—It was too easy—Tristan said as he walked through the enemy camp. He, Ellaria, and Victoria had been tasked with securing the valuable belongings and checking that there were no hiding places among the tents. Edmund still did not trust the soldiers of Graymont enough to allow them to take charge of the goods they found, so he had made it clear that this task belonged exclusively to the adventurers.
—There is a reason Edmund chose this place as the first target. These people were simple peasants who wanted to fill their pockets—Victoria replied as she recovered what appeared to be a gold necklace from one of the tents.
Tristan looked at the prisoners who were being gathered near the entrance of the camp. Some had minor injuries, while others still seemed unable to understand how they had been defeated so easily.
—If they improve enough over these two weeks, I don't think it's crazy to think that we could succeed in The Vaults.
Victoria raised her gaze.
—Don't ruin our chances with bad omens.
Tristan let out a sigh.—I still find it incredible that you believe in bad omens, but you don't believe in the Lady.
—Come on, you know it's not that I don't believe in the Lady. I just think there is something strange.
Tristan smiled.—You're lucky I'm not a fanatic. Any other Questing Knight would have slit your throat for saying something like that.
—Any other Questing Knight wouldn't stand the slightest chance against me.
—Come on, you can argue later—Ellaria interrupted as she approached with a small bag of coins.—We must return with the prisoners before nightfall.
Jhon watched them from a few meters away as they finished searching the camp. He couldn't help but overhear part of the conversation, although his attention was mainly focused on his men.
The thirty soldiers had finished gathering in the center of the camp. Some were helping collect the weapons abandoned by the bandits, while others were guarding the prisoners. Jhon walked among them, observing their faces and checking that none of them had any problems.
Although the bandits had not gotten close enough and many of them had already seen their fair share of blood, for some of them it was the first time they had taken a human life.
Jhon stopped in front of one of the ten riflemen who wouldn't stop trembling, looking somewhat bewildered at his hands.
—How many shots did you fire?
—I think six, commander.
—Did you miss any?
The soldier hesitated.—Two.
—Every shot you fired was by my orders; you were nothing more than a puppet guided by my orders, just as every single one of you is when we are on a battlefield. Jhon struck the soldier's shoulder firmly.—So if you take a life because of my orders, it is my achievement as well as my sin, understood?
The soldier straightened his back.—Yes, commander.
Jhon continued walking.
He didn't want to congratulate them too soon. The battle had been simple precisely because they had chosen the right target and managed to surprise them. He didn't know how they would react when they faced a prepared enemy, a truly trained force, or creatures that felt no fear upon hearing the shots.
—Those were good words—Aldren said as he approached. —Brian is a strong boy; he'll be able to get over it in a few hours.
Jhon looked at the knight who had approached his side.—What do you think about what happened?
—Besides the fact that our lord is impressive, and I'll have to train my aim as soon as I can so I can have one of those—Aldren shrugged.—Not much else.
—The lord said that a commander doesn't need weapons, because now there will no longer be charges to lead.—The ten riflemen did most of the damage.
—So they're not the only ones being trained right now. He's also testing us to see if we'll be capable of leading his new army?
Mathis approached while cleaning the blood from his sword, intrigued by the conversation. Not everyone had died from the gunshots, and they weren't going to waste medical supplies on bandits, so someone had to spare them their suffering.
—I don't know if I'll be capable of handling more than ten men. I barely learned the names of some of them—Mathis said.
Jhon looked at the rifles again. Ten men maintained a constant rain of gunfire while the other twenty protected them, but if all of them had had weapons in their hands, Jhon could have imagined how easy it would be to maintain a line of fire every second.
—We have to leave—he finally said when he noticed that the adventurers seemed to have finished collecting everything of value.—I don't want nightfall to catch us on the road.
The men began to organize themselves.
The prisoners were tied together in pairs and placed in the center of the column. The captured weapons were loaded onto the horses and carts they had looted from the camp and from the merchants, while the more valuable objects were handed over to Ellaria, Victoria, and Tristan to be recorded and secured.
In the backyard of Graymont's main mansion, with some of Brogur and Edmund's ideas, they managed to produce a harder steel. The process was simple thanks to the high-temperature flame of the blast furnaces, which easily exceeded 1500 degrees and was enough to melt iron. Without needing to control the temperature and using the conventional method of steel production, it was easy and quick to manufacture a small quantity of steel bars: rapidly stirring iron rods with molten iron. The excess carbon and other impurities in the pig iron oxidized when they came into contact with the air. By repeating this process several times before allowing the molten iron to cool, high-quality steel could be obtained.
The problem lay with the steam engine.
The noise and vibration generated by his prototype steam engine were impressive; even with the drill stabilized, it was impossible to complete a barrel. For heavy work or simple tasks, this degree of shaking posed no problem, but processing a gun barrel was clearly impossible.
If he wanted to improve the steam engine, he would have to create a centrifugal governor to control its power and then reduce the vibrations by adjusting the drill's rotational speed through a system of gears. He also needed a simple gear for the lathe. With all this in mind, Edmund simply couldn't figure out how to achieve it while preparing for the expedition to The Vaults.
In the end, he had no choice but to resort to the traditional method and let a blacksmith drive the drill into the barrel. But the plan to mass-produce firearms was impossible at that moment due to the lack of skilled blacksmiths capable of working with steel.
The only good news was that there was no need to worry about the quality of the barrels. Brogur only had to make a crude tube, and then Edmund could make the final joining; his work was impeccable and so good that it practically eliminated the risk of a barrel exploding.
So Edmund was fortunate enough to increase the number of weapons he produced in just a few days.. His intention was to form an elite force of riflemen and pikemen to recreate the most unbeatable Spanish formation of its era, the tercio.
But now he could set aside the spears and line formations, and train his soldiers in guerrilla and trench warfare. Soon, no wall in the world would be able to withstand the dangers that were coming; that was why he would not waste time reinforcing the walls and would move combat toward another approach.
I'll be posting three chapters a day there, unlike here.