The elves would shy away from Paul the coming days. Even Elric would not see him. Gibkin would speak to him and tell him to his face that the others were scared to try again. All in all, the only part they needed to replace was the pressure vessel. The rest of the engine survived the disaster.

  Paul would find himself hanging about in his quarters, often talking to Wystan. Cassoway was busy with the smiths. Neadora was off, always somewhere. But never around when he was. He knew this because she would come and tend to the poor elvish boy. He had happened upon her doing so once or twice.

  Paul would walk the streets to clear his mind. But it was hard to walk openly when there was the constant threat of a pig carcass barreling at you. So he stayed inside, with the boy.

  It wasn't until he had a visitor that he had even realized he had dozed off. It was Gibkin.

  “Good weather to you boy, I well, me and the others, we had a talk. See they’re not so sure about this thing. I tried to tell ‘em, I tried. It worked, I saw it.”

  Paul nodded and said nothing.

  “Listen, maybe if it came from you. I can get them to gather and at least give you a chance.”

  Paul thought for a moment.

  Why even bother?

  Paul shook his head, “No, Gibkin, if it happens again… Everyone could be hurt. I can’t let that happen.”

  Gibkin walked up to Paul, and though he was shorter by a little, it made him back up in surprise. Gibkin waved a finger in his face.

  “Now you, I saw an Erowin blessed miracle out there. I will see one again even if I have to do it alone. Now, will you help me or will you let me accidentally kill myself?”

  Paul didn’t respond at first, he had never seen Gibkin so riled up, well perhaps when he had seen the engine turn over.

  He’ll really try it won’t he? You are an absolute mad elf.

  ***

  Paul couldn't make a speech. He wouldn't, whatever Gibkin thought. No, instead he found the remains of the vessel. He kneeled, and looked at the now cold iron. It had to have been a hairline fracture along the side that blew. Hard to catch, especially if one were tired and overworked as they had all been.

  He began to deconstruct the whole thing. Every pin, every rod. This was no easy task as the piston had been shoved out and the bar that connected the flywheel and piston head was terribly bent.

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  He toiled, and the elves watched.

  No one said a word, not at first. Paul set to work picking apart the wreckage of the engine, hands grimy. Where the metal had warped, he yanked at the pins with a cold chisel. When a bar refused to budge, he hammered at it until it obeyed. If anything, it kept the nerves at bay.

  Gibkin was the first to join him. It took a few minutes for the others to join. They filtered in quietly at first. Then the life began to come back into them

  ***

  The next cylinder didn’t explode. It leaked like hell. A whining, hissing chatter as steam came billowing from every seam, every botched thread, every hairline crack the cooling left behind. It would take another few tries before they got it right. This much was very certain.

  Paul pulled on the newly added pressure release and the engine died slowly as the steam vented into the air above it.

  “Well it's a start isn't it?” Said Gibkin.

  “Yes it is.”

  Everyone stared at it for a while. The thing clanked and clattered to a stop.

  Gibkin stood back and let out a bark of triumph. “Erowin carry me, it works. You mad genius, it works. How do you know these things Paul? Not once in my life would I think you could put breath into iron, not with magic.”

  Gibkin wiped his brow and cackled. “Show ‘em, Paul. Show the whole blessed city.”

  And that was how, eight days later, Gibkin and the other royal smiths gathered inside the immense, stone-paved courtyard of the Castle Barrus. The late afternoon sun cast long shadows over the ancient cobbles, illuminating the object of their collective apprehension: Paul’s terrifyingly modern war-wagon, now parked squarely in the center.

  It was no longer the haphazard assemblage of scrap iron and ill-fitting plates it had been a week prior. Now, a profound, almost paralyzing mixture of awe and sheer terror was etched onto every face. The sheer audacity of the device challenged everything they knew about warfare and construction.

  The new iron sheets, massive and thick, ran the entire length of the wagon's flanks, giving it the appearance of a monstrous, squat beetle. Every single plate had been laboriously shaved down to a precise, uniform thickness, a task that had required immense effort and revolutionary patience. Crucially, each seam was secured with hundreds of small, overlapping rivets, just as Paul had violently and persistently insisted. The traditional method would have been larger, fewer bolts, but Paul’s design demanded this tight, scale-like pattern for maximum, flexible resistance.

  Despite the wagon’s imposing new armor, the visual evidence of last week’s failure remained. Dark, greasy scorch marks still marred the metal near the rear housing, the marks of the disastrous, premature “boiler” test. It served as a stark, ominous reminder to the gathered smiths that they were tinkering with a force they barely understood, a power that could just as easily rend the machine apart as propel it into battle. They had managed to sheath the beast, but they still had to tame it.

  Paul stood at the head of the crew, trying to look like he wasn’t about to collapse from nerves and exhaustion. Maybe he pulled it off, maybe not.

  The steering was the main issue. The only way they were able to make it so one set of wheels would spin slower than the other was with a set of very thick waxed leather brake pads. That and giving each side its own axle. The whole thing was riddled with points of failure but it was the only way to pull it off in the time they had.

  Paul made a show of checking every seam, every lashing of waxed leather under the piston’s head. His fingers left black smears on the iron. He found his hands shaking.

  “Gods have mercy,” Tarwin muttered. “If you’re wrong about this, the whole thing’s going through the outer wall.”

  Paul tried not to picture that. Instead, he checked the brake pads for the hundredth time and scanned the faces of the onlookers. Climbed up the side and dropped himself into the pilot seat. He could hear the elves beneath him lighting the fire box.

  Gibkin spat onto the stones and squared his shoulders. “Ready whenever you are,” he called up to the main hatch.

  Paul nodded. “All right. Start the burner!”

  God I hope this doesn't blow up.

  The steam began to pressurize the main chamber. It hissed, at first a thin, angry snake noise, so faint nobody but Paul seemed to notice. Then the pressure built, and a trembling rattle shivered down the iron hull. The whole tank seemed to flex in the sunlight, the plates creaking and the rivets oozing fat drops of brown water around the seams. For a second, nothing seemed to happen. Paul held his breath, knuckles white on the release.

  Here goes nothing