Chapter 32: Creation of New Age of Weapons
The Royal Armory, hidden deep in the palace's stone bowels, feels like a place of glorious invention. The air was filled with a sharp, acrid cocktail of coal smoke, hot metal, and the strange, biting scent of the volatile chemicals that were Royal Director Albert's domain.
Albert himself stood before a slate-blackboard covered in a frantic writing of chemical equations, his face pale and drawn in the flickering lantern light. He had not slept in two days. In one hand, he held a vial containing a clear, viscous liquid—an experimental antibiotic he was developing, a potential cure for the lung sickness that still plagued his daughter, Elspeth. It was a formula of life, born from his profound understanding of the body's delicate alchemy.
In his other hand, he held a small, crystalline sample of "Albert's Propellant No. 3." It was a substance of perfect, beautiful destruction. Its burn rate was consistent, its energy output was immense, and it was the key to the weapons his Master, the Grand Prince Alexius, had demanded. The same mind of saving his daughter was also creating a powder that would make orphans of thousands of other children. The duality of his work was a heavy weight on his soul.
His wife, Anya, found him there, bringing a small tray with bread and cheese. "You will work yourself to death, my love," she said softly, her hand resting on his tense shoulder.
"The Prince's work cannot wait," he murmured, his eyes still fixed on the board. "But sometimes, Anya… I look at this," he held up the vial of medicine, "and then at this," he gestured to the gunpowder formula, "and I wonder if I am a healer or a killer."
Anya gently took the vial from his hand and set it down. "You are a father," she said, her voice firm with a conviction he lacked. "And you are a loyal subject. The Grand Prince is building a shield to protect this kingdom, to protect families like ours. Your work is a part of that shield. A strong kingdom is one where Elspeth can grow up without fear of war or famine. Do not forget that."
He looked at her, at the simple, fierce love in her eyes, and felt his resolve harden. She was right. The path was grim, but the destination was safety. The destination was a future for their daughter.
In the main forge of the Armory, the heat was a physical blow. Here, Master Borgin Ironhand and his kin—a dozen master smiths he had summoned from his home mountain with a letter carried by one of Cilia's agents—were engaged in their own profound struggle. They were not simply hammering steel; they were taming it.
Borgin held up a newly forged rifle barrel, its surface a mesmerizing, watery pattern of folded metal. It was a work of art, a product of a unique dwarven technique that created a steel of unparalleled strength and resilience. It could contain the violent fury of Albert's new propellant without shattering.
"It is strong," one of his dwarven cousins grunted, wiping sweat from his brow with a leather-clad forearm. "Stronger than any steel we have ever made. But… there is no honor in it."
Borgin knew what he meant. A dwarven axe or hammer was an extension of the wielder's arm. It took immense strength and skill to use effectively. Its power was earned. This tube… it was different. It was a cold, impersonal instrument of death.
"Honor does not stop a charging knight when you are a farmer with a pitchfork," Borgin rumbled, his voice low. "Honor did not free me from a slaver's chain. The Grand Prince did. He has tasked us with building his shield. So we will build him the strongest shield ever made. Even if it feels… wrong in our hands."
He set the barrel down, his heart heavy with the conflict of a craftsman who respected his creation but feared its purpose.
That fear and awe was felt most keenly on the training grounds. A hundred men, the newly formed "First Royal Rifle Company," stood in rigid lines. Most were like Tomas, a young farmer from the south whose villages had been liberated from petty, tyrannical feudal lords. He had joined the Royal Army for a steady wage and a sense of purpose. He had not expected this.
The "Leo's Roar" Model 1 rifle felt heavy and alien in his hands. It was nothing like the simple spear he had trained with initially. His first time firing it had been terrifying. The recoil had slammed into his shoulder like a mule's kick, leaving a deep, purple bruise. The deafening roar had left his ears ringing for hours, and the acrid smoke had made him choke.
But under the relentless, profane, yet strangely encouraging instruction of a veteran Royal Guard sergeant, they learned. They learned the complex, seventeen-step dance of the reloading drill until they could do it in their sleep. They learned to stand shoulder-to-shoulder, to trust the man on their left and right to hold the line. They learned to ignore the terrifying noise and the punishing kick.
Today was their final test before the royal demonstration.
"LINE, MAKE READY!" the sergeant bellowed.
One hundred men moved as one.
"TAKE AIM!"
Tomas leveled the heavy rifle, sighting down the long barrel at the target—a steel breastplate, like the ones worn by the knights who used to terrorize his village, set up two hundred yards away.
"FIRE!"
He pulled the trigger along with ninety-nine other men. The world dissolved into a single, rolling crash of thunder and a wall of white smoke. He braced himself against the familiar, violent shove. When the smoke cleared, he saw the result. A ragged hole had been punched clean through the center of the steel plate.
A breathless silence fell over him. He, Tomas, a boy who had spent his life digging in the dirt, now wielded the power to kill the mightiest lord in the land from across a field. The feeling was not one of triumphant glee. It was a heavy, terrifying, and awesome realization. The world had irrevocably changed, and he was now holding the very tool that had changed it.
At the formal demonstration, the high command of Leo watched this new reality unfold. When the Royal Rifle Company completed their volley firing drill, shattering a line of armored targets, and when the prototype "Griffin" cannon blasted a ten-foot-thick stone wall into rubble from half a mile away, the reaction was not one of cheering, but of a deep, profound silence.
Lord Marshal Varrus, a man who had lived his entire life by the code of a knight, the charge, and the duel, looked at the pulverized stone wall with the weary eyes of a man seeing his era die. "This is not war," he murmured to Duke Thorne. "This is slaughter. The age of heroes is over."
Duke Thorne, the traditionalist, watched the disciplined riflemen and saw the final death of his world. A noble knight's power came from a lifetime of training, superior armor, and the deference of the common man. These weapons negated all three. This was not just a military tool; it was the ultimate instrument of social leveling, wielded by a king who had already proven he was not afraid to use it. The feudal order was now truly, undeniably, in the past.
Alexius saw their reactions, but his focus was on his own feelings. He held one of the new rifles. It was a marvel of Borgin's engineering and Albert's science. It was perfectly balanced, its mechanism clicking with satisfying precision. It was the key to his grand strategy, the tool that would allow his small Principality to stand against foes and, perhaps, even demons.
And he hated it.
He thought of Albert, a man of healing, forced to create powders of death. He thought of Borgin, a master craftsman, building tools that removed all craft from killing. He thought of Tomas, the farmer's son, now a wielder of impersonal thunder, his innocence replaced by a heavy, terrible power.
He, Alexius, the man who was once Michael Sano, had unleashed this upon his new world. It was a necessary evil, he told himself, the only path to survival against the apocalyptic threat he alone could see clearly. But the cost was immense. He was not just building a new kingdom; he was building a new kind of suffering, a new, more efficient age of death.
"Begin full production," he said to Varrus, his voice quiet, devoid of any triumph. "Retrofit the First Legion. Form the artillery batteries."
He had forged the sword to win the war. But standing there, amidst the lingering scent of gunpowder and the stunned silence of his commanders, he was burdened by the profound and terrible knowledge of the world that sword would inevitably create. (Continue.....)