The Steam Age: Gears and Bones

Chapter 41

Before the reconnaissance squad set off, Perfit had the flag captain stop the team in a grove of low pine trees about a mile from the outer defensive positions of the pass.

The pine forest was sparse, with thin trunks, but enough to block the view from the direction of the pass.

The carriage was driven to the deepest part of the forest, where the warhorses were tied to tree trunks with the reins loosely wrapped twice, ready to be untied in case of any emergency.

The routed soldiers were arranged to sit in two rows with their backs to the tree trunks at the edge of the pine forest, with their guns on their knees and the muzzles pointing towards the pass. They were not allowed to speak, light a fire, or stand up and move around.

The flag captain selected four of the most experienced knights from the reconnaissance team: two with swords and roses, and two with Romulus Grey Armor.

All four were veterans of urban ruin warfare, knowing how to move silently between buildings where there might be ambushes, how to determine how long a corpse had been dead, and how to remain calm and observe when they heard unusual noises instead of running away.

Perfit leaned against the edge of the carriage and roughly sketched a map of the pass outpost and its surrounding terrain on the frozen ground with his fingertip, pointing out the locations of the main outpost, the two side towers, the outer moat, and the barbed wire. Then he looked up at the four knights and said, "Focus on three things. First, are there any living people—whether they are defenders or survivors?"

Second, are there any signs that the outpost has been occupied by infected individuals?

Third, determine if the pass from the outpost towards Romulus is still passable. If any situation arises that is uncertain, return and report; do not proceed further without authorization.

The four knights obeyed the order and quickly disappeared behind the bushes at the edge of the pine forest.

The wait took longer than Perfitt had anticipated.

She sat on the edge of the carriage, her fingers unconsciously stroking the hilt of the dagger at her waist, her gaze fixed on the hazy horizon in the direction of the pass.

Chertzov stood beside her, his hands behind his back, still standing at attention, but his calloused hands were clenched tightly behind his back, his knuckles white.

Ludwig did not sit down, but stood at the edge of the pine forest, one hand on the hilt of his sword, and had not changed his posture since the reconnaissance team left.

Belfast stood half a step behind Perfitt, protecting her safety.

Soon, the reconnaissance team returned.

When the four knights emerged silently from behind the bushes, the sky had not changed at all; the gray sunlight was still evenly spread across the frozen ground.

Their movements still retained the alertness characteristic of reconnaissance soldiers, but the expressions on their faces were no longer the tense vigilance they had before setting off, but something deeper and more indescribable.

The flag captain led the way, walked up to Perfit, gave a brief salute, and then reported in a low but undeniably heavy voice: "There's no one at the outpost. No living people, no infected, nothing. The garrison at the pass has withdrawn."

He paused, as if he needed extra strength to say what he was about to say: "There are signs of fighting both inside and outside the outpost. Not the kind against the infected—it's regular army fighting."

The command post door was blown open, and there were gaps in the tower where shells had hit directly.

We found bodies in the main building and the trenches, all in Ross military uniforms, and they had been dead for at least several weeks. They weren't infected; they were killed by gunfire and artillery shells.

Perfit stood up from the edge of the carriage, gripping and releasing the hilt of his dagger.

A clash between regular armies—the Rus' army clashed with another regular army at a border pass, and that other army could only be the army of Holy Romulus.

This explains why there were no infected people at the outpost.

These people were not infected after the outbreak of wilt disease, but had already died before that.

They were killed by their neighboring country, with whom they were supposed to fight the winter and plague together.

Cherzov's voice came from beside her, hoarse as if he had sand in his throat: "Is the pass still passable?"

The flag captain nodded: "The passage itself hasn't collapsed. There are ruts and footprints on the road, but they're all old. No one has passed through here for at least several weeks."

Perfitter was silent for a few seconds, then turned around and walked toward the carriage.

She walked to the large pine box reinforced with iron bars, took the key from her collar, inserted it into the lock, and turned it open.

The sound of the spring snapping open was particularly crisp in the pine forest.

The box lid was opened, and the parts of the Steam Knight Armor were neatly arranged under the oil paper. Each piece of armor was cleaned spotlessly, and the metal surface gleamed with a cold, faint light in the dim light of the overcast day.

The parts of the Steam Knight's armor had been taken out and thoroughly cleaned the day before when the camp was set up – the black bloodstains on the armor plates were repeatedly wiped clean with cloths soaked in hydrogen peroxide, the joint bearings were re-lubricated, and the furnace of the steam core was also cleaned out.

Chernzov frowned slightly when he saw her open the box, but did not stop her.

Ludwig turned around at the edge of the pine forest, watching Perfit take the first breastplate component out of the box, and finally spoke: "Didn't the Steam Knight run out of fuel?"

"It's already been cleaned up," Perfit replied without turning his head, inserting the second chest armor component into the locking slot. "It can't start without fuel, but that's not a problem."

As she spoke, she drew her golden staff from her waist and picked up a fist-sized piece of gravel from the edge of the carriage with her left hand—it was an ordinary gravel that she had dug out of the frozen ground when she set up camp yesterday. It was grayish-white, with a rough surface, and had nothing special about it except that it was hard enough.

Perfit held the shard in his left palm, and pressed the end of his right hand's Philosopher's Stone against the surface of the stone. The Philosopher's Stone shard glowed with a very faint red light the moment they made contact.

The alchemy was activated.

The gravel disintegrated rapidly in the red light, not breaking into large pieces, but decomposing layer by layer from the surface into extremely fine gray powder, which then quickly reassembled in the red light.

Fine black lines emerge between the powder particles—the result of carbon being separated from other elements in the stone through alchemy and then re-aggregated in a specific lattice structure.

The process lasted for a moment. When the red light faded, the grayish-white pebble in her palm had turned into a regular black cuboid with a smooth and dense surface, a hard texture, and sharp edges. Its size was just right to fit into the furnace of the steam core.

A compressed anthracite.

It is not an industrial product that is dug out of a mine and then washed, sorted and pressed into shape, but an alchemical creation made by directly separating carbon elements from ordinary stones, compressing and recombining them.

Its purity is higher than any natural anthracite, it produces almost no smoke when burned, but its calorific value is several times higher.

Perfit handed the freshly refined compressed anthracite block to Belfast, then continued assembling the steam knight armor.