“It’s impressive,” I muttered, shaking the sooty hand off my shoulder. “What’s production looking like?”

  “That’s it? How much have you made me and why isn’t it more? This is the finest forge north of Jakervi! All I get is how much and why not more!” Klip grumbled as he led me towards the main building built alongside the wheel on this side of the town.

  I was impressed by their ingenuity. With their limited experience they’d turned the single shaft coming off the waterwheel into three separate drives that each span at different speeds to power different types of machinery.

  “It’s bloody impressive Klip,” I said as I took in the sights and sounds of a busy forge. Glowing metal was poured out a of smelter heated with powered bellows on one side, moved to the middle for crude shaping under the drop hammer and then shifted to the final work area for finishing with hammers and the powered grindstones. Five of the stones, gradually getting smaller and presumably finer grained, were the final powered machines.

  Blades, spearheads and arrowheads went from glowing steel to crude lumps to being moved down the line of sanding machines to create a perfectly sharp final product in a fraction of the time it would take to do the jobs by hand.

  “Is it like this on the other side of the river as well?” I asked, a little in awe of the hive-like efficiency. It was pleasingly professional. Despite the heat blasting from the metalworks I sensed a sudden drop in temperature and turned my head to look at Klip. He had gone from bitterly exuberant to icy cold in a moment.

  “That southern prick is doing the armour. He’s got a different set up and he won’t take any advice! I’m by far the superior smith but he just prattles about his age and ‘wisdom’ in response!” Klip did not sound happy at all. I would have to see if I could find a way to build metaphorical bridges to match the ones that now spanned the river.

  I dragged the reluctant smith away from his little kingdom and we entered what to him must have felt like a foreign state.

  The atmosphere was much the same, smoky and damn hot as soon as you got under the latticed roofing, but the process flowed differently. The bellows on this side were hand worked by apprentices and the metal came out in much broader, flatter forms. Next came the hammer to smash it almost flat then it was finished into thin sheets by hand.

  This was followed by the press, a nightmarish device that resembled an pre-industrial cookie cutter, that stamped out the flat discs that made up the crude brigandine armour we’d adopted for the warriors. Off to one side some of the sheets were heated and beaten into the barbute-style helms I had requested.

  It all seemed just as efficient and active as Klip’s territory. Sweating workers bustled about every bit as professionally as on the other bank of the river.

  “What’s he doing here?” demanded Sulk as he spotted us and bustled over. “I don’t need any more ‘advice’-” he sneered the word and spat to one side, “-from the likes of him!” Wonderful. Bickering smiths. I supposed I’d need to figure out how to parent soon with a baby on the way so why not start with a pair of man-children?

  “Enough! Both of you! You’re both sworn to Velkit, would your god approve of this kind of infighting?” I demanded harshly. Klip blinked owlishly at me and Sulk spat to the side once again. So he was the problem child in this equation…

  “Stop fucking spitting around me! This place is a wonder! It’s a tribute to your god and it isn’t working as efficiently as it should because the pair of you are acting like spoiled brats!” The sensation of being a piece of metal on an anvil as the hammer fell washed over us. All the apprentices stopped and looked around. “Get back to work! You’ve never felt the touch of a god's aura before? Get used to it!” I barked at them and the brief silence was once more filled with the smashing of hammers on metal.

  “I need you both,” I continued more quietly, putting a hand on each of their shoulders and squeezing just hard enough to remind them I could squeeze a lot harder if I wanted to. “I’ve got some ideas, new projects for you to work on. Have either of you ever heard of ballistae and trebuchets? We’ll need to set up proper defences around Riverwheel and the Pass sooner rather than later. The army is going to move south in the near future and I want this place to be impregnable when we do.”

  “Can’t hold this place. No stone to quarry for the walls. Unless you can give us trinkets for your earth wave spell?” asked Sulk, suddenly interested.

  “I can’t make trinkets for that one or Burning Skies. But we won’t need them. Roving bands on patrol and siege weapons on towers is all we’ll need. Here’s the basics…”

  Explaining the mechanisms of ballista, counter lever missile launchers, and where to place them took me an hour or so. The prospect of new technology seemed to have mollified them and they were bouncing ideas off each other in a way that wasn’t exactly friendly but was at least respectful.

  “One last thing: I need a bow. Wood is too weak, I’d like a metal one. Six feet long when strung with a twisted wire for the bowstring. I’m not sure how to get the right kind of flex for it? The belly needs to resist compression and the back needs to resist stretching, I think? Speak to the bowyers, they’ll know better than me. Good job on the armour and weapons. Any chance you can bring in more workers to boost up the rates a bit? The other tribes will join us sooner or later and we’ll need to equip them properly for war with Urkash,” I finished. They both went wide eyed and their jaws dropped open.

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  “What the fuck!” snapped Klip.

  “Why did it have to be them?” muttered Sulk at the same time as Klip’s outburst.

  “One of my enemies is now their king. He knows about me and I know about him. Even if I wanted to leave him alone, which I don’t, he’d come for us in the end. Best we move on him first.” I shrugged nonchalantly although I knew Urkash had been a major power among the towns south of the steppe even before Mortimer came along.

  “I need you both working together like the professionals I know you are, ok?” I looked them both in the eyes and nodded at the resigned resolution I saw in the two men. “Thank you.” Who ever said parenting was difficult?

  I bid them farewell and left my first little town behind. The smoke from the centre seemed to redouble as both men got back to what they did best: yelling at their workers. I stretched my legs and sent Glimpse ahead to check back in on Mondit. From the sky everything looked fine. The troops were already starting to ride out for training and the magically grown grass around my command tent had been trimmed back.

  After a weirdly invigorating run, I should have been exhausted, I made my way into the central area and found Jandak had re-joined the rest of my Fangs. They were loitering outside the command tent and scowling at anyone who approached them as they talked quietly.

  “I thought you wanted to visit Haylin?” I asked Jandak as I walked over. The other two sniggered and Jandak glared at them.

  “It’s not a good time. I’m surprised she didn’t go for your throat at that meeting,” he grumbled.

  “Trouble under the felt. Always a hard time but don’t worry man! She’ll cool off,” offered Mune with false sympathy. He dodged backwards as Jandak raised a fist at him.

  “Is it serious?” I asked. I needed my best warriors focused. I supposed a more normal concern for my friend was also in my mind but the cold part of me had largely taken over since the battle at Hellath. There was a war coming after all.

  “No. She’s just angry at me about something. Look do you want to stop here and talk about women’s feelings for a few hours or shall we just go kill some fucking Ur-viles?” Jandak said angrily.

  “He didn’t manage to-” began Kos but this time Jandak’s fist flashed out and deposited Kos on his backside. The man rolled about laughing in between gasping for breath. I'd been there myself. Battered and a little hurt but unable to stop laughing like a crazy man. The first time it happened was when my family had a traffic accident when I was young, maybe eight years old. Mum had burst into tears, Dad cursed up a storm and I couldn’t stop giggling. It was the first but not the last time it happened. Laughing madly as mortars fall around you is not a good way to build friendships with your squad mates.

  “Alright then. You’ve got what you need?” I asked. Jandak and Mune both waved fingers covered with grey rings at me as Kos climbed to his feet still chuckling and nodded happily.

  We blurred north at top speed. There was only an hour or two of light left and I wanted to get out onto the tundra today if possible. I had no idea how far north the Ur-viles had built their towns and if I wasn’t back from this jaunt before Fay got back I suspected I’d end up with much the same situation as Jandak was in with Haylin.

  Stone crunched as we shot through the smelters and workers in the Pass, threading our way through the walls and people. Glimpse soared ahead and as soon as we were clear we sped back up, devouring the distance.

  We stopped just north of the canyon’s exit and set up a fireless camp. My crow couldn’t see anything from above but the giants were tricky bastards.

  “Where do they live?” I asked as we stretched out on piles of furs and chewed on jerked aurox.

  “No one knows. Kril used to tell stories to the kids, before he got magic and abandoned his duties to the Jagarnyn Dreamer.” There was a touch of anger in Mune’s voice. I made a note to raise the issue with Kril when we got back. “He said they live in tents like us, wandering along the icy grasslands just like us on the warmer ones.”

  “Nah. There’s a city of stone, giant-made, far to the north. That’s where they keep the children. The women run south before they come into heat because the men will just take anyone they can and it stops them conceiving,” Jandak yawned as he finished speaking.

  Could that be right? Did Ur-vile women have a heat like, well, dogs? All the vile variants I’d seen had just been larger, smarter, meaner versions of the basic creature. I didn’t think that it could be true.

  “That’s bullshit they tell you before you go Koryiolis,” said Kos quietly. “The giants are monsters, smart and dangerous but they fuck like the rest of us.”

  “How do you know? Had a few run-ins with them?” asked Mune good naturedly.

  “Only the once so far, and Mond dealt with that one. It’ll be interesting to see if we can keep up this time. I’m going for a piss.” Kos got up and walked a short distance into the darkness.

  “He doesn’t know,” muttered Mune.

  “I just want to know one thing: where they are. We can take them. None of the Shikrakyn got turned into giants so they’ve got no magic and I killed one on my own, god, about seventy levels ago. You saw what happens when I use Burning Skies. I killed thirty of them last time I came north. We’ll probably have to kill some of them but the plan is to get them to submit and accept some Souls,” I said. Mune and Jandak both jerked upright and glared at me.

  “You want to give those fuckers magic? Give them stats? Are you mad?” snarled Jandak.

  “You’re joking! Tell me you’re joking?” Mune mumbled.

  “If they take the Souls I can control them. Use them. They’re fucking cannibals, monsters. If I can control them I will use them. The trick is going to be getting them to agree to accept the transfer,” I replied gently.

  “It’s insane, brother. We should just kill them, teach them to fear us then head back south to face the real enemy,” Kos interjected as he returned from the shadows around our little camp.

  “It will work. You’ve seen what I can do. I have a feeling I’m the weakest, or one of the weakest, of this batch of Shikrakyn. If Mortimer got a synthesised Death affinity ability… it would be as powerful as Burning Skies but something to do with rot or plague or zombies. God knows what he’s capable of. If the Ur-viles weren’t so uncivilised I wouldn’t consider this. Sometimes you need to have monsters of your own to cancel out the other guy’s demons.” I shrugged and settled deeper into my pile of furs.

  “I don’t like it Mond. Where will they sleep? What the hell will we feed them? Their favourite food is us!” said Mune.

  “They don’t need to eat humans.” I paused for a moment. “Do they?”

  “Who the hell knows what they need to eat! The thing they like the most is bog standard humans!”

  “Well it won’t matter what they prefer once I’ve got strings attached to their minds and none of us are bog standard humans. I’m sure it will be fine. Worst case scenario: we slaughter them for the Souls and head south without disposable terror troops. Can you imagine what an army of shit-sitters would do if twenty giants boosted up on Enhance slammed into their line?” A thoughtful silence followed. Eventually Kos broke it.

  “It would scare the shit out of them!” He started chuckling to himself and the rest soon picked it up. A moment later we were all laughing, the noise echoing out onto the still frosty tundra as a challenge to the monsters that haunted the north.

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