The Arbalests were finished, stacked in greased piles like firewood. But a weapon is useless if the man holding it is dead.
Ronan stood at the perimeter of the village, kicking the base of the palisade wall. It was made of pine logs driven into the earth ten years ago.
Crunch.
His boot went through the wood. It was soft, pulpy, and infested with white rot.
[Architect's Eye Analysis]
[Material:] Pine (Rotting).
[Structural Integrity:] 12%.
[Failure Point:] Immediate upon impact.
[Conclusion:] A single battering ram—or a strong shoulder—will topple this.
"It's paper," Ronan spat, pulling his foot free. "We might as well hang a curtain."
Captain Jory, the commander of Wynafryd's guard, stood beside him. He looked at the rotting wood and grimaced. "You can't fix this in a day, Lord Ronan. To quell a breach, you need stone blocks, masons, mortar... that takes weeks. We should retreat to the Keep."
"The Keep holds a hundred people," Ronan said. "There are four hundred in the village. If we retreat, the Red Hands burn their homes and steal their winter grain. I will not sacrifice my economy for my safety."
"Then you die," Jory said bluntly. "You cannot build a wall in a day."
"I can't stack a wall in a day," Ronan corrected. "But I can pour one."
Ronan sprinted back to the furnace. The heat was still radiating from the brickwork.
"Kennos!" Ronan shouted. "The slag pile! The waste from the iron smelting. Grind it down. I want dust."
"The... garbage, my Lord?" Kennos asked, bewildered.
"It's not garbage. It's silica and alumina," Ronan muttered. He turned to Varrick. "And the lime-kiln. Take the limestone we use for flux. Burn it. I want Quicklime. White powder. Tons of it."
"And the grey earth from the river bank?" Varrick asked, remembering Ronan's strange obsession with the clay deposits.
"Yes. It's volcanic ash. Pozzolana. Get the carts."
Ronan grabbed a stick and drew a diagram in the dirt for the carpenters.
"I don't need you to build a wall," Ronan told them. "I need you to build a box for a wall. Two fences of wooden planks, separated by three feet. Hollow in the middle."
By midday, the village perimeter looked insane.
The peasants had erected a double-layer wooden fence. It looked flimsy. The Manderly guards were laughing openly now.
"He builds a fence to hold back a bandit army," one knight jested. "Does he think they are rabbits?"
But near the river, the scene was different.
Ronan had commandeered the large mixing troughs usually used for tanning leather.
"Lime," Ronan ordered.
Men dumped sacks of white quicklime powder into the trough.
"Ash and Slag."
Grey dust clouded the air.
"Aggregate."
They shoveled in rough river stones and gravel.
"Water. Saltwater."
They poured the buckets.
The reaction was immediate and violent. The quicklime hissed as it hit the water. Steam erupted from the troughs. The mixture began to bubble and boil without fire.
[Chemistry Check: Exothermic Reaction]
[Temperature: 150°F]
"It's alive!" a peasant shouted, backing away. "It's boiling!"
"It's chemistry!" Ronan yelled over the hissing sound. "Stir it! Keep it moving! If it sets in the trough, it stays there forever!"
They used long wooden paddles to churn the grey, steaming sludge.
"Pour it!"
Bucket chains formed. Men ran with heavy buckets of the grey slurry to the wooden forms. They dumped it into the hollow space between the planks.
Sloooosh.
It sounded like mud. It looked like vomit.
Wynafryd Manderly came out to watch, holding a perfumed handkerchief to her nose. "You are filling your walls with... mud, Lord Ronan? Is this another one of your tricks?"
"This is the trick that built an Empire," Ronan said, watching the level of the grey sludge rise between the planks. "The Valyrians used magic to fuse stone. I use ash."
They worked through the night. The Red Hands were only hours away now. The scouts reported torches on the horizon.
The entire village perimeter was enclosed in the wooden forms. Inside, tons of the mixture sat, heavy and wet.
The Morning of the Raid
The sun rose cold and pale. The ground was frozen hard.
A horn blew in the distance. Three short blasts. Raiders.
"They are here," Captain Jory said, drawing his sword. He looked at the wooden planks surrounding the village. "And we are hiding behind firewood."
"Strip the forms," Ronan ordered.
"My Lord?"
"Take the wood off. Now."
The carpenters used crowbars. They pried the wooden planks away.
The wood fell with a clatter.
Behind the wood, the "mud" was gone.
Standing in its place was a solid, seamless, grey monolith. It wasn't pretty. It was rough, pebbled with river stones, and grey as a storm cloud. But it was hard.
Ronan walked up to the new wall. He drew his dagger and slashed it against the surface. Sparks flew. The blade didn't even scratch it.
[Tech Unlock: Roman Concrete]
[Hardness: Superior to Sandstone]
[Durability: Increases over time (years)]
Captain Jory walked up to the wall. He punched it. He hurt his hand. He looked at Ronan, his eyes wide.
"You turned mud into stone," Jory whispered. "Overnight."
"It's called Concrete," Ronan said. He pointed to the top of the wall, which was wide enough for two men to stand abreast. "And it gives us the high ground."
He turned to his new militia. They were staring at the wall they had built, realizing that for the first time in their lives, they had a barrier that couldn't be burned.
"Get up there," Ronan commanded. "Bring the Arbalests. Bring the bolts."
He climbed the ladder to the top of the concrete rampart. In the distance, emerging from the mist of the Wolfswood, came the Red Hands.
There were sixty of them. Hard men in rusted mail and boiled leather, carrying axes and torches. They saw the grey wall and paused. They had expected a wooden palisade they could burn.
Instead, they faced a fortress that hadn't been there yesterday.
Ronan looked down at the smooth grey stone under his boots.
"Let them knock," Ronan said.
Status Update:
• Defense: Level 2 (Stone Walls).
• Morale: High (The "Magic" Wall).
• Tech: Concrete unlocked.