Konos's boots crunched across the frost-dusted yard as the dawn bell rang. Steam rolled off the mobile forges, staining the cold air with the smell of slag and lye. Ash Company smiths had worked through the night, but the grim line on Konos's face said the news was no victory.
Inside the half-tent, half-warehouse that served as headquarters, Fornos waited beside a low coal brazier. A ledger, three codex plates, and a single, heavy cannon-condenser lay on the table. When Konos entered, he saluted with two fingers to the brow, then dropped the salute half-way—as if even ceremony felt wasteful amid their shortage of hours.
"Report," Fornos said.
Konos set a metal tube on the plank floor; the thud echoed emptily. "Two functional mana-cannon prototypes," he said, voice a sand-paper growl. "No more. We burned through our last gold-lined phase-coils yesterday, and the condenser batch from Mitis exploded during anneal. Spare cores will not be ready before thaw."
Silence hung between them. Outside, a hammer struck iron—clang, hiss, clang—unaware of the verdict being spoken.
Fornos exhaled. "Two pieces will not stop a City-class Relict."
"No, Commander. They'll barely tickle it." Konos folded his arms, soot spattered across the leather sleeves. "We rush and we die. Simple."
Fornos closed the ledger. "Then we retool. Powder guns."
Konos's eyebrow twitched. "Salvo cannons?"
"Compressed-powder, low-mana barrel inserts. Less penetration, more volume. We trade perfection for reliability." Fornos tapped the condenser. "Mana cores become ignition primers, nothing more."
Konos thought for three breaths, then nodded once. "Timeline?"
"Ninety days. Spring equinox." Fornos's tone was flint. "You have three sprints: barrel forging, feed-rack machining, codex-link calibration. Thirty days each. Miss one and the hunt delays to midsummer—at which point every rival and their grandmother will be sniffing the Viscus Fault."
Konos's smile showed a chipped tooth. "Understood. We'll drown the beast in iron if we can't lance it with light."
Day 1–30: Barrel Forging
The workshops became furnaces of ceaseless labor. Smiths hammered salt-steel staves into rifled tubes wider than a man's thigh. Apprentice codex-carvers etched spiral binding runes along the interior—a poor substitute for true mana acceleration, but enough to stabilize shell flight.
Misfires were inevitable. On the twelfth night a half-fused barrel burst, sending shrapnel across the yard. Two handlers went down screaming, forearm and shoulder shredded. Medicae golems hauled them away while Konos barked for the line to keep striking. Fear would not stop the deadline.
Fornos toured the yard at dawn, coat dusted white from iron filings. He paused beside the blood-stained gravel where the accident had occurred. A foreman tried to explain; Fornos only asked one question—"Will it happen again?"—and moved on when the answer came certain as a hammer blow: "No, Commander."
Twenty-one days in, the first complete tube passed hydrostatic test with no leaks. The men cheered, but Konos cut it short. "One gun is a trophy," he barked. "We need ten."
Day 31–60: Feed-Rack Machining
The second sprint turned the artillery yard into a maze of gear-lathes and chain conveyors. Salt-steel shell casings arrived by the cartload, glowing straw yellow; machinists bored them, pressed copper driving bands, then slid them into coded racks designed to drop eight rounds per firing cycle.
Salvo cannons, unlike mana artillery, were hungry beasts. Each needed sixty rounds to sustain a minute-long barrage—the window Fornos calculated as maximum survivability against a Relict's thrashing limbs. Logistics crews practiced stacking boxes two meters high, gloves smoking in the cold as they raced to beat Konos's stopwatch.
It was during a dusk drill that the second accident struck: a primer jar slipped, detonating in a blossom of white fire. No deaths, but five men blinded for hours. Konos ordered every handler to memorize the codex phrase "glass down"—a universal halt if powder flames sparked. Production slowed for two days while blast shields were erected.
Fornos absorbed the cost without comment; safety measures were cheaper than dead specialists.
Day 61–90: Codex-Link Calibration
The final sprint was the quietest yet most perilous. Mana crystals the size of thumbnails were embedded into each cannon's breech, linked to master codices that allowed remote trigger sequences. If the timing slipped by more than half a breath, breeches would slam shut mid-load, shearing arms and ruining barrels.
Konos assembled a "shadow crew" of veteran sigilists—old smugglers, dismissed war-mages, even a disgraced academy prodigy—to weave the synchronization spells. They worked in a candle-lit bunker beneath three meters of earth, safe from stray powder sparks. Fornos visited only once, leaving a single directive scrawled on parchment: "Cycle twenty rounds; no seizure."
On the eighty-ninth night, all ten salvo cannons were hauled to the gravel pits east of the main camp. Snow fell in slow spirals as handlers loaded the first rack. Konos raised a red lantern—the signal to commence.
THOOM-THOOM-THOOM-THOOM…
The ground shook as shell after shell streaked into the target bluff. Twenty bursts, then silence. Steam coiled from the red-hot barrels; gears clicked into neutral. No jams. No ruptures. The bluff collapsed in a roar of pulverised limestone.
Konos turned to Fornos, who stood motionless, snow melting on his shoulders.
"Twenty cycles," Konos said. "No seizure."
Fornos allowed himself a single satisfied nod. "Then the expedition proceeds."
Standing Order
At dawn Fornos gathered the entire Ash Company beneath the half-finished cannon gantries. Golems lined the perimeter, frost clinging to their joint plates like pale scars.
"Three months ago," Fornos began, his voice carrying across the yard, "these machines did not exist. You forged them out of iron, salt, and sleepless nights. Some bled. Two will bear powder burns the rest of their lives. But we stand here ready."
He gestured to the ten cannons behind him, barrels still steaming. "You have met the standard: twenty rounds, no seizure. Anything less, and we postpone. Anything less, and we die."
Helmets dipped in silent acknowledgment.
"Tomorrow we rest," he concluded. "The day after, we plan routes. Spring will not wait. And neither will the Behemoth."
A cold wind swept through the yard, carrying the scent of oil and ambition. Konos watched Fornos descend the dais, steps measured, eyes already distant—thinking not of celebrations but of caravan weights, supply caches, time-on-target graphs.
Expedition postponed until every cannon cycled without failure.
That line was no longer an ultimatum.
It was a promise fulfilled—and a gauntlet thrown at the feet of a creature older than kingdoms.