The guardsmen-turned-scouts carefully approached the campfires they had spotted over an hour ago. They had left their horses tied up far behind and were slowly inching forward through the forest in the opposite direction of the road.
Alistair, the leader of the group, had a look of extreme concentration on his face though it was hard to see it in the twilight and thick brush.
“Stay here, Jeb, and wait for me,” the man spoke in low tones. “I’m going to try to get just a bit closer.”
Half an hour later, he was nearly to the edge of the trees facing the clearing. He was hidden in a clump of bushes that seemed dense from the top but had obviously been used by animals as a resting place recently. I can’t see the whole camp, but it looks like there’s twelve - no, thirteen fires. He proceeded to count the men around the fires. Eight men around that fire. Ten there, and thirteen there. Maybe I can move around and get a better angle on the other side of the camp.
A snapping branch behind him froze both his movements and his brain for a heart-wrenching, lengthy moment.
The sound of splashing water followed. To Alistair’s horror, his leg soon felt a warm liquid stream hitting his calf through the bush above. Terrified, he clenched his jaw and forced himself to stay quiet.
The scout heard a relieved sigh from above, and his focused ears caught the sound of footsteps moving off to the side.
It took Alistair another five minutes after the sentry left before he could work up the nerve to turn and check behind him. You can do this, he told himself as he carefully crawled back to where Jeb was waiting impatiently.
“Let’s get back home,” Alistair urgently ordered his companion. “They need to be told what we are up against.”
“Sounds good to me,” Jeb responded quietly. “But why do you smell so awful?”
---
Samantha laid out the now-dried experimental twine on a flat rock while Jason watched. They had a small crowd gathered around them. It hadn’t taken long for the story to spread about the short brunette woman who wasted the precious saltpeter and almost got executed for it and the story got juicier with every retelling. The group whispered back and forth, hoping some more drama would unfold during today’s test.
Jason ignored them completely.
Samantha stepped forward and gingerly brought her candle near the fuse and looked up at Jason. He nodded. Stretching out her arm to light it from the furthest distance possible, she attempted to light the twine.
The flame caught, and a quick sizzling and sparking flame started making its way down the cord. It only took a few seconds for the short length to be completely consumed.
Samantha’s smile deflated as she turned to Jason. “I’m sorry, my lord. I really thought it would burn for longer, not disappear in a moment.”
She put a hopeful look on her face as she asked, “Is there any chance that the offer to be your assistant is still available? I promise I’ve learned from this mistake.”
Jason's smile grew. “First of all, yes, you’re hired,” then he thought for a moment.
“I’m not sure what position you’ll hold exactly, but I’m sure you’ll enjoy it,” he started off. Uh oh. That could be taken poorly.
“What I mean to say is that you’ll have more responsibilities than just an assistant.” Wait… that wasn’t any better! Jason thought frantically.
“I need you in a leadership role,” he recovered, not daring to look at the faces in the crowd. “And your experiment is not a failure. It’s a resounding success!”
“Thank you, my lord. But what do you mean?” she asked cautiously. “The twine will burn up long before it can be used to carry the flame to a gun.”
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“Yes, but you’ve created a fast-burning fuse,” he explained. “Is Otto here?” he called out into the crowd.
“I’m here,” the man called back.
“What do you think would happen if we filled a canister with gunpowder and scrap metal, nails, that sort of thing, then took one of these,” he gestured at where the fuse had burned through, “and stuck one end in the canister? Then we’d light the exposed end and throw it into the enemy formation.”
Otto’s eyes widened. “I certainly wouldn’t want to stand in those ranks and find out.”
“Neither would I, Otto. Neither would I. Let’s call it...” he added a dramatic pause that only he would appreciate. “Oh, I don’t know. Let’s call it a grenade.”
Jason turned back to the young lady, a proud smile now adorning her face. “Well done.”
“Thank you, my lord.”
“Some of the best inventions happen when you’re trying to create something else. Sometimes people think those discoveries don’t count. They’re idiots.” he stated flatly.
“Those serendipitous events don’t happen to people who aren’t trying new things, pushing the limits. You can’t really call it an accident when you were forging ahead and trying something new, even if it was intended for something else, right?”
“I suppose not, my lord,” she replied, looking a little lost.
“There you go. You’ll have a bright future if you don’t let the world crush your curiosity.”
---
The scouts pounded down the road into town in the early morning hours, pushing their horses to the limit for the last mile to get their message home just a bit faster.
They didn’t stop until they reached the smithy, assuming the town’s leaders were most likely to be in the vicinity. They weren’t wrong. Jason and Tyler stood helping a group of men go through the motions of loading and firing. The men weren’t using real powder or bullets, just imaginary ones due to the severe shortage of supplies. Even so, it was clear to their leaders that the new soldiers were improving, their actions becoming more ingrained and smooth.
They were in two-man teams. One loaded and held the weapon - the other handled the slow match and touched the flash pan filled with imaginary powder when the gunner said “now.”
It was a crude system, but Jason thought it was the best they could do without the time to build triggers, hammers, and a much more complicated mechanism. The assistants had all been told that they were also responsible for situational awareness and selecting targets. It was anyone’s guess as to how effective the system would be.
The scouts breathlessly informed the leaders of what they knew - a little over a hundred men, likely, and by now less than a day’s march away.
“Ring the bell, gather all the fighting men,” Tyler yelled at his guardsmen. “We’re going to war.”
---
It wasn’t just the men who gathered by the ironworks, but the entire town. It looked to Jason that every man, woman, and child showed up to see the group off. He climbed up onto a table that had been placed nearby. Slowly, the crowd quieted and turned expectant glances in his direction, feeling the fear and adrenaline of the moment.
He turned and pointed down the road leading out of town.
“Men with bloody swords and lit torches walk down that road,” he began. “They come to make what is ours, their own. Our homes, our choices, our sweat and tears.”
“We have worked long and hard to build this place up. Both those who came recently and those who came before - this land is ours. This place,” he continued, looking around at the new buildings and determined faces, “is worth our love, our devotion. The man and the woman beside you is worth this fight.
“The value of this place - where our children will grow up and have lives better than ours - can’t be priced in mere coin. It must be bought with courage.
“It is our destiny to live and build here and be a beacon of hope to the world. We are now just a glimpse of what will be a glorious city of the future. But you can be proud that today, you built the foundation of that future.
“We will not bow the knee to those who would enslave us.” Jason paused and someone in the crowd shouted, “No we won’t!”
“Do not underestimate the risks we face. We fight, but choose to fight on our own terms. Why?” The crowd listened, totally focused.
“One word: victory. We fight, our own way, for victory.” He took a breath. “Victory, as we fight tooth and nail. Victory, in spite of fear. Victory, as we do what our families and neighbors require so they may see a glorious future.
“However hard this road may be,” Jason pointed, “I see victory for us at the end. And when this town grows in the years to come - it will grow - and your new neighbors ask how we came into being, they will hear that this was the day that we stood up. This was the day we marched toward the challenge. This was the day that we, undaunted by the risks, held fast, unconquerable, and the enemy could do nothing but flee!”