Rewrite That Witch
CH305 · Rewrite
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Chapter 305: Chemical Breakthrough

Four days since the witches and the First Army had shipped out. By the plan’s schedule, they would reach the outskirts of Silver City tomorrow afternoon.

Honey’s flying messengers made the separation manageable — letters arrived every day, one each from Iron Axe, Anna, and Nightingale, the birds completing a relay that was, Roland had to admit, more reliable than it had any right to be. Not so different from text messages, he thought, if you didn’t mind a six-hour delay and feathers. In a few months, with more birds trained to the same routes, it might actually work as a communications network.

What he couldn’t explain was Carter.

In Nightingale’s absence, the Chief Knight had taken over castle security — a return to his original function, which Roland had expected to produce, at most, professional competence. Instead, Carter had been radiantly, inexplicably happy for four days running. Bright-eyed at morning briefings, quick to smile during inspections. It was unsettling in the way that unexplained goodwill is always a little unsettling.

Returning to guard duty, Roland thought. Really?

He set the question aside and opened Karl van Bate’s construction report.

The numbers were extraordinary.

The steel bridge across the Redwater River was complete — a structure assembled in sections on land and then lifted into place using the two floating islands Lotus had raised in the river’s course. Measured by any future standard it was narrow and crude, theoretically underbuilt, the kind of project an infrastructure engineer would use as a cautionary example. But here, now: a hundred meters of smooth steel crossing the Redwater, wide enough for two carriages abreast, high enough at its lowest point to let an upriver sailboat pass. Nothing like it existed anywhere else in Graycastle.

The new city wall was complete as well — an earthen ring that more than doubled Border Town’s enclosed area. The original settlement was now, functionally, an inner city. Roland had been thinking about concentric expansion for months, the kind of growth that could eventually require a second ring, then a third. Seven rings, he thought, allowing himself the indulgence. An imperial capital.

The Kingdom Avenue extension was the third item: Lotus had cut through a spur of the Impassable Mountain Range, straightening the road by removing the obstacle entirely rather than routing around it. The journey between Border Town and Longsong Stronghold was now measurably shorter.

“What should Lotus build next?” Karl asked. He had been barely containing his admiration for the last ten minutes. He’d already submitted a formal proposal to integrate Lotus into the Ministry of Construction and appoint her as deputy minister — the kind of administrative enthusiasm Roland had learned to interpret as genuine respect.

Roland had been thinking through the candidates.

The seaport project was one: finding a natural opening in the southern mountain ridge and widening it through to the coastline would give the Western Territory its first direct sea access. Significant.

The residential expansion was another. Winter was coming, and nearly three thousand people were currently without adequate housing — the refugee influx from the Eastern Region had outpaced brick construction. Wooden sheds and lean-tos wouldn’t hold against a Western Territory winter. They needed cave rooms, thick walls, heated kangs.

The third was the dry dock: Roland wanted gunboats, and gunboats required facilities to build them — a dry dock carved from the western riverbank of the Redwater, controlled by a lift gate that could manage water flow.

Housing first. He’d made the decision before Karl finished asking. The refugees had come to Border Town on Roland’s invitation, drawn by promises and placards and Theo’s careful persuasion. If they froze, that was not misfortune — that was a failure of obligation. You didn’t invite people in and then let them die of cold.

“The old serf shantytown,” Roland said, pointing at the map. “It’s away from the city wall’s defense line, and the Impassable Mountains will block the worst of the wind.”

Karl noted it and bowed. After he left, Roland leaned back in his chair and had approximately three minutes to contemplate a nap before Kyle Sichi appeared at the door.

“Your Highness,” the Chief Alchemist said. “The large-scale acid production method you requested has been successfully developed.”

The exhaustion fell away.

Roland had been to the riverfront laboratory dozens of times, but Laboratory Five had been rearranged into something new: a cluster of lead jars each two people tall, connected by smooth pipework — Anna had cut the joints, the surfaces clean and precise in a way that cast pipe never was. A brick kiln squatted beside them, and the whole assembly smelled faintly of something sharp that Roland couldn’t place.

A young man bowed as they entered. Very young — early twenties, maybe less.

“Chavez?”

The young man’s surprise was genuine. “You remember my name, Your Highness.”

“Mr. Sichi mentions you frequently.” Roland put a hand briefly on the young man’s shoulder. “Keep at it.” Then, to Kyle: “How does it work?”

Kyle stroked his beard with the satisfaction of a man whose theory had proven itself in iron and acid. “The purified sulfur burns in the kiln. The gas passes through the pipes into the lead jar — only lead resists acid’s corrosion without degrading. At the top of the jar, nitro-sulphuric acid trickles down continuously. It meets the rising hot sulfur dioxide, and the heat drives a decomposition — the nitric acid breaks into nitrogen oxide. The nitrogen oxide then combines with water and the sulfur dioxide to generate sulfuric acid, which drains from the hole at the base.”

“The key,” Chavez added quietly, “is that the nitrogen oxide isn’t consumed by the reaction. It only carries oxygen. Once started, the process continues without adding more nitric acid.”

Roland knocked against the side of a lead jar. Hollow. Large. This is it. Mass production of sulfuric acid was the gateway to mass production of smokeless powder — which meant a new generation of weapons and ammunition that would make everything he’d built so far look like a prototype. “Output?”

“Four times what dry distillation produces in a full week,” Kyle said. “And this is the testing scale. A larger jar would proportionally increase the output.”

“When Anna returns, we build a full-scale plant immediately.” Roland was already thinking about the Soraya problem — lead was heavy and expensive, and there was a limit to how large you could make a lead vessel before it became impractical. But Soraya’s coating could make iron acid-resistant. Iron vessels at industrial scale. “If lead is insufficient, iron with Miss Soraya’s coating will serve.”

Kyle nodded along, visibly pleased — and then said something that stopped Roland’s smile cold.

“Now that I’ve accomplished the large-scale acid production, and all five laboratories are filled with apprentices — Your Highness, can you give me the Intermediate Chemistry as you promised?”

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