The Steam Age: Gears and Bones

Chapter 56

A temporary antenna nearly six meters high was erected on the outside of the cliff, and the spirally wound copper wire made an extremely faint buzzing sound in the night wind.

Morris simultaneously completed the modification of the receiver next to the transmitter.

His method was more direct than Allen's—he didn't use any tools, but instead placed his hand directly on the component next to the capacitor plate, activating a small-scale matter recombination array.

A pale blue light spread from his palm, and several small components originally used for filtering were rearranged and reconnected under the effect of alchemy to form a simple frequency selection loop.

He then gently ran his finger across the gap between the copper plates of the spark gap oscillator. The surface of the copper plates became smoother under the fine-tuning of the alchemy, and the gap precision was adjusted to better match the frequency band commonly used by the Northern Army's military radios.

After doing all this, he put the headphones back on, closed his eyes, and began to slowly adjust the spacing of the capacitor plates, scanning the preset frequency.

"That's fine," Morris said.

Allen connected the antenna feeder to the transmitter's output, took a deep breath, and pressed the trigger switch on the spark gap.

After several rounds of calls, something suddenly flickered slightly in the background noise in the headset—it wasn't a hallucination, but an extremely clear Morse code signal, with distinct dots and a precise rhythm, repeatedly sending the same message.

Morris pressed down on the headphones, closed his eyes, and with his lips barely moving, translated the pulses one by one.

Then he suddenly opened his eyes, ripped off his headphones, and his voice cracked with excitement: "There's a response! It's the Northern Legion!"

Everyone in the camp looked up at the same time.

Ludwig turned abruptly from the cliff face and strode over, his steps almost running.

Cherzov stood up from the ammunition box, the military flag slipped from his knees, he grabbed the flagpole and followed.

Sabel stopped reciting the scriptures and opened her eyes to look at the telegraph machine.

The flag captain turned back from the sentry post, his steps hurried.

Morris put the headphones back on, closed his eyes, and gently adjusted the spacing of the capacitor plates to stabilize the signal. As he listened, he read out the decoded message word by word in a lowered but still trembling voice: "The Northern Army has not been annihilated. They have broken through. They suffered heavy losses but successfully broke through. They are currently stationed at Wild Boar Ridge Fortress to rest and regroup their remaining troops, attempting to rebuild their defenses."

Ludwig took the headphones from Morris, put them on, and listened to them again.

The discharge noise from the spark gap in the headphones was sharp and piercing, but the Morse code was still being sent in a loop, with clear dots.

After listening to it once, he didn't immediately take off his headphones, but instead closed his eyes.

When he took off his headphones, his voice still tried to remain steady, but his fingers holding the headphone cord trembled slightly: "They're still alive. They broke through the encirclement, suffering heavy losses, but successfully escaped. They are currently stationed at Wild Boar Ridge Fortress to rest and recuperate, gathering their remaining troops while trying to rebuild a defensive line."

Cherzov stood before him, took a deep breath, turned, and strode toward the Rus' soldiers scattered at the foot of the cliff, the hem of his coat billowing in the wind: "Listen up, everyone! The Northern Legion is still here! We have a clear objective now—Wild Boar Ridge Fortress!"

The soldiers who were sitting scattered at the base of the cliff stood up one after another, and some of the artillery crew members began to re-inspect the fixing ropes on the gun carriage.

No one cheered, but the entire camp seemed like an engine that had been refilled with steam and started running again.

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The troops broke camp and set off the morning after receiving the response from the Northern Army.

With a clear objective, the marching speed increased significantly.

Cherzov had already replanned the route using the map the night before—from the hilly area where they were currently located, they would head southeast, bypass several low-lying areas marked as swamps on the map, and then cross an abandoned farmland. He expected to reach the outer defenses of the Wild Boar Ridge fortress within three days.

This route wasn't the shortest straight line, but Chertzov chose it because there were several old outposts and abandoned villages along the way where he could rely on, so that if he encountered another large-scale zombie horde, he wouldn't have to fight his way through the open wilderness without any cover.

On the afternoon of the second day after they set off, the scout knights ahead discovered a makeshift fortification at the foot of a low hill.

It wasn't the kind of well-ordered fortress created by alchemy, but rather a low, semi-circular wall hastily erected from the wreckage of a wagon, rubble, and frozen clods of earth. Dozens of infected corpses lay scattered haphazardly on the outside of the wall, and large patches of black blood had frozen into ice shells on the snow.

There were figures moving inside the low wall—not infected people, but living people.

The flag captain, accompanied by several knights, was the first to approach.

Upon closer inspection, they could see that there were about a hundred people behind the low wall, wearing two completely different military uniforms.

One was Romulus's dark blue military overcoat, and the other was Ross's grey-green woolen military uniform.

These two colors, which were enemies fighting each other just a few weeks ago, are now mixed together, huddled behind the same low wall, sharing the embers of the same campfire for warmth.

Their weapons were also varied—flintlock muskets, cavalry carbines, several bayonets with dulled blades, and two men holding short spears made from the blunted ends of entrenching tools.

On the far right of the low wall stood a light infantry gun that had run out of ammunition, covered with a tattered cloth cut from a wagon's canvas, with a thin layer of snow on top of it.

Chernzov and Ludwig rode their horses to the low wall.

A young officer in Romulus's uniform stood up from the crowd behind the wall. The second lieutenant's insignia on his shoulder was so dirty that its original color was almost unrecognizable. He saluted Ludwig, his movements still standard, but his arm was trembling slightly from prolonged hunger and cold.

Ludwig dismounted, walked up to him, and briefly inquired about the situation of the troops.

They were two small, decimated units—Romulus's side was a remnant of a reconnaissance company under the 3rd Infantry Division of the Northern Army, originally numbering nearly two hundred men. During the breakout, they were repeatedly attacked by hordes of zombies, and now only less than sixty men remained. The company commander had been killed in action, and the lieutenant in front of them was now in command.

Ross's side consisted of the remnants of a border garrison battalion. After the breach of the Shiphol Pass, they retreated southwards, encountering multiple attacks by infected along the way. The battalion, which originally numbered over three hundred, was reduced to less than fifty men. The battalion commander and deputy commander were both dead, and now a sergeant major was leading the charge.

The two remnants collided a week ago.

At first, both sides thought they had encountered enemy forces and almost clashed in the snow. However, they soon discovered that neither side had enough ammunition to fight each other, and the infected who were actually chasing them did not distinguish between the colors of military uniforms.

So the Romulus and the Rus' laid down their guns and retreated together to the foot of the hill, where they used whatever materials they could find to build the low wall.