Chương 238: 235. Late Winter

The guards continued moving along with him, and it didn't take long for him to decide that this was indeed a good place for making the dam. Climbing down from his horse, he called over the supervisor - who used to be a limestone cutter in the past, just like the other clay diggers - and began explaining to him about the location. The man, who seemed to be in his forties, nodded enthusiastically as he explained what would make both of the surfaces of the dam, along with what would be filled in the middle.

Before long, the man gave a nod.

"I think it should be doable. It wouldn't be easy to transport all the clay, rocks, and the timber here, but with the help of all our wagons, as well as enough labourers, I think we might just be able to do it before the melting snow starts to increase the flow rate of the stream."

"That's good to hear," Kivamus replied.

"It is indeed our major concern, and we have to try our best to finish the dam before that. It is still around afternoon, so once we return you should tell the other clay diggers that they need to hurry and dig as much as they can every day so we can finish the dam on time."

"We'll do our best, milord!" Giving him a nod, Kivamus looked at the surrounding area, before he started to walk and made a mental picture of how the dam should look and where the sluice gate should be built and where the water wheel could be installed. Once he decided that he had a good idea of it, he looked at the guard captain, "Let's take some of the thinner sticks which we have brought and mark the edges of where the dam would be made."

Hudan nodded, and soon the guards began running on Kivamus' orders and planted the sticks in the ground so it would be easy for the workers to start filling the required materials in the middle of the marked area. Two of the guards had to cross the stream to the other side so they could place the sticks on the other bank as well, but thankfully the stream wasn't deep enough so they didn't need to swim.

That meant only their trousers had gotten wet, and the small fire which Hudan was building in the meantime would be enough for them to dry up their clothes soon. Once everything was done, Tesyb took the opportunity to catch some fish again, and luckily he and the other guards were able to catch enough of them that they wouldn't have to use their dried meat which they had brought with them.

The fire which was already burning and being used by those guards who had gotten wet was a perfect place to roast the fish, and soon they were having a nice lunch of roasted fish and bread next to the half frozen stream, while surrounded by snow-covered hills in a late winter month of Southern Reslinor. After an hour or so, once everyone was full and the guards were completely dry, they began their return journey.

As they travelled, Kivamus' mind was busy thinking about how exactly the dam should be designed so it would last a long time. While there was still some time before the snow started to melt, they would have to hurry if they wanted to finish that dam on time. The two wagons they had gotten from Nokozal's limestone quarry, along with the four they already had in the village - including the wagon which had been repaired in Cinran before the winter - meant that they had a total of six wagons.

That should be more than enough to transport all the rocks, timber and clay to this place. The former stonecutters were already digging up more than enough clay, and they certainly weren't going to have any shortage of timber in this village for years. That only left the rocks, but he had already seen that near the coal mines between the hills there were many huge man made mounds made from the reject material from the mine shafts - which mainly consisted of rocks of various sizes.

That meant they already had all the required materials to build the dam. The only problem was a labour shortage, as always, since the construction workers who would be building the dam would have to be taken from the forest clearing work in the south. He gave a sigh. There was nothing he could do about that though. Using Feroy, he had already spread news in and around Kirnos that Tiranat was taking in immigrants, and hopefully the labour shortage would get less severe once the winter ended. He nodded to himself.

Yes, he would make sure this dam was built, along with all the other projects, even with the limited number of labourers in the village. For now, he had to finalise the design of the dam in his mind, before he had to make a blueprint of it on one of the two sheets of paper which they had received yesterday from the new papermakers in the east of the village. If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.

Apart from that, he had decided that making the seed drill had to be their next priority, since they only had around a month before they would have to start sowing seeds and he needed to have removed any kinks in the machine before that. They also needed to have at least a dozen seed drills in stock so that all their horses could be used to complete the sowing in time.

That would certainly delay the making of more crossbows by Darora, but at this point there was nothing more important than ensuring their food security in the coming year. Taniok would also have to finish the mushroom barn before he could start working on the watchtowers, which was another important thing which needed to be built to ensure their fledgling village's safety after the winter.

Those were only some of the immediate projects they needed to complete, but there were a lot more things which he needed to get done to ensure the safety and prosperity of Tiranat once their yearly isolation due to the heavy winters of Southern Reslinor ended. He sighed. There was so much to do, and so little time and so few workers to get it done. Well, they would have to do their best with the resources they had available here.

With that resolution in his mind, their journey continued towards the small but growing village of Tiranat.

~ Kivamus ~ It had been around two weeks since he had gone to visit the eastern stream to find a good location for the dam. While the weather remained below freezing point even now, it had been nearly a week since it had snowed the last time, and from his conversations with the majordomo, he was fairly sure that that was probably the last snowfall of this winter.

There was still around a foot of snow gathered on the ground outside the village, but that should also start melting within a week, although it would take another week or so to melt completely. It was afternoon right now and they had just completed their lunch. Hudan and Feroy were sitting next to each other talking about something related to the village's security. Duvas had gone out to solve a dispute in the second longhouse which was out of the hands of the supervisor of the block.

Gorsazo had returned with Madam Helga to the kitchen after the lunch along with Lucem and Clarisa, arguably to help her with the dishes. Syryne had also gone back to her so-called laboratory in one of the inner rooms of the manor house after her morning lessons with the teacher.

Thankfully, the losuvil powder they had created early in the winter had been working just as well even now, which meant they had discovered a very good preservation process, and it should allow them to make a lot more of the medicine once the losuvil vines started to get new leaves in the spring. Yesterday, he had also gotten the news that the tenth mineshaft had been cleared of all standing water, and now they only had the last two shafts remaining, which should also be done in a few more days.

The sawdust briquette production had been going well, and it had helped a lot in reducing the consumption of coal, but they had still decided to start coal mining at a small scale since a week ago, and by now, two of the twelve mine shafts were already in use. They did have to take the workers from forest clearing in the south for that, but the new refugees they had gotten from Kirnos had been sent to work in the south, which had helped to keep up the pace of forest clearing there.

The construction of the dam had also been going on at a good pace, and by now they had three-fourths of the primary structure ready with the help of the large number of labourers working there.

The bald ex-miner Yeden, who used to be the foreman of forest clearing in the north and had overseen the construction of the longhouses there had a good experience of organising workers, which is why he had been appointed as the foreman for the dam construction as well, and he had been supervising everything quite efficiently. Even so, none of the local villagers were trained engineers, which is why Kivamus had been visiting the dam every couple of days to ensure that there were no problems there.

Apart from that, since the eastern stream was located ahead of the coal mines in the same direction, it meant that their six wagons carrying the rubble, clay, timber and rocks to the dam construction site had to pass near the coal mines every morning on their daily trips to the east.

That's why in their return journeys in the evenings when the construction workers sat in some of those wagons to come back to the village, they were able to use the empty wagons to load up the coal which had been mined during the day from those mine shafts which were already in operation, and return to the village with them. That allowed them to save an extra trip of the wagons, which also allowed them to use all of them to speed up the dam construction.

He expected that if everything went well, it would take around another week before the dam was mostly ready, by which time the melting snow from the hills in the east would start to increase the flow of the stream. That should help a lot in filling up the reservoir of the dam.