Chapter 370 - 364 — Pointing Upward

The Blood Forge, beneath the Ashen Reach

The heavy barrel of the siege gun rose several inches and stopped with a dull, metallic clank.

"Hold it right there," Drevik called out.

The demon working the lifting chain stopped, its heavy tail twitching as it braced its hooves against the stone. Gruzzik crouched beside the carriage, his horns narrowly missing the underframe, and peered beneath the breech. At that angle, the rear of the assembly had jammed hard against the support frame.

He stood, dusting bone-ash from his knees. "That's as far as this mounting goes."

Drevik grunted, exhaling a thin puff of smoke. "Which is why I brought it down here."

The Emberworks smith had arrived the previous evening with the cannon and a set of ink stained blueprints. By morning, Gruzzik had cleared a work bay for him. Beyond the open doors, heavy hammers rang through the Blood Forge while workers hauled fresh, glowing castings toward the cooling pits.

Gruzzik waved for the barrel to be lowered. "How much higher do you need it to point?"

"High enough to hit something passing directly overhead."

"A dragon?"

"A dragon or a goblin airship, preferably before either has finished roasting our crew."

Gruzzik walked around the carriage while an Obsidian Spire scholar examined the blueprints on a nearby table. The existing gun could be elevated for distant ground targets, but bringing it toward the vertical required extra space beneath the breech and a mounting built to absorb the kick.

Drevik followed him, his heavy boots thudding against the flagstones. "Vorth wants the primary gun assembly kept intact while we build a custom support."

Gruzzik spread the sheets beside the cannon and pulled a stool up to the table. "The first test stays in the yard. We anchor a solid stone foundation and give the recoil somewhere permanent to go."

"The batteries will eventually need to move their guns," Drevik argued.

"Then later models can have wheels. Right now, I want to know if this thing can fire straight up without blowing itself into scrap."

Drevik considered it for a moment, then nodded. "Fine. A fixed mounting it is then."

Gruzzik pointed to the gun. "The weapon keeps its own recoil springs. We mount it over a reinforced stone bed. The crew can crank the barrel up, but the base stays bolted down."

"And what about turning it toward a new target?"

"That's a problem for after lunch."

Over the next few days, the sky-gun swallowed most of Gruzzik's attention. Stoneworkers prepared the foundation with the help of a forge mage, while heavy iron braces were hauled out, fitted, and sent back to the anvils when measurements missed by an inch.

When the upper frame was finally locked into place, they hoisted the cannon onto it and spent the afternoon testing the pitch. The barrel could now tilt steeply toward the ceiling without jamming.

Loading it, however, was a logistical disaster.

Herrek, a burly demon with a heavily scarred snout, stood beside the elevated breech, looking up at it with a blank expression, then down at Gruzzik.

"We could find a taller loader," Herrek offered.

"And when his shift ends?" Gruzzik asked.

"We find two more."

Drevik pressed a clawed hand over his face.

Gruzzik pointed a thumb at the timber stacks near the bay. "Build the crew a proper platform, you idiot."

Herrek immediately wandered off to find the carpenters.

The crew practiced with the unloaded gun until Drevik was satisfied they wouldn't accidentally decapitate themselves. They cranked the barrel down to load, hoisted it back up, and cleared out before calling the shot. Each movement took agonizingly long, but Gruzzik didn't rush them. There would be plenty of time to yell once they knew the mounting wouldn't snap.

By the end of the sixth day, the cannon was ready for its first live firing trial.

The morning wind carried thick furnace smoke across the yard. Gruzzik waited for it to clear before joining Drevik behind a low stone shelter wall. Ahead of them, the cannon pointed almost straight up into the red sky.

Herrek rounded the wall after a final check. "The crew is clear."

Gruzzik nodded. "Fire it."

KA-BOOM!

The blast slammed into the shelter and rolled across the yard. Gruzzik felt the impact vibrate up through the soles of his boots. Dust showered down from the battlements as the gun recoiled violently within its frame, shuddered, and settled.

Drevik leaned forward, studying the base. "It held."

Before anyone could celebrate, one of the loaders—a dim-witted horned grunt whose job was mostly carrying heavy things—tilted his head back and stared straight up at the zenith.

"Foreman?" the loader asked.

"What?"

"When we shoot at something up there... what happens if the shell misses?"

"It comes back down," the scholar said, not looking up from his notes.

The loader stared at the scholar, then at the vertical barrel, then back up at the open sky, his single brain cell visibly working overtime.

"...Where?"

The scholar stopped writing.

Gruzzik followed the loader's gaze up the length of the barrel, then out at the open sky.

"Bloody hell—RUN!"

He shoved Herrek toward the forge entrance. The crew scattered like startled cave-rats. Drevik grabbed a lagging loader by the shoulder and hauled him bodily toward safety, while the mage scrambled after them with his hands flashing defensive wards.

"Under the arch!" Gruzzik bellowed. "Get under the bloody arch!"

They piled into the stone passage just as a thick ward snapped across the opening. For a long moment, nobody made a sound, save for the rhythmic hammering echoing deep inside the forge.

Then, a high-pitched whistle cut down from the clouds.

THUD.

BOOM!

The shell slammed into the far corner of the yard. Earth and shattered flagstones erupted into the air, instantly vaporizing an empty timber cart and pelting the mage's ward with gravel.

Silence returned, save for the crackle of smoke.

Drevik cautiously poked his head around the stone entrance. The cannon was still standing, fifty paces away from a fresh, smoking crater.

Gruzzik emerged behind him and stared at the wreckage. "Lower that barrel. Nobody loads another live round until we figure out where the hell it's going to land."

The next trials were delayed while they inspected the yard for structural damage.

While the engineers checked the alignment marks, two junior imp attendants—taking full advantage of the break—decided the swiveling base of an unmounted spare carriage looked suspiciously like a carnival ride. They hopped on and started spinning each other around at dangerous speeds, cackling(Laughing loudly) gleefully until the whole assembly tipped over with a loud, embarrassing crash.

Torbek, a towering pit-commander who had just walked into the yard, stopped and watched the imps scramble out of the wreckage and scurry away.

Torbek looked at the wrecked cart, then at the tipped spare carriage, and finally at Gruzzik.

"What are we testing today?" Torbek deadpanned. "Artillery or playground equipment?"

"Get back to your furnaces, Torbek," Gruzzik grunted, rubbing his temples.

They returned to the worktable. The successful firing had proven the foundation could handle the recoil, but the mobility problem remained. Drevik pulled a heavy blueprint of a standard Warhound turret across the table.

"We already have gear rings built to rotate heavy armor," Drevik said. "We could adapt this."

Gruzzik examined the sketch. "How fast does it turn?"

"On a Warhound, it's a slow crawl," Drevik admitted. "Without the armor plating, it might be lighter, but the weight shifts drastically as the barrel goes up."

Torbek leaned over his shoulder. "Just add more handles. Give the crew more room to push."

"That helps with muscle," Drevik countered, "provided they can actually stop the thing before it spins past the target."

"If they can push it, they can stop it," Torbek shrugged.

Gruzzik pointed a claw toward the spot where the imps had just crashed the spare carriage. "Tell that to the two idiots who just reinvented dizziness."

Torbek sighed. "All right. Fair point."

The scholar tapped the drawing. "We need speed and control together. If the crew spends every second over-correcting, they'll be shooting at ghosts."

The mage, leaning quietly against the table, pointed a claw at the gear assembly. "An assisting rune-array could take the dead weight off their hands. The crew wouldn't have to fight the momentum."

Gruzzik looked at him. "Could your magic make it stop the instant the gunner yells halt?"

"I'd have to wire the runes directly into the gear teeth."

"And would it survive the barrel going up and down?"

"Possibly. But if i were you I'd rather test it on a spare frame before I promise anything my skin isn't prepared to pay for."

Drevik pulled a blank sheet toward himself. "We'll test mechanical gearing first. If a pure iron system works, we don't rely on magic keeping stable while a dragon is breathing fire down our necks."

"And if the gears are too slow?" Torbek asked.

Gruzzik rested his heavy hands on the table. "Then we find out here in the yard, before some half-wit gunner manages to shell our own mess hall."