Winter in the Northern Range was not a season; it was an adversary. As November bled into December, the temperature plummeted, and the moist air from the Oryn Estuary collided with the frigid mountain drafts. For the first time, the Oakhaven Telegraph was facing a foe that couldn't be bribed or reasoned with: Hoar Frost.
Deacon stood in the Oryn-West station, watching the galvanometer needle on the main line. It didn't pulse with the rhythmic certainty of a message. Instead, it shivered, wandering aimlessly across the dial before dropping to zero. The "Copper Nerve" was dead.
"Line's gone, David," Miller said, stamping the snow off his boots as he entered the station. He looked haggard; his breath came in thick plumes of white vapor. "The scouts report that the ice is building up on the wires in the High Cleft. It's not just a coating; it's turning the copper into a heavy, frozen rope. The weight is pulling the insulators right out of the poles."
The reality of 1800s materials science was laying bare Deacon's ambitions. The copper wire he had drawn was "cold-short"—it became brittle when the temperature dropped below freezing. When the heavy weight of the ice combined with the high-altitude winds, the wire didn't just sag; it snapped like glass.
"If the line stays down, the Syndicate will move on the canal locks tonight," Deacon said, his Logistical Insight calculating the window of opportunity for a raid. "They know we're deaf. We have to get the signal back before the midnight shift."
The repair mission was a descent into a freezing hell. Deacon, Miller, and a team of six "Line-Riders" mounted heavy draft horses, carrying spools of replacement wire and portable charcoal braziers. The ascent into the High Cleft was a blind crawl through a vertical white-out. The wind howled through the basalt crags, a sound that Miller joked was the mountain laughing at their arrogance.
They found the break at Mile Marker 42. A massive pine tree, burdened by the same ice, had toppled across the line, shattering three poles and dragging a half-mile of copper into a deep, snow-filled ravine.
"We can't just splice it," Deacon shouted over the gale. "The tension will pull the splice apart the moment the wind hits it. We have to re-string the entire section, and we have to do it with Heat-Treatment."
This was the "gritty" edge of engineering. To prevent the new wire from snapping, Deacon had the men pass the copper through the charcoal braziers as they unspooled it, "annealing" the metal to give it a temporary ductility. Their hands, even through thick leather gloves, were scorched by the heat of the braziers and then instantly numbed by the sub-zero air.
Deacon climbed the first replacement pole himself. His boots, fitted with iron "climbing spurs," bit into the frozen timber with a sickening crunch. Twenty feet up, the wind tried to tear him from the wood. He worked with his teeth gritted, his fingers fumbling with the ceramic insulators. Every time he touched the cold copper, it felt like his skin was being seared.
"Steady!" Miller yelled from below, holding the guide rope as the horses strained to pull the new line taut.
The work took six hours. By the fourth hour, one of the Line-Riders had to be sent back down the mountain, his toes turning the tell-tale waxy white of severe frostbite. The others were silent, moving with the sluggish, mechanical desperation of men on the edge of exhaustion.
As Deacon tightened the final mechanical lug, he pulled a portable "Test-Key" from his belt and tapped the lead. He waited, his ear pressed to the cold brass of the receiver.
Click... Click-click.
It was the Oryn-West station. They were back on the grid.
They descended the mountain in a daze of fatigue, reaching the outpost just as the sun—a pale, heatless disc—dipped behind the peaks. As they thawed out by the foundry fires, Deacon looked at his hands. They were a map of burns, blisters, and cracked skin. He realized that for every mile of progress he made in his head, his body and the bodies of his men paid the toll in blood and bone.
"We can't do this every time it snows, David," Miller said, his voice cracked and raw. "The copper isn't strong enough. The ceramic isn't tough enough. We're fighting a war with tools meant for a garden."
"Then we change the tools," Deacon replied, his mind already turning to Galvanized Steel and Tension-Spring Junctions. "But tonight, the line held. And because it held, Lock 14 is still standing."
As if to prove his point, the telegraph in the corner of the room began to click. SYNDICATE SCOUTS SPOTTED—MILE 40—REPELLED BY GARRISON.
The seconds of arbitrage he had fought for in the trade town were now minutes of survival in the wilderness. Deacon closed his eyes, the heat of the fire finally beginning to penetrate his core. He had won the night, but the winter was long, and the mountain was far from finished with its audit of his work.