He sighs and sits down across from me, not beside me like he usually does. “I finished your tube.” He finally starts to eat.
“You did? Wonderful! Can I see it?”
“Still cooling down.”
I nod. “We’ll need certain pieces of wood, too. Doesn’t have to be too hard, just easy to shape so it won’t take us days.”
He just grunts.
“Oh, and I tried to mix the powders like you suggested. It looks good so far. We just have to make sure it’s all really dry before we try another experiment. How can we make it dry faster?”
“Spread it out in the sun.”
“I’ll try that. Is that how you dry the pills?”
“No.”
Oh-kay. Hey, he’s allowed some bouts of moodiness.
We finish the meal in silence. Brank’ox goes down to his forge without a word, but there’s no more hammering from down there.
I keep hollowing out the wooden box, thinking that it might be ready a couple of days from now. I will need a lid for it, too.
Brank’ox stays away, and I finally put the work away, curl up on the furs, and close my eyes. The fire crackles beside me.
I wake up a little later. The fire hasn’t burned out yet. Brank’ox is sitting next to me, and he has his little harp in his hand.
He plays it slowly and quietly, making it sound sadder than usual.
Without a word, I crawl closer to him and put my head in his lap. “Throw me off when you get tired of this,” I say sleepily.
He gently strokes the hair from my forehead with one hand, then keeps playing.
- - -
The next day, he shows me the steel tube. It’s just about perfect, straight and with even thickness all the way around. It’s two feet long, with a diameter of a little less than an inch.
“This will be very useful,” I tell him. “We can’t use it yet, though. Can you please make a piece of wood that’s shaped like this?” I use a piece of charcoal to draw the outline on a light plank. “About this long.” I show him with my hands.
“I can do that right now.”
“That’s not necessary. There’s no rush. But we also need more steel. Very thin and bendable. Two thin bands, this long and this wide.”
He scratches his chin. “That will take longer.”
“That’s fine. Use pig iron, if it’s easier.”
“It’s not.”
I grin. “Then any material you want. Remember: thin and bendable.”
He climbs down to his forge, deep in thought.
I get busy placing the mix of the three chemicals out in the sun so they’ll dry out. I don’t know if the sunlight will ruin the effect, but I can’t see any reason for it.
- - -
The next day the mix has dried out and formed round grains that look exactly like peppercorns, black and small.
I painstakingly wrap twelve of them into four tiny packs of leaves, three peppercorns in each pack.
Then I go and get Brank’ox. “Want to see another failure?”
He grunts. “You have no idea what failure means.”
“Oh, I think I do. And I absolutely intend to fail with this today. Come on.”
I use the same plank as last time, and the same system with the little wicks that go through the leaves to the peppercorns inside.
I light the wick on the end of the stick, then move behind Brank’ox and hand it to him. “Just the end of the wick. One at a time.”
He lights the first one, and I retract my head behind his back. I don’t want to see another failure.
Bang!
It’s like a firecracker, sharp and hard.
I gasp. “Try another one!”
Bang!
“And the last two!”
Bang!
Bang!
“Remarkable,” Brank’ox grunts. “They make a lot of noise for being so small.”
“It works!” I rejoice. “We made it! We made gunpowder!”
Four small clouds of black smoke drift away, and there are only a couple of green spots left of the leafy packs.
I do a couple of happy jumps, and then jump up on Brank’ox. He drops the fire stick and catches me, holding me tight.
“Gonpoder,” he muses. “Noisy and quick.”
“Yes!” I agree, pursing my lips so he has to bend down and kiss me. “Gunpowder. It has many uses. But most of all it will scare the dragons to death! Or at least away.”
“Perhaps,” he says and puts me down. “Do you think they’re that easily scared?”
“They don’t need to be. Wait. Stay here. Just watch. I’ll take all the rest of it and put it in this little pot. Like… so. Okay, can’t fit all inside.