Co was a Zonian prisoner at the stone-kin facility and had been conscripted to mine in the stone-kin caverns. Secretly, he believed that the Zonians would triumph in the end, and he would be free to exact revenge on his stone-kin handlers. But for now, he had to do what they said. Still, he was showing his ass to them by not doing 'exactly' what they said. Instead of pickaxing in the direction they said, he turned to one side in the tunnel and started hacking away at the wrong wall. After a few swings, his pick broke into something much softer than the granite or iron he had been hammering away at before. It was silver grey material that crumbled at his pick, and there was a lot of it coming from the wall. He yelled at one of the guards, and when the guard saw it, he ran off. One of the stone-kin forge masters came up begrudgingly. He slapped Co in the back of the head when he saw that this prisoner was not working in the direction he had been commanded to. Then the master saw what had crumbled out on the ground. Co was watching him closely with a thought of burying his pick in the stone-kin's head when he saw the shock in the master's eyes. The forge master turned and ran, shouting.
A really big stone-kin came up with a group of forge masters and began picking into the whole wall. Co had never seen a stone-kin miner really hammering before. He stepped back at the force of the blows hitting the wall. A couple of guards brought up 5 other Zonian prisoners. The big stone-kin laid open the entire wall, exposing the vein of this metal. His pick struck something different in one part of the vein. In fact, two chunks fell out that didn't look anything alike. The forge masters grabbed these two chunks and ran off toward their forges. The 5 other Zonian miners were put to work on this new metal, and the stone-kin miner started following the strange metal vein. More prisoners were called up to haul away the new finds to the forges. Co was marched away to a lunch room and fed the best meal he had eaten since joining the military in Zon.
Till was at the stone-kin forges watching the masters make the new metal straps that would be connected to the drive wheels, when this disruption occurred. After some communication, the new straps were scraped, and then some new metal was added to the molten steel to make better straps. The stone-kin masters told him it would be lighter and many times more durable. Two cartloads of the stuff were sent to Gendry at his forge.
South of Barrowton, the fight was raging. Reinforcements were changing the ratio on the battlefield, but Westeros troops were still outnumbered. The fighting consisted of ranged attacks, followed by a push from the Zonian troops, which led to hand-to-hand fighting again. At last, some explosive barrels and kegs were brought in, and the battle began to swing towards the home troops. Slowly, the Westeros troops began to push the Zonians back towards the coast.
Fort #10 reported that 10 more ships had come in through a heavy natural fog: 2 assault ships, 2 mage ships, and six troop ships. The King's Landing gunships had destroyed 2 assault ships, a mage ship, and 4 troop ships, but two troop and one mage had made it through to back up the Zonian troops on shore. The fort was firing on the troops washed ashore, but many would survive to join the battle. The mages would potentially swing the battle in favor of the Zonians, so two groups of heavy archers and explosive experts were sent to the cliffs above the landing zones to try and pick off as many mages as possible.
On the north shore of the Bay of Ice, the battle was not going well for the Westerosi and wildling troops. They were outnumbered, and the Zonians were crack fighting troops, larger and fiercer than even the wildlings. Mangana the elder met Mangana the younger at a small boat near the boat-works. "You're going to the fight on the north shore?" the elder asked. The younger nodded. The elder handed him two glass bottles, saying, "Keep your men back, but throw these two bottles into the fight. They won't smell it or see it, but these will put all the combatants on the field asleep when they fall run in with your group and tie up all the Zonians in a hurry. The effects will only last about 10 minutes, so hurry to do it." The younger nodded and joined the men on the boat. He told them the plan, and in 30 minutes, they were on the north shore, some ways away from the actual fight.
The younger Mangana raced up to within throwing range of the battle and tossed the bottles one at a time. There was a satisfying crunch of glass after each toss. It took a few minutes, but the combatants began dropping like flies, and his group approached with rope in hand. They had tied up more than half of the Zonians when a shout came from the edge of the field. A larger Zonian who had been at the edge of the fighting had awoken and charged the group, tying Zonians up. The Zonian had a giant cudgel, and he swept the first two Brandon's Rest troops that charged him aside like chaff.