Rome wasn’t built in a day.
Marcus wasn’t building Rome, he was building Ironhead Hold, but the principle was the same.
Bricks first, Colosseum later.
Before dawn, while Mannslieb was still faint, Marcus rolled out of his straw bed and kicked his door open.
He gathered the kiln-building crew from yesterday.
Today was firing day.
He personally went to the riverbank to select clay.
Not all mud is clay.
He needed sticky, grey river clay with no sand.
He led a dozen Goblins, had them dig it, carry it back in baskets, stomp it with feet to get air bubbles out, just like the old Chinese pottery villages.
He also had the lumberyard carve a dozen square wooden boxes – crude molds.
While Goblins stomped clay, he started shaping pottery himself, so they could learn by copying.
He put the clay on a flat, smooth rock he used as a workbench.
He slapped it, kneaded it, made a round cake for a base, then rolled clay into long snakes, coiled them layer by layer up, pinching the seams with wet fingers, smoothing inside and outside with water.
Classic coil pottery.
No wheel, but it works.
He made three pieces: one bowl, one pot, one jar.
Then he stopped and watched.
Goblins are brilliant mimics.
Once you make one thing, they figure out ten wrong ways to make it, and one of those wrong ways is actually better.
Soon, around him, Goblins were squatting on stones, all making pottery.
Lopsided, thick, wobbly, but real pottery.
Some big, some small, no two the same size.
For Greenskins, unique is best.
No Goblin wants the same thing as another Goblin.
He picked the best-made jar among them, made by a clever Goblin with only one ear, and told the others, “Make like this one!
One-Ear supervise!”
By noon, the lumberyard brought the wooden molds.
Marcus showed them how to make bricks: pack wet clay mixed with straw into the box, level it, flip the box over, tap it out.
Perfect square mud bricks, drying in rows in the sun.
By then, the morning’s pottery jars were leather-hard, dry enough to fire.
Now loading the kiln.
This is crucial.
Marcus carefully placed his three fine pieces in the center where heat is most even.
Then he taught Goblins: place jars upside down, not touching, so flame can wrap around them.
Even heating inside and out, otherwise they crack.
Two kilns were filled to the brim with pottery blanks.
The third kiln was filled with brick blanks.
He started the fires.
“Gork and Mork, let us get good batch.”
The kilns were well designed.
Fire pit in middle, ash vent below, grate above.
Flames roared up through the perforated grate, licking the pots.
He sealed the top opening with wet branches and fresh mud, leaving only a small spy hole.
Goblins with big fans made of hides and branches fanned the fire pits, Marcus shouting when to add wood.
They fanned and fed until evening, faces black with soot.
Marcus looked through the spy hole – inside, the pots glowed red-hot.
Almost done.
Too long and they would melt and slump.
He ordered no more wood.
Let the fire die naturally, cool overnight, open tomorrow morning.
Fulfilling day.
He dismissed the Goblins – “Come back at dawn!” – and went back to his hut.
He fell asleep thinking: pottery tomorrow, then charcoal, then iron.
Once he had iron, he could make a saw blade for the treadwheel, and the tribe would have real planks.
He slept like a dead Squig.
Dawn.
He was up before anyone, muttering, walking to the kilns.
After a night cooling, the kiln walls were still warm.
Good insulation.
A crowd of Goblins had already gathered, curious.
Marcus lifted the earthen lid off the first kiln and peered in.
Reddish-brown.
All of them.
The surfaces had vitrified slightly in the heat, melted just enough to be smooth, almost glazed, shining faintly in morning light.
True earthenware.
Not porcelain, but real pottery.
Water-tight.
The Goblins pulled them out, hooting with joy, banging them like drums.
Just then, the Dwarfs came down from the mine, leading a team of Goblins carrying ore.
They stopped dead when they saw Goblins carrying pottery jars.
Firebeard stared.
He had watched these Goblins dig holes and play in mud for days and thought they were making mud pies.
He never imagined pottery.
“Who taught you Dawi craft, Grobi?” he grunted, but he picked up a jar, turned it over.
Crude, thick, but fired through.
Not bad for Greenskins.
Marcus quickly grabbed him and, generous for an Orc, gave each Dwarf a pottery jar.
“For your beards!
To drink from!”
Then he whispered, “And…
green mushroom beer almost ready.
Two more days.”
Dwarfs love alcohol more than gold.
At the word beer, their eyes lit up.
But seeing Marcus’s green face, their natural Dwarf suspicion took over.
“What trick, Orc?
What you want now?”
Marcus had to be honest.
“Today I make charcoal and try smelt iron.
Need your help.
Once I have iron bloom, can you forge me saw blade for lumberyard?
If you work hard, beer every day.”
Firebeard was tempted.
Dwarfs love forging, and they hated seeing iron smelted badly.
But Dwarf pride wouldn’t let him agree instantly.
“We talk after you make iron, Orc.
If your iron is not pig iron full of slag, we talk.”
He left with the other Dwarfs, taking the jars.
The Dwarfs used coal to smelt iron.
They lived in mountain holds, masters of it.
They had already found a small open-pit coal seam near Marcus’s valley, black coal exposed.
But Marcus hadn’t mined it yet – no tools.
So plan: first make charcoal, use charcoal to forge iron tools, then use iron tools to mine coal efficiently.
Charcoal is easier than coal mining.
Charcoal making is simple, but needs patience.
“Listen!” Marcus told his Goblins.
“Charcoal is wood that is cooked without air!
Not burned to ash!”
He had them fill the third kiln – the one that had just fired bricks – completely full of dry fir wood, stacked tight, no gaps.
Then seal it with mud, leaving only a few small air holes at top and bottom.
Light the wood from the top air hole, upwind.
Smoke pours out, thick white at first as water boils off, then yellowish as wood gas burns.
When flame finally licks out the bottom air holes, meaning fire has reached the bottom, you seal ALL holes with mud.
Completely airtight.
Then you wait.
The wood smolders inside with no oxygen, not burning, just baking.
It turns to pure carbon.
When it cools naturally and you open it, it’s charcoal – light, black, burns twice as hot as wood.
He lit it.
The kiln smoked all afternoon, white to yellow to thin blue.
Goblins watched, coughing.
At dusk, flame showed at the bottom holes.
Marcus and Iron Egg quickly sealed them with wet mud.
“Now we wait.
Tomorrow morning we have charcoal.
Day after, we make iron.”
He looked at the two kilns of pottery, the kiln smoking for charcoal, the quarry where Dwarfs were hammering, the mushroom fields sprouting.
For a tribe that started with 26 Goblins a month ago, this was a miracle.