The Devil's Foundry Book 3: Chapter 13

Chapter 13: Set the Board

“I can’t believe you talked me into this,” I said.

“Makes you look good, boss,” Dee replied.

Dum nodded. “Like a real Camp tess.”

At the side of the palanquin, Electra stifled a laugh even as she continued to page through draft documents.

I could only grumble helplessly.

Even with my armor, I couldn’t control my limp anymore. The muscles in my thigh were overtaxed nearly to the point of uselessness. A part of me was worried, but my plans could not wait until I was strong enough to bear them.

Relia had disagreed with my resolve.

“You will not.” She’d kept pushing me back down to the bed, and I didn’t have the leverage to swing myself back to my feet, least of all with a bum leg.

“If you do not stop…ruining yourself, I will be forced to tie you down until you return to your senses!” 

She’d refused to see reason. I could not afford to appear weak now. Too many eyes were on me, and even though Prince Iax and I had a deal, I knew that I was only protected so long as he thought I could deliver results. If it looked like he could get what he wanted without me, he’d keep increasing the pressure until my legs gave out from under me—figuratively as well as literally.

Nevermind what those psychopaths at the Orhlys Trading house would do. Verdant looked like the type of person who hunted the weak and infirm for sport. 

It was Dee that saved me. He and his brother had put together a simple but elegant-looking palanquin for them to carry me on. Electra let slip that I was only putting on airs to make sure those newcomers from the south didn’t get any ideas.

A little touch of xenophobia could work all kinds of wonders.

“Enough already, we needed to be on the North side of the river an hour ago.” At the very least, being carried everywhere meant I could take my work with me. This was a critical time, but also a delicate one. Thus far, we’d been building upon the bones of the original, all-but-nameless village that had become Lady’s Port.

Now, we needed to seriously expand.

The south side of the river was Lady’s Port proper. There stood the Lightning Mill, the docks and foundries, and almost all of the houses as well, before giving way to farmland.

To the north of the river, we were building new apartments. Housing continued to be a battle I lost ground on every day, gritting my teeth and shifting more and more resources to housing my people instead of building up the industry I needed.

The planned layout was a tight block of four buildings, surrounded by smaller amenities and places for business to spring up and fill the gap. The north side of the river wasn’t cleared enough for farmland, so instead I was planning on moving the less essential workshops there as well.

Anything that I needed to protect would remain in the heart of the town, as close to the Lightning Mill and the people I could trust.

“We remain ahead of schedule on the first appart-ment,” Rel said. “The inside of the building is complete; the last step is the facades, but already some families are moving in. Thus far, no complaints, and once people understood the utility of ‘indoor plumbing’ applications for new units tripled.”

We’d need the space in the original town for glass workshops once the artisans from Corvander arrived.

“Good.” I took in the building. The siding wasn’t plywood, but the exterior did look a bit unfinished for my taste to have people living inside. Thankfully, Vecorvia had several months of absolutely gorgeous weather following the monsoon season.

I intended to turn this time of year into ‘construction season’ even if I had to manifest additional work crews through the power of imagination. “And the next buildings?”

“Two and three are lagging, because of the focus on finishing the first building,” Rel said. “But it doesn’t look like any corners have been cut.”

“Hear that, Electra?” I said. “Looks like the toilets work after all.”

“Yeah, all thanks to me.” She grinned back. “I knew my civil design degree would be useful!”

I rolled my eyes. “I’m the one that designed the sewers.” Fluid mechanics wasn’t exactly my forte, but really, who couldn’t calculate peak flow and rig up a simple reservoir system?

“You may have done the boring shit, but I did the building layout.” Electra tossed her hair out of her face. “As far as I’m concerned, I own at least fifty percent of the success.”

“I’ll give you forty.”

“Deal!” She grabbed my hand and pumped it once. “So you’ll name one of the buildings after me, right?”

Relia covered her mouth with one hand. “She did do more than a quarter of the labor, mistress.”

“Getting ganged up on all sides.” I leaned back on the palanquin. At least they’d carved a little backrest that I could lean against with some cushions. “Any problems on this front, other than the delays?”

“None that require additional oversight,” Rel replied. “Though, what are these degrees?” 

I smiled, always interested in hearing stories about Earth, my Relia.

“College.” Electra folded her hands behind her head. “Do you all have institutes of higher learning ‘n stuff here?”

“I saw a few in the capital,” I said.

“Yeah, so a degree is basically something that says you were trained at one of those places,” Electra said.

I hummed, looking over the space we’d cleared for the four apartment buildings. Really, if we cut down another few acres, there would be the perfect space for a university campus that would match all of these little ‘dorms’.

“It would be nice to build a university here.” But I doubted we’d have the time.

“Wanna take a spin at teaching, Em?” Electra asked.

“Finishing up my own education, more like.” I sighed. “I was accepted to a masters program at the University of Aegis. Never had the chance to accept.”

Electra cupped her chin. “Pretty sure they have indefinite deferral ever since the time splicer incident.”

I laughed. “Well, we’ll have to make it home first.”

Rel blinked up at me.

“Any other questions?”

She blinked again, before shaking her head. “That sounds…interesting.”

“Academia is a mess,” I said. “But I miss the learning.”

“Heh.” Electra smirked. “Nerd.”

“I know you are but what am I.” I rolled my eyes. “Head up the river now, boys. I want to take a look at the farmland from a higher vantage.”

Dee and Dum did as I asked, though not without comment. “Why’d we come all the way up here to look at the farms, boss? Farms are down there.”

That much was true. If the river and new apartments sat to the north of Lady’s Port, then farms surrounded the town’s east and south. 

The west, of course, belonged to the ocean.

“Between the stampede and clearing the trees, we have a nice little overlook.” Across the river, you could see the farmland stretching to the edge of the jungle. At this point, you couldn’t even tell which fields had been trampled by the monsters.

The south I had few plans for; the soil there was richest and we still needed the food. The eastern edge of my territory however…

“There, along the treeline.” I pointed. “The glades are still spreading.”

“Ah, you mean them hummingbirds?” Dum shuddered, and his massive frame rocked my seat with it. “No one cares to get too close. But once they lose a cow they’ll be mad, boss.”

I nodded. “That’s why I wanted to see the issue now.” 

A hummingbird feather was necessary for every Looking Glass. Before my showdown with Seneschal Hawkwright, I’d been bringing hummingbirds and their favorite flowers back to Lady’s Port as fast as I could.

Plans for where to plant them had been mostly ad hoc, and were now completely moot. The monster stampede had trampled through all the different places where I’d planted the flowers, spreading seeds across the eastern edge of Lady’s Port.

By themselves, the flowers were only dangerous if you breathed their pollen, but that still left patches of them scattered almost like landmines throughout my farmland. I couldn’t burn the flowers out, either, because even though the Royal Family and House Orhlys only required a small number of mirrors, my plans called for far more.

I flicked through the various reports that lay next to me on my cushions. “There we go. The soil nearest to the jungle’s edge is doing poorly for crops. Those are recently cleared, by the looks of things.”

Electra tilted her head. “Slash and burn?”

I shrugged. “Or close enough.” I wasn’t a conservationist, but you couldn’t just plow over a rainforest to build a plantation. The soil wasn’t right for it.

“Those flowers, on the other hand, are perfectly suited to the places where our crops struggle to grow.” I pointed. “What do you say about…a wall of poisonous flowers running right through there.”

“Where?” Dum turned, taking the palanquin with him. “You wanna plant the flowers in the middle of the town, boss? I, uh…” He shared a look with his brother. “You sure that’s a good idea?”

“You moved, you big lug.” I ran a hand down my face. “Anyway, Electra, Relia…” I paused. “Rel?” I craned my head over my shoulder, surprised to see my Minion standing a few paces behind the rest of the group. I waved her over, “What do you two think? We could use some buffer, and if we move all of the little flower patches, we should be able to make ourselves a long and thin glade that’s easier to maintain.”

Rel nodded and Electra rubbed her chin.

If we went with my plan, the hummingbirds and their flowers would run from the river, forming a barrier along the town’s eastern flank.

“Thought you’d be more worried about…” Electra jerked her head straight south, where the capital sat, out of sight but never out of mind. “Sure, having a bunch of nasty murderous birds blocking our east feels nice, but…”

“Don’t worry so much about that.” I leaned back, smiling. “I have plans for the south.”

She shrugged. “Sure they’ll work?”

“Iax and Verdant both think I’m a piece for them to shuffle across the board.” My smile grew wider. “But between the three of us, I’m the one with the full picture.”