Chapter 35: The Iron Lesson

Arthur stood his ground at the mouth of the cavern. The freezing wind whipped at his cloak, but inside his mind, the situation was a simple equation.

He thought he had leverage, authority, and logic.

He only needed to present the variables.

But that was a grave mistake.

“I am Arthur Ashborn, the son of Lord Roderick Ashborn,” he projected, forcing his posture straight and pitching his voice into the deepest, most authoritative register his thirteen-year-old vocal cords could manage. “You are trespassing on sovereign land. However, I recognize your predicament. Surrender this cavern, and you will be permitted to—”

Thwip. Riiiiip.

Arthur didn’t even see the movement.

He just felt a sudden, violent tug on his sleeve, followed instantly by a line of white-hot fire tearing across his upper arm.

The rusted iron bolt hadn’t hit square, but it grazed him hard enough to shear through his heavy wool cloak and slice a deep, burning groove into his flesh before shattering against the stone wall behind him.

For a fraction of a second, his mind registered what just happened. Then, the frail nervous system of a thirteen-year-old boy caught up.

The shock of the sudden, stinging pain completely bypassed his adult composure.

He stumbled backward, clutching his bleeding arm.

Blood began soaking through the shredded wool of his sleeve, warm against the freezing cold.

He opened his mouth to shout a command, but what tore from his throat wasn’t a roar of a noble defiance.

It was a high, thin, childish yelp.

What a disgrace.

For a second, the cavern was dead silent.

Then, a low chuckle echoed from the shadows.

It multiplied, spreading through the dark tunnels until the entire mercenary camp was roaring with coarse, mocking laughter.

Arthur gritted his teeth, his face flushing hot with humiliation. In his head, he was still the brilliant engineer. But to them, he was exactly what he sounded like: a kid who had just been swatted.

“Gods damn it, Jorek!” the massive mercenary boss barked, stepping forward and backhanding a twitchy, rat-faced man in the shadows.

The smaller man stumbled, his crossbow lowering.

The boss shifted back his attention towards Arthur, not an ounce of remorse on his scarred face. He gestured dismissively with his heavy gauntlet.

“Calm down, boy, it’s just a scratch,” the boss sneered, his voice dripping with condescension. Take your little scrape and run back to your nursemaid before we decide to keep you for ransom. Now get off our porch.”

A terrifying hiss of steel cut through the laughter.

Elias moved.

He didn’t shout.

He didn’t threaten.

He simply stepped in front of Arthur, his longsword clearing its scabbard in a single fluid motion.

The servant’s aura shifted from a disciplined guard to an apex predator unchained.

“Elias,” Arthur gasped, gripping his bleeding arm. He grabbed the hem of the servant’s cloak.

Elias didn’t look down. “They drew noble blood, Young Master. They die.”

“No,” Arthur hissed, swallowing his pride and forcing his breathing under control.

He looked up the laughing men, committing their faces to memory.

Diplomacy was officially dead.

“Stand down. We are leaving.”

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Back at the estate, Marcus tightened the linen bandage around Arthur’s bicep, pulling it just firmly enough to make the boy wince.

The High Mage let out a dry, raspy chuckle, shaking his head as he reached for a pair of iron shears to cut the excess cloth.

“I must admit, it is a fascinating paradox,” Marcus mused, his ember-colored eyes entirely devoid of sympathy.

“You possess the intellect to deconstruct and rewrite the foundational laws of our magic system, yet you possess the profound stupidity to walk up to twenty cornered, starving cutthroats and politely ask them to vacate the premises.”

Arthur didn’t respond. He sat perfectly still in the oversized leather chair, staring into the roaring hearth. The humiliation of his childish scream at the cavern was gone, replaced entirely by the cold, detached calculation of an engineer dissecting a structural failure.

“Diplomacy was an error,” Arthur stated flatly. His voice carrying an eerie calm. “I won’t make it again. Elias, gather damp pine boughs and wet canvas.”

Elias, standing rigidly by the library door with his arms crossed, frowned. “For what purpose, Young Master?”

“We are going to choke them,” Arthur replied, not looking away from the fire. “If we burn them in an enclosed space and deliberately restrict the flow of air, it will produce a heavy toxic gas. We wait till they are in deep sleep, seal the draft, and let the smoke do the rest.”

Marcus exchanged glances with Elias before affirming with a slight nod.

Hours later, the freezing midnight air bit at Arthur’s face as he crouched in the snow outside the upper mine.

True to his design, the smoldering pile of damp wood at the cavern’s mouth produced barely any flame, but it billowed thick, heavy smoke.

The heavy canvas tarp Elias had stacked over the entrance forced the draft entirely inward, sucking the smoke deep into the tunnels.

They sat in absolute silence.

First came a few muffled coughs.

Then, the chaotic, panicked sound of men trying to scramble to their feet, followed by the unmistakable thuds of armored bodies collapsing helplessly against the stone.

Elias tore the tarp away, letting the violent winter wind flush the cavern.

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Tying wet cloths over his face, he rushed into the dark, dragging the unconscious mercenaries out into the biting snow one by one.

The servant dropped the massive mercenary boss onto the frozen mud.

Without a word.

He drew his steel dagger, the blade gleaming in the pale moonlight, and stepped over the boss’s chest to finish the job.

“Stopppp!” Arthur commanded, his voice tight.

Elias paused, the tip of the dagger resting an inch from the man’s exposed throat. “They drew noble blood. The penalty is death.”

“Killing them is a waste of resources,” Arthur said, forcing his tone to remain steady and pragmatic.

“We need to drain the lower shafts and move tons of coal in freezing conditions. These men are already acclimated to the cold, and they are expendable. We chain them, and they work for their lives.”

Elias stared at his young master, his veteran eyes searching the boy’s face.

After a long, agonizing moment, he sheathed his dagger. “As you command.”

Arthur turned away, exhaling a shaky breath into his scarf.

He told himself it was just a matter of resource management.

He told himself it was the logical choice to accelerate their plan.

But as he hid his trembling hands inside the cloak, the truth was much simpler.

He was an engineer from a civilized world, no matter how cold his logic was.

He simply wasn’t ready to become a murderer.

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Arthur didn’t sleep.

Or rather, he couldn’t sleep.

The ride back to the estate had been completely silent.

As they slipped through the side gates to avoid waking the household, Arthur turned to his servant.

“Take two of the estate guards with you,” he whispered, his breath pluming in the dark. “Take the mercenaries down to the underground cellars.” He paused, looking down at his trembling hands.

“And Elias… stop by the carpenter’s shed. Bring me blocks of soft pine and a carving kit. Quietly.”

Elias hadn’t asked questions this time. He just obeyed.

For the rest of the night, Arthur sat at his oak desk, his injured arm throbbing beneath its fresh bandages.

To stop his hands from shaking, he needed them to work.

He focused entirely on the geometry of the wooden blocks—the draft angles, the filleted corners, and the small details. Letting the repetitive, precise physical labor drown out the memory of the mercenaries choking in the dark.