Saws rasped at the palms. Planks clacked together, and humans worked late into the night as the hain tired of measuring canvas. There were few porcelain folk on the islands and their sharp eyes were widely sought.
The planks were being laid out in long piles, carried off to be weighted and hammered into the sediment. More were laid atop them to produce a flat surface. A friendly tribe of urtelem had taken to the task of moving stone into place over the reef, producing a sheltered harbour. The growing wooden structure within it was being dubbed a sea-path in Tlaca, but Tauga knew a Xerxian dock when she saw one.
Forges were bright enough that they could be operated night and day, without lamps. Buckets of bronze pegs were being filled and hammered into overlapping planks, then hammered on the other side to flatten them, forming a link. More and more planks were added this way, until the Tlaca saw something new: a ship made not out of one great tree, but many small ones. A long-boat.
Clink, clink, clink, went the hammers on the rivets. Clink, clink, clink, went the rivets in the forge. No wonder the work was called clinking. No wonder the boats were called clinker-built.
The problem was rivets. The Tlaca had long ago learned to connect their canoes into catamarans and outrigger vessels, more stable in the water and able to carry a greater load. Now that the Blowfly demiurge walked among them, teaching how to make sails in mountain-shapes that could easily fly in the face of the wind, they could travel even faster. Yet, fast as they were, they still would not carry a fifth as much as these new, sleek creatures.
But copper and tin were both scarce on the island. Tauga had already scavenged all she could from the nails of the old triremes that had carried them here and it was still not enough.
She walked into the forge carrying a sack of heavy rocks that clicked together under a layer of char. The workers here were used to her, but they still looked up when they felt the chill in their spine.
A woman who was mostly shoulders looked up from her bellows and squinted through her sweat.
"You have much coke here?""Yes," said the woman, flinching as the heavy bag smacked into the floor. She pointed to a pile of cooked coal with which they'd been feeding the forges.
"Nice. I'm going to take over this furnace for a while. Go work with the saws, or, sleep," she said, sensing the smith's exhaustion.
"And. Don't expect this chimney to be here tomorrow. I need it."The woman nodded. "...Um, Blowfly?"
"Tauga.""Tauga. What, exactly are you doing?"
"Making cheaper clinks," she said.
"See for yourself."The woman looked. "This? This is pig metal."
"Mm. There's a way to soften it, make it stronger. Learned it in the mist city." Tauga waved her hands over the forge, feeling heat. No mortal hain could work here. They'd dehydrate themselves panting within an hour.
"And you can make it with nothing but coke and clay chimneys?"
Affirmative grunt.
"To think, we've been throwing this out for years," said the smith, already yawning. "And praying for more copper. Ironic."
"Yeah," said Tauga, who didn't know what that word meant.
"Sure. Ironic. Hey, does this metal have a name?"
