Vastruk looked out at the small farming village before her. She yawned, the sun having just dawned over the fields. She made a short prayer to Tengri, the sky father, asking him to be kind to the dwellers of earth. She threw a sweet smelling resin as incense, letting the smoke waft over the fields that she owned. Vastuk lamented, there had to be a better way to work the fields, and cultivate the land. Stone and bones, the tools they had used since their forefathers crossed the Steppe and settled on the shores of the Black Sea, were not keeping up with the growing Hunnic population. Stone was plentiful yes, but it was weak, brittle, and only some stone was suitable for butchery and war. The natives, the people who lived outside the safe grounds of Hun cities like Acakel, were becoming a pain. Still, Vastruk had no time to deal with these thoughts right now. She attatched her plow to her horse, and guided it though her field. Many found it strange a queen would work her field rather than have a slave do it for her. Vastruk knew that toiling in the suffering of her people was the way to show them that she understood their struggle.
After plowing, Vastruk let out a sharp yell of pain. A small cut on her foot, she stepped on something. The woman looked around for the offending object. Seeing a strange, bluish rock under her foot. The rock was heavy, looked as if it was covered in a bluish green powder. It seemed, sharper. Most stones did not cut as painfully as this. Vastruk was intregued. "Jeneshpi!" She called, with her friend, a woman with her mind on the sciences at all times, Jeneshpi rushing out to meet the queen. "My Queen!" She exclaimed, seeing the injured foot.
"Pay it no mind Jeneshpi, I need you to look at something" Vastruk said before handing her the greenish blue stone. "I need you to make a knife from this stone"
Jeneshpi looked at it, "My queen, this stone, these are junk rocks. They cannot be knapped and flaked, they only shatter when hit."
"Find a way, Jeneshpi, put them though every trial you must, cool them, weaken the stones by fire. I want this stone to be used for a knife,"
"Yes my queen" and with that, the woman was gone.
Vastruk looked out towards her city. Acakel was a small enclave, and only a few lived here, with other Huns scatteed away ,and with savages and barbarians threatening them at every corner. She hoped better weapons and more food would keep the Huns safe. Vastruk called for her advisor, to tell the people to start constructing walls around Acakel. She was going to drive the barbarians from the land, and to take all of Anatolia for the Huns
