Tarnished Chapter 31 (Patreon)

Finally having a win was nice, but John wasn’t sure how much the artificer’s improvements would help out. It might be different if they had an unlimited supply of raw materials. But that wasn’t the case. They barely had enough material to build a few weapons for the town.

Restarting the mines would alleviate that issue somewhat, but John hadn’t seen any large-scale processing plant hidden in town. Any material they managed to pull from the mine would have to be processed in small batches. And that was only what he could skim off the top without tipping off Mr. Novarez. It was an annoying balancing act, but some steel and copper were better than none at all.

The next few days went by in a blur for John. With his contribution out of the way, he could only watch as the workers mobilized like busy bees and headed off to their mining locations. The first wagon loaded with ore soon returned from the closest mine.

He had seen the processing of raw ore into metal before, but he still found it fascinating. The raw material was shoveled off the wagons and into a large pit. From there it passed along a belt made from leather that was powered by a waterwheel. John wasn’t sure why the contraption hadn’t been upgraded to steam power, but it probably had something to do with cost. And the water was free.

From there the rocks were crushed into smaller rocks and then sent into a ball mill to be turned into a fine powder that almost looked like flour. This then fell into a submerged belt where the water carried the lighter material over the side and into the river, while the heavier material settled to the bottom.

It rose from the water on another belt before being dumped into a pile and left to dry. Once it was dry, workers shoveled it into a furnace. Even from a hundred feet away, John could feel the heat radiating off the clay crucible. Men wearing thick wetted leather suits, that covered their entire body and had goggles sewn into the head portion, occasionally ran over and mixed the material.

While they were mixing the melting metal, another man would toss in some borax to remove further impurities. Once the melted material was ready, it was dumped into raw molds.

This is where the processing at Ember Creek stopped. The material left behind was a mix of metals, and completely useless for anything other than transportation.

Fortunately, Travis had a small-scale roasting and smelting setup to further refine the ingots into both iron and copper. And from there turn the iron into steel. It was a long laborious process, but it wasn’t like they had any other choice.

John turned away from the heat and left the workers to their work. If his estimates were accurate, the mines were only producing about a ton of refined ingots a day. Not good. Mr. Novarez had shown him the expected projections of the mine output and what goals he needed to hit. To keep the mining magnate off their backs, they needed to produce at least five tons of smelted material a day.

The mines might start outputting more, but he doubted it would be a significant increase. Not with the lack of workers. The train was scheduled to arrive in a little over a week. That wasn’t much time to build up a stockpile to send back to New Gata.

John knew what he needed to do. He would delay the train’s return a few days to help boost the output. With the new crop of workers coming in, he could make up a significant amount of the deficit.

It remained to be seen if that would be enough to appease Novarez but it was the best he could do.

But of course, nothing could ever be easy. As he was walking away from the refining operation, the town bell started to toll. Now that he knew the town used the bell to signal an attack, he listened to how many times it rang to determine what side of town was being hit.

He rushed over in that direction, but by the time he arrived, the attack was already over. Two dead Harc’otti lay in the street and a group of townsfolk were rushing back and forth between a well pump with buckets of water to toss on a burning building.

Seeing as they had it well in hand, John went to find the Sheriff. The man was standing behind a wooden post of a building at the edge of town, scanning the woodline.

“Sheriff,” John called so as to not startle the man.

The man motioned for him to get cover, but before he could an arrow came whizzing from the treeline. John snapped his pistol out, fired, and twisted away from the incoming projectile in one smooth motion.

He had been primed for trouble and scanning the trees as soon as he spotted the sheriff, so the attack hadn’t been much of a surprise. The warrior tumbled out from behind the tree.

“I think that was the last of them,” The Sheriff stated as he lowered his rifle and walked away from the cover he was using. “I knew I trapped him in there somewhere, but I couldn’t spot him with these old eyes of mine. Glad you came along, and glad he didn’t turn you into a pincushion.”

“How many attacked?”

“Only six. Three rushed into the town to try and kill people on the street, while the others fired flaming arrows from the cover of the trees. Thankfully the watchers spotted them, and everyone got to safety. The spotter took down one, and I shot the other. And well, you got the third. The rest were quick to flee when they realized their attack failed.”

“They're probing our defenses.”

Blackwood nodded. “That’s what I figured as well. It means there are going to be more attacks. Do you think this is in response to the mines starting up again? Should we be worried about the workers?”

“The independent miners may have to keep a closer eye out, but I found a solution for Novarez’s mines. I also don’t think it has anything to do with the mines. I think they are trying to keep us occupied so Jacob’s group can move freely.”

“Hmm. Yeah. I heard about your solution. You sure about that?”

John shrugged. “There weren’t many options. The Klein family might be a bunch of pricks, but at least Pappy's driven by something I can understand.” The Klein patriarch was many things, but it all boiled down to greed in the end. Money and power. It was so much simpler than trying to figure out what Jacob and the Harc’otti were after.

“We’re going to have to do something about the Harc’otti. They keep attacking, and people are going to leave, no matter what bullshit Novarez used to tie them to Ember Creek.”

“I’m working on it. I already have Travis producing some more artillery pieces for the town. A few of those will free up some of your deputies. If they don’t attack in force before then, we will need to hunt them down and root them out.”

“I was afraid you’d say that. You can’t expect them to be like you, or me, or even Seline. These men aren’t Peacekeepers. I trained them for a few days to be competent with a rifle, and that’s about it.”

“I know,” John sighed. “But we have to work with what we have.”

“Can’t say I didn’t warn ya. Now if you’ll excuse me, we have some cleanup to do.” The man gave him a gruff nod of dismissal before stomping off.

He knew talk of using the deputized workers to hunt down the Harc’otti would not sit well with Blackwood. Training people, even people you only knew for a short time formed a camaraderie between those people. And Wyatt, being the old war horse he was, probably latched onto that feeling in place of his crippling alcoholism. But he was only replacing one crutch with another.

There would be more fights, and some of these people would die. That was the inevitability of conflict. Even John wasn’t immune to that. One wrong move, one slip-up, and he would die just as easily as the others. The only difference between him and these deputized individuals was experience. John would love to give them the time to earn that experience. But that simply wasn’t an option.

They couldn’t keep letting the Harc’otti dictate the terms of this conflict. Sooner or later Jacob and his group would return. Either they would assist the Harc’otti, or they would supply them. Neither boded well for the town. So right now it was a race to see who got there first.

John really hoped Ember Creek won that race. If the enemy was ready before them, he wasn’t sure they could fight off a concentrated attack. Even though losing might be the case, John was smart enough to keep those feelings to himself. Morale was bad enough in town without him tossing that onto the fire.