add up," Noah snorted. "Go get some sleep instead."
"I don't have time."
"The town won't fall apart in four hours," Noah cut him off. He stood up to block the light from the window for Iron. "And I don't need a commander who doesn't take care of his health. If we're attacked while you're drooling over blueprints, you'll be worth zero."
Iron silently turned his chair and rolled into the corner of the workshop, where a stiff mattress lay right on the floor.
"Wake me up in three hours," he tossed out, moving onto the cot.
"Whatever you say," Noah leaned against the wall, not taking his eyes off the empty door.
His sleep was heavy.
Iron opened his eyes. It was dark in the workshop, only a dim light from the corridor cut the space in half. A taste of burnt oil was in his mouth. A ringing was in his head.
[Warning]
12% of the magical reserve has been consumed for accelerated regeneration during the deep sleep phase.
He sat up, swinging his legs off the mattress.
Walter stood in the doorway. He looked grim, his armor strapped tight.
"Awake? The Count is waiting in the hall. He gathered everyone."
Iron silently moved into his chair. His hands worked precisely, out of habit. The wheels rustled across the decking.
The Main Hall
It was cold in the bunker's hall. Wayland stood by the fireplace, where the coals barely smoldered. Walter stood behind his right shoulder. Noah leaned against a column, examining his fingernails.
"In three days, I am leaving," Wayland said evenly. "I must check the condition of the lands. There is a suspicion that the energy flow from the Heart, which powered Dornheim, did not vanish after the explosion. It diverted."
The Count shifted his gaze to Iron.
"You, Iron, did an impressive job when you broke into my secret refuge. And you even stole my notebook."
Iron remained silent.
"But you were inattentive," Wayland waved his hand slightly. "Behind that wall where the tapestries with my family's crests hung, there is a hidden passage. It leads to the lower tier, to the accumulator. It is my personal 'spare heart'."
"You think it still works?" Iron asked.
"I think a colossal residual charge has accumulated there. And if it destabilizes, it will be very bad. I must be there."
"Three days," Wayland stepped closer to Iron. "The journey is long. Ordinary horses will drop dead in a day if ridden off-road. We need something... faster."
Iron looked at his hands, then at the blueprints left in the workshop. In his mind, the schematic of Z's dusty artifact and the heavy metal of his own developments flashed for a second.
"You want me to build a machine in three days?" he clarified dryly.
"Exactly. You are an engineer, Iron. Find a solution."
Wayland turned and left the hall.
Iron returned to the workshop. Noah was still propping up the wall, looking at the empty table. Z's dust lay right there, under the lenses.
"Hear that?" Noah asked without turning his head. "The Count wants a vertical-takeoff carriage. Or what are you planning to forge there?"
He began dumping heavy iron parts onto the floor.
"Darwin!" Iron shouted toward the forge that adjoined his bunker. "Drop your hinges. I need a frame. And four axles with reinforced bearings."
A minute later, a sleepy, soot-smeared apprentice appeared in the doorway. He wiped his hands on his apron, looking at the pile of junk at Iron's feet.
"Have you seen the time?" Darwin grunted, but interest already ignited in his eyes.
"We'll heat the metal. Listen to the task. We need a cart. But without horses. Drive to the rear axle. A lever transmission. And a suspension that won't shatter on the first boulder."
Darwin squatted, examining one of the axles.
"Without horses? Then who's going to pull it?"
"You'll find out soon."
Iron spread a clean sheet of parchment on the table. A pencil stub quickly darted across the paper.
It was a hybrid of a draisine and a mountain all-terrain vehicle. A low profile for stability. Wide wheels rimmed with strips of hardened steel and wrapped with Elyria's living roots for shock absorption.
"Look here," Iron jabbed a finger at the blueprint. "The central unit. The accumulator will stand here. That same 'black box' we dragged from the ruins of the town hall. I will reconfigure it for pulsed output."
"It'll blow," Darwin summarized briefly.
"It won't blow if you make a casing out of crucible steel with a layer of wet sand and lead. And Elyria will reinforce it with her veins. They will absorb excess heat."
Iron looked at Z's gray dust again. The blueprint in his head still didn't fully add up, but he grasped one principle. Vibration. He used a high frequency to scare off monsters. Iron could use a low frequency to drive pistons. Primitive? Yes. Effective? We'll see in three days.
Work kicked off an hour later.
In the forge, showers of sparks flew in all directions. Walter helped carry heavy blanks.
"Elyria!" Iron called out without turning around.
The spirit appeared nearby. She looked displeased.
"I need your roots. The most elastic and durable ones. We need to wrap these shafts. They must transfer rotation from the magic block to the axles. Steel chains will break under such a load, but your branches will stretch and compress."
Elyria narrowed her eyes, looking at the clanking mechanism.
"You want me to become a part of this ugly box?"
"Yes," Iron replied dryly.
By the middle of the first night, the frame was ready. A crude, angular skeleton of black metal.
If the Count is telling the truth and there is an accumulator there in his domain, it changes everything.
"Think it will make it?" Noah approached from behind, handing Iron a mug of cold water.
"It should. If Darwin didn't mess up the axles, and I don't mix up the polarity on the pulse unit."
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