ASOIAF: The Rise of House Ashenblade.

The first lines Arlan drew were not for a weapon.

They described a larger, tighter distillation apparatus than the crude arrangement FireStorm had already used: an iron pot strong enough for repeated heating, a sealed vessel above it, connections packed with linen and beeswax, and a copper coil kept cold so alcohol-rich vapor would condense instead of escaping into the room.

The old blacksmith leaned over the parchment until his nose nearly touched it.

”The copper is the difficulty,” he said. ”Not shaping it. Sealing every joint.”

”Then seal every joint twice,” Arlan replied. He tapped the connection between the vessel and condenser. ”Steam lost here is liquor lost. No gaps.”

The blacksmith traced the drawing with one dirty fingernail. He had worked in Rainwood for decades before coming to FireStorm and understood enough of vessels, pipes, and fitted metal to recognize that the craft itself was possible.

”Three days,” he said. ”If my apprentices sleep in the smithy.”

”Take the three days.” Morton received a different set of instructions. The plumpest rye was to be washed, steamed, cooled, mixed with yeast, and sealed in oak barrels to ferment. The mash could not be allowed to freeze in the autumn nights or become so hot that the fermentation spoiled.

”Someone watches the room at all hours,” Arlan said. ”If the barrel feels too hot to hold your hand against, cool it. If the room turns cold, feed the brazier.”

Morton understood little of the process, but he had watched the crude still produce strong spirit before. That was enough to make him bow and begin assigning women to the work; for three days FireStorm answered Gareth’s blockade with labor.

The smithy fire burned from before dawn until deep into the night; copper was heated, hammered, bent, fitted, removed, and fitted again. The blacksmith polished edges with sand while his apprentices carried charcoal and worked bellows until their arms shook.

In the fermentation room, Morton kept a roster beside the door. Women turned the rye, checked barrels, changed water, and kept the temperature as close as they could to Arlan’s instructions; the smell of grain and yeast spread through the hall.

Other work did not stop; half the guards patrolled the roads and slopes for Caron scouts while the other half trained. Men went into the hills for oak, splitting the wood into even lengths and stacking it under cover beside the distillery; children gathered chips and smaller branches rather than being allowed near the furnace.

Nobody pretended the blockade had disappeared; salt still had to come from outside. Iron would run out. FireStorm’s stores were finite. The work mattered because every day without another stream of coin made Gareth’s ten-day threat more credible.

On the evening of the third day, the new still stood on its stone hearth; the fermented rye mash went into the iron pot. Arlan checked every seal himself, pressed fingers against the waxed linen, and had the cooling barrel filled before Morton lit the fire.

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Villagers gathered outside the distillery until the doorway was three people deep. They had learned enough in the past weeks to understand that strange equipment around Arlan often meant either danger or money, and everyone preferred the second; the oak crackled beneath the pot.

Heat moved slowly through the mash; grain-scented vapor entered the sealed upper vessel, traveled into the copper coil, and met cold water around the metal. At first nothing emerged from the outlet; Morton stared at it as though impatience might force the liquid through. A clear drop formed.

It fell into the wooden bowl beneath the pipe. Then another. A thin stream followed, bright and free of the cloudiness common to rough ale; the smell changed almost immediately. Fermented grain remained beneath it, but the sharper warmth of concentrated spirit filled the small room and drifted into the yard.

Someone outside whispered a prayer; Arlan changed vessels as the run progressed, separating what he wanted from what he did not. When he finally collected a clear middle portion, he lifted the bowl and smelled it before tasting.

The spirit struck hot, then settled into warmth through his throat and chest; stronger than ordinary Westerosi drink by several times, it was clean enough that the grain still remained beneath the heat. Weak ale could sour quickly and ordinary wine demanded fruit, transport, or money FireStorm did not possess; properly sealed spirit would endure the road and concentrate far more value into every bottle carried past a checkpoint.

Roughly forty percent alcohol, by Michael’s judgment. The process had worked. He passed the bowl to Morton.

The old steward took too large a sip and coughed until his eyes watered; a few villagers laughed before remembering they were supposed to be respectful. Morton waved them quiet, took a second, smaller taste, and stared into the bowl.

”Seven above.”

”Bad?” Arlan asked.

”Strong.” Morton wiped his mouth. ”Strong enough to warm a corpse.” A veteran among the guards asked for a taste next. One swallow reddened his face and brought an immediate grin.

”Give this to men on a winter watch and they’ll pay before they ask what it costs.”

Others agreed. Border guards, mercenaries, caravans crossing cold country, sailors, and nobles looking for novelty all had reasons to value a drink stronger than the ales and wines they knew. More importantly, sealed distilled spirit kept far better than weak ale during transport.

The raw materials were already inside FireStorm: rye, water, oak, labor, and fuel. The cost was not nothing, because grain burned into liquor was grain no one could eat, but the prospective return was many times greater than selling the same rye by the sack. A merchant could hide bottles more easily than cartloads of grain, and every sealed container could survive a journey that would spoil weak drink. House Caron could block a wagon of imported iron, but it could not easily stop FireStorm from turning its own grain into something worth carrying through a hidden path.

Morton looked at the clear spirit again. ”What do we call it?” Arlan glanced toward the battered Ashenblade shield visible through the open door. The old heraldry carried the red sun behind its burning sword, an element that had survived even as the house around it became poor.

”Red Sun Flame.” Morton repeated the name and smiled for the first time since Gareth’s visit.

The still did not go cold after that trial. Morton entered the weight of rye, the watches spent fermenting, the order of the run, and the amount discarded before the clean middle portion. The next batch had to match closely enough that a merchant could buy the same drink twice. While the blacksmith replaced any seal that sweated vapor, the fermentation room began staggering barrels so a fresh mash would be ready before the previous one was exhausted.

Fermentation barrels filled one side of the workroom while distilled spirit began collecting in oak containers below; men improved shelves in the cellar. Morton quietly reopened contacts along the less traveled tracks around Rainwood, and within days word returned that black-market merchants were already asking what FireStorm had produced.

Gareth’s blockade remained in force, and nobody in FireStorm had forgotten the ten-day threat attached to it; for the first time, it had begun to acquire a price.