GOLD is for the mistress - silver for the maid" -
Copper for the craftsman cunning at his trade! "
" Good! " said the Baron, sitting in his hall,
But Iron - Cold Iron - is master of them all."
So he made rebellion 'gainst the King his liege,
Camped before his citadel and summoned it to siege.
" Nay! " said the cannoneer on the castle wall,
" But Iron - Cold Iron - shall be master of you all! "
Neustadt, Naggaroth
Push the latch, open the cover. Lay down the belt, making sure it catches the pawl. Pull the belt one further, do not pull too hard. Close the cover, not too gently. Lift the belt where it comes from the box and support on its way into the machine gun.
The source of the voice was behind Kuan Ti. It was the voice of a supervisor, loud, clear, and to be obeyed.
"Not so bad, you can do better. Again."
Push the latch, open the cover. Lay down the belt, making sure it catches the pawl. Pull the belt one further, do not pull too hard. Close the cover, not too gently. Lift the belt where it comes from the box and support on its way into the machine gun.
The voice sounded less annoyed now.
"Faster"
Push the latch, open the cover. Lay down the belt, making sure it catches the pawl. Pull the belt one further, do not pull too hard. Close the cover, not too gently. Lift the belt where it comes from the box and support on its way into the machine gun.
This time there was a slight praise.
"Good enough, we will do this till you can do it in your sleep. Now for some stoppage drills."
Kuan Ti had always been good with her hands, and loading a machine gun was just one more task for her hands to learn. All the hours she had spent making brushes or cartridge cases had given her an eye-hand-coordination that was nearly superhuman. At the same time working at things too close to her had given her myopia. Kuan Ti would never fire a machine gun herself, but she would be a loader and assistant. She would do her very best to become good at that. She would have to defend her life soon enough; she would do her part for her comrades and herself. She would fight for the Patron, who had given her a life, hope, and a purpose. Less than 500 meters from her were her children, rolling bandages for what lay ahead. She would die for them.
When she finally got up, she saw the ground before the city. There had been bunkers and wire before, but now Neustadt's citizens improved them with a vengeance. They dug trenches, they strung wire, and some were digging before all of that. Whatever they did, they did it very carefully. Kuan Ti had no time to dwell on that, the remaining stocks of raw materials in Neustadt would not turn themselves into ammunition by themselves.
Close to Lothern, Ulthuan
Finubar the Seafarer, Phoenix King of all true Elves, a fine example of what Asur should look like and aspire to be was facing a bunch of snakes. They went this way and that, climbed over each other in places and he had been warned not to touch any of them. They were brass color which could be seen well against a dark green background. Many terminated in the red handles of valves, others were topped by instruments where the finest of indicators moved across a white background.
Two others shared the place with Finubar and he outshone both. One was an Asur with less than lovely features and a mangled ear, the other a stocky human in his waning years. As nobody else was in the locomotive's cab he could show his confusion.
"Does anything of this make sense to you cousin?"
"It is actually quite logically arranged when you understand the system Finubar. These are the water spigots, this regulates the water feed to the boiler, and this is the valve for the heating…."
"My oh my Teclis, you have been studying these things, haven't you?"
"You have asked me to bring steam engines to Ulthuan, in such a way that they would entice the youth towards mundane technology and improve our transport beyond what our canals can do. Turned out to be quite an interesting mission and the first ones are a quite a success, even if I say so myself. Seems like you have to know these machines and respect them if you want to use them to their fullest, with or without magic, so I studied them under Herr Müller here. This is the current end result of that project."
"Yes, I have seen these before, so what makes this one so special."
"Maybe Herr Müller can tell you more about this one cousin."
Teclis' German was quite passable by now, a lot better than Kurt Müller's Sprenthiel. Finubar did not try, showing a hint of an accent would not do. That even the Phoenix King had to learn this barbarian language said a lot about Ulthuan's place in this new world. He would not lose face by speaking it imperfectly.
"Sir Kurt, would you be so kind to tell us a bit about the Bronze Dragon."
"Certainly Meister Teclis. This is the first steam locomotive designed and built for your way of generating steam from the start. The ones you may already be familiar with are modifications of existing designs. This one had no ash pan from the start and the smoke box is much shorter. The cab is redesigned as we do not have to move coal through it and there is no conventional fire door. Instead we have this warded..thing to contain the fire elemental. The fire box is shaped very differently as there is no need for a coal bed.
The boiler has far more surface area than a more conventional unit and we got away with a single unpowered axle at this end. We have made an aerodynamic fairing designed to the images of your majesty's artists.
This is a very fast and very clean machine, it will pull passenger trains with ease."
"So, this is a good locomotive?"
"It is an example of all what the Meiningen Locomotive works know, made from very modern materials. It avoids a lot of the drawbacks of more mundane steam locomotives by being powered by a fire elemental. An engine to fit the Phoenix King."
"As far as you know Kurt Müller."
"I know more than nearly anybody on this planet about steam locomotives your highness. I do not know much about the Asur and your ways."
"That you do Sir Kurt, that you do. Well then, time awaits neither man nor Asur, I believe we have to take this one from the station."
"Very well highness. Meister Teclis, I believe you would like to do the honours."
"I do indeed Sir Kurt, thank you."
And while Kurt Müller, instructor of locomotive engineers this world over contacted the switchyard Teclis, High Loremaster of Hoeth and Warden of the White Tower spoke words of power and opened valves. The Fire Elemental, a furious beast energized by the Vortex of Magic close by was roused past its normal fury and burned.
Some of that heat was conducted through the fire box's walls, the rest was pulled through numerous tubes that ran the boiler's length. Nearly all of it was absorbed by the water that surrounded them. There it accelerated the water molecules' dance to the point where they changed phase. Bubbles of steam formed in the water, rose to the top and accumulated in two domes. The pressure in there, already high, rose markedly. There was a way out for all of this pressure and those paths terminated in three cylinders where all that pressure worked against the pistons.
With all of the grace and drama that only a steam locomotive could display so vividly) the great engine gathered speed and pulled from the station. Conspicuously absent was the smoke and soot normally emitted by such engines. The assembled Asur cheered their passing monarch with all the restrained enthusiasm their race felt acceptable. Finubar the Seafarer mused how much of these acclamations were due to him and much they were enhanced by the steam engine.
The train left Lothern at the pace of a running man before Teclis pulled a lever down, far down in fact. More steam was pushed against the pistons and the train gathered ever increasing speed.
The Phoenix King managed to make himself heard above the roar of the engine.
"I think I can get used to that and you have fulfilled your task well cousin. This will rouse the hearts of the youth, so they might study all things mechanical, mundane as they might be."
"majesty is most gracious, at the moment."
A royal eyebrow rose imperceptibly.
"It rouses the interest of the youth all right cousin. But nearly all who flock to the new schools, the greatest part of those who seek apprenticeships in the workshops are commoners and the children of commoners. We see next to no nobles there."
"That was to be expected. This is lots of hands-on work and while this looks fine what noble would want to learn about metal-shaping and boilers with no fireboxes?"
"The kind of Asur that will shape our future my king."
"Oh my…."
17.000 meters AGL, close to Kar Karond
The drone had the same wingspan as an A380 and weighted about the same as a Piper Cub. Its wings and fuselage seemed to be as solid as gossamer and bent in ways that seemed to promise destruction at any second. It had been airborne for more than a month and would probably not land for another one. It was powered by the solar panels worked into the wings, by gigacaps that used some of the energy captured at night and simply gliding during the night until the rising sun allowed it to soar up again. The plane and its very few sisters were some of the Reiksbund's most precious intelligence assets. While the big telescopes and the synthetic aperture radar on Kopernikus and unmanned satellites were useful in detecting larger structures and movements they were lacking when it came to fine detail. One could make the optics as large as one cared to, the wavelengths of visible light put a hard limit on the possible resolution. So, when the eyes in space showed something they could not identify one of the huge drones was sent. It was far cheaper and less dangerous than sending a Condor plane, less obtrusive as well.
Besides the gigacaps the cameras were the heaviest things on board the drone. The largest was a triumph of optical engineering. Its folded optics gave it a focal length of 20 meters, at the current 17 kilometer altitude it could read the headlines of a newspaper if the angle was right. Currently it was aimed at a camp that had sprung up in one of Kar Karond's old slave pens. Something seemed fishy about it when viewed from orbit and so the drone flew around the site several times during a day before making of for the frontlines. The analysts had a hard time discerning what they were looking at, the camp seemed to hold a lot of Druchii. The why eluded the analysts until one of them saw the obvious. The report reached Ottokar Proktor who checked the pictures himself to make sure the report had it right. When he saw it for himself, even he blinked. He needed five minutes to clear his head and then laid plans how to best use this.
Schimmelreiter Estate, 30 Kilometers from Nagenhof
The table and the benches around it had been coarse, once. These days they were worn smooth by several generations of backsides and arms, hallowed by long use. A fire had been roused from its nighttime slumber and filled the room with some warmth and a bit of smoke. Two men sat at the table, demolishing a hearty breakfast made of bread, cheese, cold cuts and a bit of light beer. The two men looked like the older and the younger version of the same person. Red hair that started to go grey, a powerful built and both the beginnings and the end state of a paunch were visible. The older man was clad in the traditional clothes of the Imperial gentry, the younger man sported jeans and a plaid flannel shirt.
Finishing a deep pull from the tankard the older one took another breath before starting off with something that had obviously bothered him for a while.
"You know there is always a place for you here Klaus?"
"Yes father and thank you for saying so. Still, I am on a different path now."
"Pah, my son working in a stinking factory day and night, doing the same things again and again. You are a slave to the clock and the bell, and even the most stupid Greenskin could perform the same tasks you are paid for. Here you would be your own man, master of your own tasks. And you would work with horses. The Schimmelreiters have raised the finest plow horses since Ludvik."
"Yes father, we did, and exactly there is the problem."
"How can you say so?"
"Father you and I both know that the railroad is here now. This is why I can visit you during the holidays and be back in Nuln in time."
"Yes, so?"
"So, the farmers can now buy tractors as fuel can be brought here on the cheap."
The older Schimmelreiter looked as if he had bitten into something rotten
"Pah, they need fuel, they need spare parts, they need maintenance, they stink, and if you make a mistake they turn over and kill you. Won`t make a new one when you leave two of them in the field I reckon."
Kurt's shoulders sagged and he did his best to keep exasperation from his voice.
"They do all that, but they pull at least as well as six horses at a time, need no food in winter and will power a thresher, a power-saw, a reaper, and baler or a pump. And we both know that a good plow horse needs lots of oats and lots of care all year round. The farmers will buy them because they see the Weekly Review in the cinema and see them in the Raiffeisen communities. They need them to keep up."
"Not all will be that stupid."
"No, they won`t, but I think there will be more takers after the first farmers bought them."
"Horses are special."
"Yes, they are. Yet as a way to earn money they are on the way out."
"How can you say so. Even if people would no longer need plow horses, they would still need…"
"What would they need father? I do remember you dreamt of raising chargers for the Knightly Orders. Well guess what, most of them are for show now or ride an APC somewhere in Troll Country.
For getting around? Yes, there is still a market for that, for now, but it is shrinking between bikes and cheap cars. And the Germans want horses with some elven sperm in their ancestry.
Before you say otherwise: No, I love horses. But you need to change the way this estate earns money."
"Become a dirt-grubber? Ride a tractor myself?"
"Or raise cattle. People eat more meat these days and the railroad means we can ship it everywhere."
"Raising cattle? On this farm? Never."
"See, and that is why I work in a factory these days. If you do not change, this estate will be bankrupt before too long."
"Oh, go back to assemble German toys will ya."
"No longer father, no longer. I finally qualified and became a licensed forklift operator."
There is a joke in there which only older Germans will get. There is a film, purporting to be an OSHA training video, that is actually a bit of bloody comedy which is called "Gabelstaplerfahrer Klaus" (Forklift Operator Klaus)
Very NSFW, it is on youtube
