The snow was falling harder now. It covered the courtyard in a thick white blanket, silencing the sound of footsteps.
But the silence was about to be broken.
Andar stood in the snow. Behind him stood five men.
They were not the strongest men in the keep. They were not the tallest. Some were actually quite short. But they were the ones who had listened to orders during the furnace construction without complaining.
Jory stood at the front. He looked nervous. In his hands he held the Type One Musket. It was cold to the touch and smelled of oil.
The other four men held wooden sticks carved to look like the musket. The real weapons were still being finished by Mott in the smithy, but training could not wait for steel.
"Listen to me," Andar said. His voice was calm but it carried a weight that made the men straighten their backs.
"In Westeros, they tell you that a warrior needs to be strong. They tell you he needs to swing a greatsword and cleave a man in half. They tell you that one knight is worth a hundred peasants."
Andar walked down the line, looking each man in the eye.
"They are wrong."
He stopped in front of a young boy named Tom. Tom was sixteen. He had never held a real sword in his life. He was a stable boy who shoveled manure.
"Tom," Andar asked. "If the Mountain That Rides charged at you, what would you do?"
Tom swallowed hard. "I... I would run My Lord. Or I would die."
"Correct," Andar nodded. "Because he has armor that costs more than your life. He has a horse bred for war. He has trained since he was six years old."
Andar turned back to the group.
"But what if I told you that you could kill him before he even lifted his sword?"
The men exchanged doubtful glances. Kill the Mountain? It was a fantasy. A joke.
Andar opened the System panel in his mind.
[Item: Skill Book Basic Military Drilling]
[Effect: Increases training speed of gunpowder units by 300% for 48 hours.]
[Activate?]
Yes.
A strange sensation washed over Andar. Knowledge flooded his mind. It was not just knowledge of how to shoot. It was knowledge of psychology. Knowledge of rhythm. Knowledge of how to break a human being down and build him back up into a machine.
"Forget everything you know about fighting," Andar barked. "From this moment you are not warriors. You are not heroes. You are parts of a machine. You do not think. You do not hesitate. You listen to my voice and my voice alone."
He raised his hand.
"Position One! Ground arms!"
The men looked confused.
"Do it!" Andar shouted. "Butt of the weapon on the ground! Barrel up! Right side of your body!"
They scrambled to obey. It was messy. It was slow.
"Too slow!" Andar yelled. "Again! Position One!"
For the next four hours the courtyard of Deepwood Keep became a hell of repetition.
"Position Two! Prime!"
"Position Three! Cast about!"
"Position Four! Load!"
"Position Five! Ram!"
"Position Six! Present!"
"Position Seven! Fire!"
Over and over again.
At first they dropped the wooden sticks. They fumbled with the invisible cartridges. They forgot which step came next.
But under the influence of the System skill book, something amazing began to happen.
Their movements started to sync.
The five men began to move as one. They stopped looking at their hands. They stopped looking at each other. They stared straight ahead, their faces blank and focused.
Clack. Thud. Click.
The sounds of the wooden stocks hitting the ground became a single sound.
Old Cullen watched from the balcony, shivering in his furs. He had seen armies train before. He had seen the chaotic sparring of swordsmen in the yard. But he had never seen this.
It was eerie. It was unnatural. They looked like puppets pulled by invisible strings.
By late afternoon Mott brought out four more finished muskets. They were still warm from the final assembly.
Andar handed them to the men.
"Now," Andar said, his breath steaming in the air. "We do it with powder. No ball. Just powder."
He lined them up facing the stone wall.
"Squad! Load!"
The five men moved.
They bit the paper cartridges. They poured the powder. They rammed the rods down. They returned the rods.
It took them twenty seconds.
To a modern soldier that was slow. To a Westerosi peasant it was lightning fast.
"Present!"
Five steel barrels leveled at the wall.
"Fire!"
BOOM!
It sounded like the world had cracked open.
Five distinct explosions merged into one deafening roar. A massive wall of white smoke erupted from the line, completely hiding the men from view.
When the smoke cleared, the men were standing there, coughing, their faces black with soot. But they were grinning.
They felt it.
They felt the power in their hands. They realized that they were holding thunder.
Jory looked at his weapon. His hands were shaking, not from fear, but from excitement.
"My Lord," Jory asked, his voice trembling. "With this... we really can kill a knight?"
"With this," Andar said, walking through the smoke, "you can kill a King."
He stopped in front of them.
"You are no longer the guards of Deepwood Keep. You are the Iron Squad. And you are the first of your kind in this world."
The next morning.
The gates opened.
A small caravan prepared to leave. There were no grand banners. No golden armor. Just two wagons covered in tarp, guarding the precious supply of black powder and lead balls.
Andar sat on his horse at the front. He wore a simple black doublet and a grey cloak. He looked unassuming.
Behind him marched the Iron Squad.
They had no uniforms yet. They wore their old boiled leather and woolen cloaks. But they marched in step. Left. Right. Left. Right. Their muskets were slung over their shoulders at the exact same angle.
Cullen stood by the gate, tears in his eyes.
"My Lord," the old steward said, clutching Andar's stirrup. "Safe travels. I will keep the furnace burning. I will have a hundred bars of steel ready when you return."
"Make it two hundred," Andar said with a smile. "And Cullen?"
"Yes My Lord?"
"Do not let anyone near the saltpeter beds. If anyone asks what we are doing, tell them we are making fertilizer for the crops."
"Fertilizer," Cullen nodded, though he did not fully understand the word. "Yes My Lord."
Andar kicked his horse.
"Move out!"
The small column moved forward, leaving the safety of the wooden walls. They headed south, into the deep snowy embrace of the Wolfswood.
They were heading to Winterfell.
To the heart of the North.
Andar looked at the grey sky. Somewhere down that road was King Robert Baratheon. The Usurper. The Demon of the Trident.
Andar touched the pistol hidden inside his cloak. It was a smaller, cruder version of the musket that Mott had cobbled together last night.
Winter is coming Robert, Andar thought. But the Industrial Age arrives first.
...…
Author Note
Hi guys! Thank you for reading my fanfiction.
I wanted to let you know that I'm releasing bonus chapters for Power Stones. Here are the goals:
25 Power Stones: 1 Bonus Chapters
50 Power Stones: 1 Bonus Chapters
75 Power Stones: 2 Bonus Chapters
100 Power Stones: 2 Bonus Chapters
Thanks for the support!