The Fire Queen

Chapter 65

The amount of work that Brumli and the other dwarves were doing for me was causing me to feel increasingly guilty about my willingness to deny them the chance to return to Grunheim that I had expressed to Queen Herana when I had visited Theran. I made a vow to myself that I would do everything in power to get Grunheim back for them once the locomotives and the rail network were done, and with that goal in mind I asked Brumli if he would look into the possibility of using the steam powered mechanism that powered the locomotive for other purposes, in particular our ability to use it to drill down into the ground. Brumli answered that building a drilling mechanism that would be driven by steam from the boiler would be easy and that he could have one ready quickly. The drill was not for me, it was for Kandalar. With work on the steam locomotive and the rail lines underway I needed something else to turn my attention to. Philip was right, I couldn't stay out of realm politics, doing what I felt I had to do for the dwarves necessitated that I once again wade into the geopolitics of the realm.

I spoke with Boris and told him to use his diplomatic contacts to find out all he could about what Herana was offering to King Fazir, the new king of Kandalar, then I summoned Alfred to the palace to help me put together a counter proposal for me to present to King Fazir. Part of that proposal was going to be the supply of steam powered mechanical drills. The purpose of the drills was to allow for aggressive exploration for underground water sources. For centuries they had dug wells across Kandalar in the hopes of finding water; their efforts proved largely unsuccessful and the people of Kandalar continued to live largely as nomads, following the migration routes of their native herds.

Approaching Kandalar with this proposal meant setting up a direct confrontation with Theran, which I was prepared to do if it was what I had to do to get back for the dwarves what was rightfully theirs. A confrontation with Herana was probably inevitable anyway, she had grand ambitions of making herself the supreme force in the realm and she had identified me as an impediment to her ambitions. I didn't know what the nature of that conflict would be. I doubted that it would be a direct military confrontation; Theran didn't have a large military and in the past whenever they had been forced to take military action they had done so as a last resort and had had to send their slaves to the battlefield. The Undrian slaves weren't good soldiers. In the Great War Theran had sent one hundred thousand slaves to the battlefield to help Dranii and less than half of them returned having been thrown into battle against armies that were badly depleted from years of war. After what we had done to Volstaff's army I couldn't see her wanting to fight a war with us, and thanks to our increased agriculture yields she couldn't hurt us by withholding grain exports to Aseron.

The more I thought about our two kingdoms' standing the less I thought of Queen Herana as a potential threat that I needed to figure out how to deal with, freeing me to focus on other things. I continued working with Uraia to survey the kingdom and I made several trips north to talk with Bandor about what the kingdom's relationship with the Okwari would be going forward. Having experienced the benefits that trading with the rest of the kingdom had to offer for the Okwari, Bandor was interested in other opportunities within the kingdom that the Okwari could take advantage of. Of particular interest to me were the many medicinal concoctions that the Okwari produced from the wild plants that grew in the Northlands. These medicines could treat pain, fever, wounds, burns, stomach ailments and skin irritations as well as several other ailments. I told Bandor that there would be high demand for those medicines so they should start cultivating those plants as soon as possible. Bandor was also interested in the water towers which I was happy to build for them on the condition that he allowed me to build a school for the Okwari children to attend. Bandor was still apprehensive about the school but those apprehensions were alleviated to a degree when, on one of his trips to the capital city, I introduced him to the woman who I wanted to teach at the school. Her name was Sarah and between me and Uraia we had managed to teach her the language and on one of Bandor's visits to the capital city I introduced the two of them and they spoke in Okwari, which softened Bandor considerably on the idea of the school. He softened on some of the other ideas I had for bringing development to the north as well, like bringing the Okwari villages closer together to promote ease of access and to concentrate productivity. Selling buffalos in auction in the capital city had generated more than enough funds to cover the cost of the building materials needed for the relocation, but I told Bandor that he didn't need to worry about that, that if they decided to go ahead with the relocation I would provide the materials that they needed.

The Okwari seat on the Governing Council remained vacated; Uraia didn't want to return to it and I didn't want Uraia to return to it, and with Bandor being free to talk with me directly anytime he wanted there wasn't much need for the Okwari to have a council representative. The rest of the Governing Council was essential. After surveying the best routes from Glendale to the state capitals it was the Governing Council with whom we coordinated when the time came to start laying the tracks that the steam locomotives would be traveling along. The blacksmiths and woodworkers kept churning out rails and sleepers which were laid by a conscription workforce comprised of citizens from across the kingdom. The idea of bringing in slaves from Undria was suggested to me to help with the expedited schedule that I had imposed on everyone, a suggestion that I was quick to dismiss. Even if building this rail network took longer than I wished, I would not resort to the use of slaves.