The metal-bender led Tauga high up the fore-side of the mountain, facing the wind. She wondered how humans and rovaick could handle being in such conditions. Wouldn't all that awful head-fuzz soak? It did, yes, and the skin people had to be a very specific shade of warm in order to live. Hence their tendency to sweat constantly, and reek because of it. Maybe that explained why goblins ate so much, too, their bodies being so skinny.
Really, Tauga thought, it was a wonder they didn't die of hypothermia every time it rained, although, of course, some did...
"Shut up, Heartworm," she said aloud, and the distant worm filed away the details of human endothermy for a later date. The Grotling noticed, but didn't show it. After all, he, too, bore a Vosh.
"So. This is what you wanted to show me?"The Teknarotu nodded, kneeling down before the windswept edifice. She watched the hammer-chisel emblem bounce on the hilt of his mace as he moved. A different kind of Chipper.
"And it's a kind of bloomery.""It may be used so," he said in Grotto. Tauga had taken to speaking the Alefprian tongue by habit, such that she was always understood, whether by Tlaca, or Amestrian, or Itzamatul, or Grotling. It saved time.
"You have noticed the shape of the wind."Tauga nodded. Her tendrils flowed through the array of ceramic tubes leading into the sheltered smelting-furnace, angled at the forwards flank of the mountain such that the wind deflected by its bulk would stream directly into the pipes, into the long trench. She had to lean against it, such was its force.
"This will save the arms of the bellows-pumpers, when it's season." She crouched, looking down the holes.
"That is right," said the metal-bender,
"but there is a higher purpose."Tauga tilted her head at him, then looked back.
"The temperature. You could melt iron in this furnace, no problem. Maybe cast it like brass." She looked up to the top of the construction, frowned with her hands.
"There's something else, though. If you tried to bloom ore in this, then that would melt too. Nothing to stop it dripping right into the coke and turning into pig metal." He was testing her, she realised. She met his gaze. Her back eyes caught something else on the slope.
"What are those pots for? With the sand."The Grotling nodded. She was on to something.
"Your people have learned to work the solid metal. That is good. But you must learn to manipulate iron in its liquid state. This learning was passed down to us by our goddess Tesnald, through the words of the Wrought People, whom you call the Monks of Jaan.""...That sand will melt in the furnace. It doesn't mix with iron." Tauga folded her knuckles, one hand over the other, squatting before the tuyeres.
"You could put the metal, sand and charcoal all in the same bowl, and the sand would keep the iron free of coke and slag. It would sink to the bottom." This method was known, with copper, but had never been attempted with iron before.
"That's not all, is it?" Again the Grotling nodded.
"You hesitate, o Tauranga, to melt your iron, for you fear it will mix with the charge. That way lies brittleness. Yet you lament that what you produce is soft, like cheap bronze, and not as hard as our souls." He flourished his mace. Tauga nodded. It was a curt kind of nod; she did not like being reminded of her frustration.
"Both of these troubles are caused by the presence or lack of carbon. It is not so easy to add such stuff to the solid iron, or take it away. But once melted-""We can mix any iron." Tauga's gaze was locked on the long furnace, looking over the pipes and crucibles with new eyes.
"You could add pig metal to iron in its melting pot. If they mix smoothly, the carbon will... thin out from one to the other. Make something new. I guess-" she blinked, put her hand to her face.
"Carbide. Carbide! That's what Tesnald's weapons are, that's what the death-hammer's made of. Damn right!" Heartworm gave her that clue, and now she'd finally figured it out.
"It'll be harder than iron. But it should be less brittle than pig metal. That's perfect." If it could work with adamantium, it would work with iron.
Tauga stood up, called her ophanim.
"There's five weeks left of the monsoon. How much metal and coke do you need to get started? How many smiths?""I already have what I need," said the Chipper. Grotlings had an odd kind of modesty that came from never admitting they needed help.
"Steel yourself, o Tauranga. Your era of supremacy is coming.""Damn fucking right it is. I want fifteen straightswords. By the end of the season." No longer fearing the wind, she ran her hands over every bit of the blast furnace, checking its slag channels, its covers, its every crack.
"So long as we don't end up giving the metal a stupid fucking name this time."The Teknarotu watched as the ophanim pierced the cloud cover like dawn.
"Steel yourself," he repeated.
Vec,
Timemaster
