3 Chap 3

The one magic item I could not operate at all without was a case of Portable Holes. They were expensive and hard to find, but I eventually secured 12 portable holes. A portable hole contains an extra-dimensional cylinder, 6 feet across and 10 feet deep, for a total volume of 282.7 cubic feet. It folds up into a patch of cloth equivalent to a pocket handkerchief.

By using these magic tools I acquired the base ingredients for ammunition. Minus the lead shot and brass cases, both of which could be recycled after battle, acquiring ammunition in the field would be tedious if we couldn't make it at base camp.

One portable hole can contain up to 8006 litres of material. The ideal recipe for black powder is 75% Saltpetre, 15% charcoal from softwood, and 10% sulphur, by weight.

Sulphur was the easiest to get, the lowest requirement by weight, and the heaviest per unit of volume. I sent a single portable hole with some guards to the closest hot-spring town and told them to collect/purchase as much sulphur as they could carry, on top of filling the portable hole.

Charcoal and Saltpetre were harder to get hold of in quantity. This culture had no use for potassium nitrate, and only curious alchemists even knew what it was. I found one such person and contracted him to take 6 portable holes, a dozen builders, and some guards, to the nearest large bat cave and build an extraction facility there. He brought a few of his students along to help as well.

The method he had used to extract it for his own research was quite sufficient for now, and would be faster to set up than a purely mineral process. It involved collecting bat guano, soaking it in a tank of water for a few days, then scooping out the guano, draining the water into drying trays and collecting the white crystals left after the water had evaporated.

To produce at the scale I required, the team I sent would have to build a rather large version of the alchemists' personal setup. I also allotted them a budget for protective equipment and medicine.

I would have to handle the charcoal production personally. This society was quite familiar with the production and use of charcoal, but nobody produced it in the kind of quantity or quality I needed. Most metal smiths and smelting operations had their own charcoal mounds, or a smith heavy town would have a community charcoal furnace big enough for whoever was using it that week.

What I decided to do was find a lumber town that had fallen on hard times, and convert their industry to making charcoal, using the 'retort' method.

I had one of my trainees whose family were blacksmiths help me build a scale model of the retort system I would be selling to whatever logging village we settled on. The essential concept for this retort was to use a non-combustion chamber within a combustion chamber to burn wood without consuming it. The gasses released by the process would be piped into the combustion chamber to assist the process and increase efficiency.

When we eventually found the village I brought along a contracted group of blacksmiths and 4 portable holes filled with the component parts of the retorts they would be assembling there.

Some tense negotiations, and a demonstration of the scale model later, we managed a contractual deal for the mass production and sale of charcoal powder to the military, care of me.

The town, a little depressed of late due to lack of business, shot into action, clearing land for the retorts, collecting wood for the production process, and designating areas for future expansion.

Two weeks later we began the first large burn, which would create almost half a portable hole's worth of powdered charcoal. I left three of the portable holes with a military attache now stationed at the village, with instructions to send each one as soon as it was full.

With the three main consumables sorted I had two portable holes left to collect the other components. Most complex of which was Lead (II) azide. It's delicate to make, potentially dangerous, and must be portioned out as it's being made.

Nobody knew what it was, of course, but with a group of alchemists at my disposal, it didn't take long. For people like them, just knowing something could exist was enough for them to figure out how.

I'm not a chemist, but I absorbed enough knowledge in my life to know that the main components were highly toxic on their own, especially sodium azide. Lead (II) nitrate is also toxic, but not acutely so.

The budget for glassware and rubber doubled and I set them to work on figuring out the most efficient production method. I also provided them access to charcoal and potassium nitrate. They would need charcoal for breathing filters, and the saltpetre for making nitric acid.

The other components of ammunition were paper, moulded card, lard, beeswax, and gelatin glue. The paper would make up the bulk of each shotgun shell and be consumed upon firing, leaving the brass head behind for reuse. The card would be moulded into cups. Some small, which would hold the primer pellet and would also be consumed upon firing. And some large, which would hold the projectiles in place in the shotgun shells.

Lard and beeswax were melted together and used as both a protective coating for the shotgun shells and a lubricant in the grooves of the sidearm projectiles. Gelatin glue would be used to hold the paper and card components together and fixed to the brass cases.

From an organizational perspective, the task of making ammunition is a battle in itself. So many people are involved in making each component, it's unlikely most of them even know what part they play or how important. But if any one of them stopped, it would hobble the entire operation.

Acquiring the brass cases and lead projectiles was actually the easiest part of this process. I had people going around to everywhere, collecting waste materials from other creations, and carting them to a single small town. I had essentially contracted the entire town to make brass cases and lead projectiles in bulk to my specifications.

I needed a huge number of them made up front, but once my battalion was in the field we would be doing our own recycling. The Mending cantrip would return brass to re-loadable condition, and lead would be dug out from the enemy, walls and ground to be recast and reused.

With this strategy the necessity of brand new metallic components would be minimized. Only the explosive, paper, card, adhesive, and lubricant components would be unavoidable expenses. Fortunately they were also very low-volume components, and the remaining extra-dimensional storage was enough space for them.

I eventually filled the two remaining portable holes with an assortment of cases containing all these components. We would make black powder from the others at base camp.

This system shortened the immediate supply chain for ammunition from a long and dangerous slog through enemy territory to a short jog through a secured locale. It also prevented deterioration of ammunition over time, and reduced danger of spontaneous chain explosion of stored ammo.

By the time we finally got the first batch of firearms we had been training the soldiers on assembly of ammunition and had a fair stockpile of practise shells. These were made with the same brass collars, but had a very small powder load, and soft wax balls coated in gelatin instead of lead cubes.

You still didn't want to get hit by one on bare flesh or especially the eyes, so those playing marauders in the simulation wore thick leather costumes with mesh screens for the eyes, and protective goggles on their faces. All of my soldiers had seen at least one marauder in combat, so simulating their movement was not a difficult task.

In this way we trained in trench warfare, moving as a unit, moving as multiple units in concert, rapid bunker deployment, and survival. It was also the best way to train them in the operation of the guns under stressful action.

The sidearms were a bit more difficult to train in the simulations, but they were designed with the same manual of action. If you could operate the trench-gun, you could operate your pistol. This was especially helpful when training the maintenance of the firearms. The trench-gun action was just a scaled-up version of the pistol.

Every soldier was required to be capable of doing a dry barrel scrub of both barrels on either firearm in under 12 seconds. And a barrel clear in case of squib or broken case in under 30 seconds. Being black powder firearms, it was especially important to clean them often, lest they jam up with residue.

We had to initiate a counting policy for the dry scrub. Each barrel would be cleaned after every 24 shots for the trench-gun, and every 12 for the pistol. The structure of the moulded card shotcup, and the smooth bore surface of the barrel, made the trench-gun easier to clean, and slowed the buildup significantly.

Six months since I had been summoned, I finally had a battalion of trench-gunners ready for a combat exercise. Our supply system was fully stocked and arrangements were made for long-distance transport of future deliveries. And my core command group was actively considering the ideal location for a recapture. I was hoping to retake a castle town to use as a base of future operations.

I didn't get to. As we were considering this, word came of a ship arriving from the west, full of refugees. Then a few more. They spoke of a dark army from the west, a marauding horde of misshapen men wrecking everything in their path.

I knew what this meant. Fortunately my forces were all as far west on the continent was was practical, so we were within 2 days march of where the refugees landed. The marauders hadn't displayed any strategic landing policy in the east, coming ashore at whatever point of land was closest to their source.

The refugees had landed at a port town near the westernmost area, because the first point they saw was dominated by sharp rocks. This would not stop the marauders.

I dispatched my battalion to the area, and began constructing earthen fortresses onto and into the peninsula. We blocked off anything climbable with solid walls, murder-holes, and drop-traps. Several watchtowers were constructed at the furthest peaks as well as off the side a ways. I gave the soldiers stationed on these towers the handful of paper birds I managed to acquire.

It was three weeks since the first refugees arrived, who were followed by a dozen or so more ships afterwards, when the first ship of marauders was spotted. This was the first time I had personally seen one up close. It was bizarre.

As they unloaded from the ship, which by the way was not designed for beach landings, they surged forward with purpose, but not with any strategy. They climbed straight up the first cliff they encountered, and were of course shot straight off easily by sentries from a distance.

So began the defence of the Western Shores.