The Fuomi became the only immediate believers when word spread of this particular project. Although they didn’t have manned balloons, they knew of a custom of one of the members of the Hanseatic League, to Fuomon’s east, in which people sent small prayer paper balloons skyward using candles for lift. Kivalian was gung-ho about the idea.
“Great Gods!” Kivalian exclaimed. “Of course! Why didn’t we think of this? One of these ‘balloons’ of Kolsko could let an army see the dispositions of an enemy miles away, even when the armies aren’t in line of sight of each other. It would be impossible to be surprised by an enemy. In fact, even at night they might be useful, if we could drop flares from a balloon instead of using ground-based rockets.”
“So,” said Yozef to the three Fuomi watching the first demonstration of a one-man hot-air balloon rising a hundred feet into the air, tethered by a rope, “the Narthani don’t have balloons?”
“No,” said Kivalian, “and I’ve never heard or read about them.”
“As useful as they can be, what would happen if you were to use them against the Narthani?” asked Yozef.
Rintala answered the question immediately. “Then the Narthani would know about them, and it would only be a matter of time before they had them too. Either they would figure out how to make balloons themselves or spies would find out how.”
“Which is always a problem when you introduce something new,” said Yozef. “It might give you an advantage the first time, but eventually the enemy would use it against you. The maximum utility might only be the first time you use it. After that, the enemy will adjust their tactics.”
“Then how do you see these balloons being useful against the Narthani?” asked Eina Saisannin.
“You know our basic strategy,” Yozef replied. “We hope to maneuver the Narthani into a situation where they have to attack prepared positions. The first time they saw a balloon is when they would deploy to attack. No matter how we prepare, we need every advantage. With balloons, it would limit their ability to surprise us and would allow us time to respond. For example, if they mass to attack a specific point in a defensive line, the balloons would alert us, and we might have time to concentrate more men at that point. In addition, although I don’t know enough about the Narthani psychol . . . er . . . superstitions and history, the balloons might appear to be magical—or demonic, depending on the individual seeing them for the first time. It might help sow uncertainty among the common Narthani soldiers.”
Rockets
Kivalian’s offhand comment about rocket flares prompted Yozef to later press the Fuomi on whether they knew of the flares’ composition. Kivalian didn’t know but volunteered to check with Saisannin and sent a query to their base camp in Mittack Province. Unfortunately, no one assigned to the mission knew details of flare construction.
Yozef felt disappointed but not deterred. He added three workers to a two-person crew working on rockets and, newly enthused, pulled from his memory the components needed to produce different-colored lights. They were already producing gunpowder using both sodium and potassium nitrate from murvor and bird guano. They only needed to refine the procedure to separate the two nitrates to allow flares of two colors: violet from potassium nitrate and yellow from sodium nitrate. For white light, they had a plentiful supply of calcium oxide left as a by-product from experiments with producing carbon dioxide for food preservation. Even though they had settled on a different procedure, Yozef had requested that the workers save calcium oxide, in case he found a use for it in lighting—which he now had.
Less successful was progress on rockets as weapons. The Fuomi had confirmed that the use of military rockets had been known for several centuries, but they weren’t dependable enough for regular use and were seldom decisive. Yozef had a small crew working on Congreve and Hale rockets, models developed by the British around 1800 and the mid-1800s, respectively. He thought that they would have functional models in another six months. Unfortunately, he didn’t think they had time to develop them, and even if successful, it would take many more months before they had enough rockets and men trained in their use. If the Fuomi estimates were correct, Yozef expected everything to come to a head within four to six months.
Although they wouldn’t have rockets against the Narthani, Yozef had assured the Fuomi that the rockets were feasible and near success. His description of how the clans would use massed rocket barrages against enemy troop formations and field fortifications excited Rintala and Kivalian, who tried, unsuccessfully, to visit Yozef’s rocket crew when he was in Caernford. Yozef intended the keep the details of rockets as a lure to entice more Fuomi help.
Bayonet
One more weapon that excited the Fuomi was the socket bayonet. Kivalian explained how the Fuomi had abandoned pike formations several years previously, and the Narthani had followed suit after a series of defeats at the hands of all-musket Fuomi formations. However, even without pikes, there was an occasional need for a similar weapon for close combat. The Fuomi introduced plug bayonets—twelve- to eighteen-inch narrow blades with a rod handle. When close combat was imminent and Fuomi soldiers had no time to continue reloading, they inserted the rod into the barrel, and the musket and rod became a pike substitute. The development confirmed Yozef’s estimate of Anyar’s technological development matching Earth’s circa 1700.
The plug bayonet had two major problems: it precluded reloading until the soldier removed the plug, and the plug had the awkward habit of sliding out of the barrel if it didn’t fit snugly enough. Problems or not, the Narthani had copied the Fuomi plug bayonet, and freed slaves and captured Narthani confirmed the troops on Caedellium were being issued plug bayonets as they rearmed their pike men with muskets.
Yozef’s innovation was to introduce the socket bayonet where the blade was attached to an offset ring that fit over the barrel and twisted into place, though Yozef couldn’t remember what prevented the bayonet from falling off. The work team of smithies took half a day to figure it out. Yozef’s other contribution was to remember that a triangular blade, and not a flat one, was considered the best shape—something about strength.
Yozef recalled one of the sessions with military gamesters where Ralph something-or-other said he’d read bayonets were not as important as movies might make them out and that bayonets had caused relatively low percentages of casualties compared to firearms. Nevertheless, the bayonet became important in close-quarters combat until firearms improved to where issues were decided before hand-to-hand fighting occurred—a notable exception being trench warfare of World War I, where both sides found that the confined space of trenches made rifles and bayonets less effective than sharpened entrenching tools. Ralph also had exposited how a triangular-shaped bayonet blade made wounds worse by inhibiting closure—a description that had made Joe Colsco queasy.
Once again, the Fuomi were excited, but unfortunately, there was no way to keep the socket bayonet secret. Kivalian needed only one glance to figure it out.
Shelved Projects
Two projects that Yozef shut down before the move from Caernford to Orosz City were percussion caps and gun cotton—the latter more technically named nitrocellulose. Both innovations were in the category of being doable with existing technology but impractical because of Caedellium’s limited industrial base and lack of time. Abandoning percussion caps particularly galled Yozef, because his knowledge of chemistry had let them produce the essential component, mercury fulminate, a substance highly sensitive to shock that could be used in place of flint to ignite gunpowder. They produced the compound by dissolving mercury in nitric acid and adding ethanol to generate mercury fulminate crystals. All three ingredients were available. The clans already used mercury when Yozef arrived on Caedellium, and nitric acid as well, although it had to be distillated to a more concentrated form than locally available. The third ingredient, pure ethanol, was introduced by Yozef using distillation.
Gun cotton remained a trickier proposition. In principle, production was simple: s
oak cotton in a mixture of sulfuric and nitric acids, wash the cotton extensively to remove any trace of the acids, then dry it. By adjusting acid concentrations, acid ratios, and reaction temperature, they could adjust the amount of nitrification of the cellulose fibers. Although it produced many times the explosive effect of gunpowder, it was also more sensitive to accidental ignition, and the exact procedure for its production needed more time to work out than Yozef believed was available.
Time, Yozef thought as he literally closed the books on the two projects. Just as Napoleon is quoted as saying, “Ask me for anything but time.” If we can just get through these next months, maybe I can help the islanders get to a point where no outside force of any kind can threaten Caedellium again.
A project already closed had been housed in a shop now with locked doors. The project had been started and stopped several times as he agonized over its objectives. Only when he concluded that the technology to produce poison gas didn’t exist on Caedellium did he lock the doors, in a gesture to ease his guilt over even considering phosgene, mustard, and chlorine gases. Internal arguments that such weapons were no worse than napalm didn’t work. Most World War I gas-related deaths were caused by phosgene, a gas produced by passing purified carbon dioxide and chlorine gases over a carbon catalyst. The victim slowly suffocated days later from irreversibly damaged lungs. Not as severe but also affecting the lungs was chlorine, which formed hydrochloric acid in the lungs. Mustard gas, while not as deadly as phosgene, had the most graphic effects, producing horrifying blisters on any exposed tissue.
When he had closed the doors and the books on this potential project, a palpable sense of relief had washed over him.
Going and Staying
“Sorry I couldn’t make it to an evening at the Snarling Graeko Two,” said Yozef to Filtin Fuller as they finished going over Filtin’s new duties as overseer of all of Yozef’s projects and production remaining in Caernford. “I know you’d rather stay closer to the shops, but I need someone I trust to solve problems that arise.”
Fuller shook his head, then laughed. “I feel tired already from the paperwork you must have been doing, but I’ll do my best. I appreciate your trust, although I confess I wish you had someone you trusted more.”
“Serves you right for being so competent.”
“Well, see if you can gather some new stories in the Orosz City pubs,” said Fuller. “I’ll expect to hear them at the next pub evening.”
“You’re too good an audience, Filtin. I’d swear you’d laugh as hard at even terrible stories and jokes.”
The irrepressibly cheerful islander slapped Yozef on the shoulder with his left hand and held out the other for a handclasp.
Yozef’s last stop the day before leaving Caernford for Orosz City was the building that housed the Bank of Abersford headquarters. Every coin owned by Yozef, Culich, and most prominent Keelanders had been sucked into preparations for the Narthani. The coin-based economy had all but vanished with the total commitment of the clan’s people, as it had in most other clans. Nevertheless, Cadwulf Beynom and the bank’s staff attempted to maintain records of as many transactions as possible.
“I know we’ve talked about what might happen if the Narthani threat ends,” said Cadwulf. He had just shown Yozef the latest paper “spreadsheet,” projecting a return to coinage exchange versus the current “just do it” economy. “But I have no idea what will happen.”
“It’s no consolation,” said Yozef, “but if things go badly, neither of us will have to worry about it.”
“You’re right,” said Cadwulf. “It is no consolation. You’re supposed to be optimistic, Yozef. Don’t go around saying that to too many other people. Friends can say such things to each other, but I’m afraid everything has come to the point where the most good you can do is exude confidence.”
“I hope you’re wrong, and I can come up with one brilliant idea after another. However, since you are my chief financial adviser, I suggest you don’t place any long-odds bets that I’ll succeed.”
They laughed and shook hands. Yozef didn’t know when he’d see Cadwulf again.
Move to Orosz City
The move to Orosz City was softened for the Kolsko family, because the entire household was involved. In contrast, the Keelan family was split. Culich, as a member of the War Council, had to be in constant contact with the other council members and needed to be in the center of clan preparations. He accepted that Maera would make the move—both as a key member of the MIU and now as part of the Kolsko family. However, he insisted that his wife, Breda, and two other daughters, Ceinwyn and Mared, remain in Caernford to prepare for taking refuge in the clan’s Dillagon Mountain redoubt when the new Narthani army moved against the clans. He countered protestations by his wife and daughters by the honest and blunt argument that if the worst happened, the Keelan family would not all be in the same place. If one set of family members perished, there would be survivors to live on and remember those who died.
The one exception to Culich’s decision was Ceinwyn. She had physically recovered from the head wound she’d received during the attack at Yozef and Maera’s house, and she had joined a women’s auxiliary unit being formed in Caernford. Culich and Breda had originally acceded to her training as a way to refocus her attention from her scar and into something outside of herself. Privately, they expected that Ceinwyn would tire of the training—given her previous lack of focus for anything outside herself. To their surprise, she became a dedicated convert to women preparing to fight and was soon a squad leader. The woman commander of a Caernford women’s platoon asked Ceinwyn to come with her to Orosz City and help organize similar units there. Ceinwyn had agreed and informed her father of her intention. Breda’s protests came to nothing when Culich grudgingly agreed with Ceinwyn’s arguments that a hetman’s daughter, once part of a women’s unit, couldn’t be seen to give it up for a safer circumstance. And besides, Ceinwyn asserted, she was twenty years old (eighteen Earth years) and considered independent of her family, even if her father was a hetman.
Yozef and Culich left for Orosz City. A sixday later, Ceinwyn and the entire Kolsko household set off in a caravan of wagons, carriages, and horsemen. The last departure was wrenching for the Keelan women. Mared tearfully told her sisters she would look after their mother, and they should do the same for their father and Yozef. Maera and Ceinwyn, riding together in a carriage, looked back one last time as they left Keelan Manor and saw Breda clutching Mared, the youngest daughter’s face buried against her mother’s bosom.
CHAPTER 33: OROSZ CITY AGAIN
When Yozef passed through Orosz City’s main gate, the first thing to catch his eye was a six- by eight-foot flag flying from the second floor of a building a hundred feet from the gate. He found it hard to miss the bright orange background against the gray stone walls. When he got to within thirty feet, he stopped and stared. In the center of the flag stood a beast that at first looked like a bulky gnu antelope with massive shoulders and the head of a large warthog. The animal was posed in profile, with the head turned to face out. Although it resembled a nightmare creature, Yozef felt stunned that he recognized it.
When he first saw a balmoth, the large herbivore that grazed on trees covering the slopes of northern Keelan and southern Hewell provinces, he’d decided it must be an example of parallel evolution, because it was strikingly similar to Paracertheriums of Earth’s Miocene epoch about twenty-three million years ago. Since he assumed most Earth plant and animal species had been transplanted to Anyar roughly five thousand years previously, he kept an eye out for any other example of either parallel evolution or a transplantation that had occurred far earlier. He hadn’t seen another example. Until now.
“Once could be coincidental,” he said aloud in English. “Two is pushing happenstance. That is an Entelodont, or I’m the reincarnation of Elvis.”
Yozef knew the fearsome-looking creature well from a book on prehistoric mammals he had all but memorized when growing through th
e phase of fascination with extinct animals. During the Miocene, the same epoch as the Paracertheriums, the largest Entelodonts stood seven feet at the shoulder, weighed upward of half a ton, were fast, and were thought to be an apex predator that also scavenged. The superficial resemblance of the head to warthogs led to the nickname “hell-pig,” but Yozef remembered that later analyses placed the extinct line with hippos and cetaceans. With a long snout whose jaw housed a variety of nasty-looking teeth, bony protrusions from the lower jaw, and cloven hooves, an Entelodont was a horror.
“Why in the world would someone put that on a flag?” he wondered aloud.
He was still staring at the image when a voice got his attention.
“Yozef. I just got word that you’ve arrived. What do you think of Rhanjur Gaya’s embassy?”
He turned to find Denes Vegga standing next to him.
“Embassy?”
“Yes, our one and only Landoliner asshole insisted that because he was the only Munjorian on Caedellium and was part of his realm’s diplomatic corps, he should be treated like an ambassador. Hetman Orosz got tired of his complaints and arranged the upper floor of this building as the ‘official’ Kingdom of Munjor embassy. Naturally, that only made him strut around even more than before, especially after hanging that Munjor flag with the merstor on it.”
“A merstor? Is that what that nightmare creature is?”
“Yeah. Supposed to be incredibly vicious and always hungry. The Landoliners have tried to exterminate them for centuries, but they don’t die easy. But enough of Gaya, let me show you what’s changed since you were last here.”
Forged in Fire (Destiny's Crucible Book 4) Page 43
