Chapter 93: The Arms Trade

Lucius took control of the Rhone River, turning the Gallic waterway into the logistical backbone of the Syndicate.

For miles along the riverbanks, timber water wheels spun against the currents, their spokes transferring energy into the foundries lining the shore.

This was the Rhone Industrial Corridor. It was a beast that never slept, devouring mountains of iron to excrete apocalypse.

Because the Forge Master’s production quotas were unforgiving, a shantytown of vendors had sprung up along the periphery of the factory grounds.

Taverns and hearths served mutton, flatbread, and wine to laborers during their shift changes.

The work inside the foundries was hot and dangerous, but the Syndicate paid their mechanics in silver.

For plebeians who had spent their lives starving under Roman tax collectors, the labor was a godsend.

Through the streets of the sector, transport wagons rumbled back and forth. You could spot the military convoys... they were painted black, reinforced with Lucius’s steel suspensions, and flanked by *Custodes* outriders.

They moved with precision, hauling ingots in one direction and crated death in the other.

Outside a machining workshop, half a dozen foremen stood in the mist, blowing into their hands to keep warm. The morning supply convoy was late, a rare occurrence under Decimus’s oversight.

Bricius, a Gallic foreman who managed the milling warehouse, nudged the man standing next to him.

"I heard your steam-press blew a pressure valve last night, Drusus," Bricius grunted, pulling his cloak tighter around his shoulders. "Did it stall your quota?"

Drusus let out a laugh. "It stalled it for twenty minutes. The moment the valve screamed, one of Kallias’s apprentices came sprinting out of the testing labs. Kid couldn’t have been older than sixteen. I thought he was going to blow us to Tartarus, but he recalibrated the pressure gauge faster than I can saddle a horse. We were back to stamping steel plates before the boiler cooled."

Bricius shook his head. "The Forge Master is breeding a generation of wizards, I swear it."

Their banter was cut short by the thud of hooves.

Four Syndicate transport wagons rolled around the corner, escorted by a dozen *Custodes* holding crossbows.

The foremen straightened their postures.

While these wagons sat heavy with iron ingots, the raw material was only half of the delivery.

The payload lay in the locked lockboxes carried by the quartermasters.

Isolda, the Director of the Shadows, had instituted a compartmentalization system across the sector.

No workshop received the blueprints for a complete weapon. Bricius might forge the gears, while Drusus stamped the chassis, and another shop milled the firing pins.

If an imperial spy managed to infiltrate a foundry, they would walk away with nothing more than a disconnected puzzle piece.

Bricius was an example of the Syndicate’s economic mobility.

Three years ago, he had been a village blacksmith hammering out horseshoes and nails for farmers. But when Lucius Cassius had introduced the *Lex Syndicata* and offered state-subsidized loans for hydraulic machinery, Bricius had taken a gamble.

He sold his farmland, moved his family to the capital, and purchased three trip hammers.

His wife had wept, convinced he had doomed them to the slums. But a month later, the logistics department had evaluated Bricius’s shop.

His steel possessed a low slag content. Bricius was handed a military procurement contract.

Today, his wife wore imported Alexandrian silk, and he managed a facility boasting twenty steam-assisted lathes!

A *Custodes* quartermaster stepped down from the lead wagon, unhooking a lockbox from his belt.

He walked up to Bricius and handed it over.

"The tolerances on these components are razor-thin. If they fail the stress tests, the batch goes into the smelter, and the cost comes out of your silver."

Bricius offered a grin. "Tell the Forge Master he’ll have his shipment by dusk."

Carrying the lockbox inside, Bricius unlocked it on his drafting table.

He unrolled the parchment inside. A smile spread across his face.

His workshop had been selected to manufacture the firing cassettes and crank-gears for the new *Scorpio-Arbalest* the weapons Valerius had requisitioned for the proxy war in Hispania.

Earning the contract for the mechanisms was the equivalent of winning a gladiatorial championship. It required precision, but the payout was astronomical...

"Fire the boilers!" Bricius bellowed. "Engage the river wheels!"

Outside, the sluice gates were opened.

The water of the Rhone slammed against the paddles.

By sunset, crates packed with crank-gears and cassettes were loaded back onto the wagons.

Under the cover of darkness, these components bypassed the city. They were transported to a compound nestled in a wooded valley north of Civitas Aurelia.

This was Assembly Plant Four...

It was surrounded by a palisade and guarded by *Custodes* patrols.

Lucius had authorized the hiring of hundreds of apprentices and Gallic women. Earning a wage that rivaled a Roman centurion’s salary, these workers assembled the triggers, the crank-winches, the tension springs, and the stocks in an assembly line.

Before a weapon was crated, an inspector cranked the winch, testing the spring tension against a lead block.

If the gear slipped, the weapon was dismantled. If it held, it was stamped with the Syndicate’s crest.

This single facility was churning out fifty arbalests a day. But it was only one of twelve assembly plants Lucius had established across the province.

When combining the output of the arbalests, the explosive clay housings, the artillery plating, and the ship hulls, the Syndicate was devouring thousands of tons of iron every month...

The appetite of the Syndicate’s military apparatus had triggered a mutation in Gallic industry.

Before Lucius seized control of the province, the Roman Empire relied on bloomery forges. A team of slaves working around the clock might yield a few hundred pounds of iron in a month. But Lucius had introduced the blast furnace, powered by water wheels that pumped air into the smelting bellies.

At the start of the year, the Syndicate operated five of these behemoths. Now, thirty blast furnaces dominated the Rhone valley.

With that much iron flowing daily, the Syndicate could replace battlefield losses faster than any legion could inflict them...