Chương 341: 337. Progress Check - II

Darora brushed his palms against his leather apron and turned to glance at the others.

"Pretty well, actually. By now they all know how to make their assigned crossbow parts." He pointed first to an older man flatten a thick length of wood with a plane.

"That one trims the fedarus branches into the rough pieces we need. The younger fellow next to him handles the prod and the stock of the crossbow. And the blonde woman there - Layita - she works on the trigger, the nut, the trigger guard and other small parts." The carpenter chuckled.

"You should've seen the looks I got when I first said she'd join them as an apprentice carpenter. The others didn't like the idea at all. But I told them what I learned from experience—women can do any damn thing just as well as a man." He grinned wider.

"Trust me, I've known Hyola for years, and she was scary enough even without a crossbow - which proves my point." Darora shrugged.

"Anyway, to shut them up, I gave everyone a test. Told them to carve the fine shape of a trigger, each of them working on their own with no help from me." He pointed at the woman.

"Layita finished two perfect ones before the others were even done figuring out where they were going wrong. After that, they stopped arguing. Now they just ask her for advice." The majordomo began to laugh nearby before he hid it with a cough, while Kivamus smiled, knowing that every small step in changing the locals' mindsets would be helpful to the village in the future.

"That's good to hear. With the persistent shortage of workers in Tiranat, we simply can't afford to ignore half the people in the village if we want to keep growing our workforce." Darora nodded, then pointed at another man working farther back.

"That one's new. Took him on just a few weeks ago to ease the workload. He's still learning the basics, but he's picking it up quick enough. There's another lad too. He's not here today since his infant's sick, so he's back at the longhouse block helping his wife." Kivamus looked at the majordomo.

"Send the kid some losuvil powder, will you?"

"Syrene was talking about making a dilute mixture yesterday for a child," Duvas said.

"It must have been for this, but I'll check again." The carpenter added, "Anyway, he's been a surprise. Before winter he'd never even touched a saw, and now he's my most talented apprentice. Well, after Layita, of course. Anyway, he's the one who assembles the crossbows these days, fitting the wooden parts with the iron ones from the smithy. If something's off by a finger's width, he'll fix it before I even have to check." The carpenter nodded toward the corner where some half-finished stocks were stacked neatly.

"Once he's done, he gives the crossbow a few test runs with a spare bolt, and makes sure everything's working smoothly, before he takes it to the manor. Of course, for now I still inspect each crossbow myself before letting him take it to you, but it won't be long before I wouldn't need to do that either." Kivamus looked over the workshop again, pleased to see how well things were running, although it would help them to get a better workplace soon.

"It seems the idea of specialization is working well. When should I expect the next one?" Darora's tone was confident.

"As long as the blacksmith keeps giving us the iron components on time, now we can make at least two new crossbows each week. Now that Cedoron has enough iron to forge those parts, we could have been faster—but I need all my hours to work on the scorpion, so I can't help them much other than some supervision."

"That's still very good, that they are capable of making a new crossbow from scratch without any help from you," Kivamus said.

"Two new ones per week may not sound like much, but they'll still add up in time. You keep your focus on the scorpion. When do you think it'll be ready? I want to start installing them on the watchtowers soon." Darora scratched at his shaved chin.

"First time I'm making one, so there've been a few mistakes. I'm doing all the shaping myself for this build, plus checking the others' work occasionally. But if nothing goes wrong, I'll have all the parts for the wooden frame done in four or five days. By then, the smith should already have given me all the iron components too, so a couple of days to attach them to the rest of the frame, then I'll start assembling the final product. Hmm... Gimme ten more days and I'll have it done.

Once you've tested it and confirmed that it works as you wanted, the next ones shouldn't take the nearly 20 days this one needed. I'll also know exactly what problems to expect in its construction by then, so I'll also bring in the apprentices to help out for the next one." The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

"I can't wait for it." Kivamus nodded with approval.

"Good work. Keep at it." He gave the carpenter a final pat on the shoulder before leaving the shed. Outside, the afternoon sun was breaking through thin clouds, glinting off the damp roofs. He made his way along the dirt road toward the market square in the west of the village, where the blacksmith's workshop was located. The way to the market square took him past several burned or broken houses which were still standing.

Those of them which were more or less fine were being used by the refugees they had accepted here in the past couple of months, but the rest of them still stood empty, and looked nothing more than an eyesore, apart from taking unneeded space. The blackened beams and leaning walls looked out of place even among the few wooden houses, while the shacks could barely be called even that by now. Thinking about a solution, he frowned slightly, and called out Duvas, who was walking beside him.

"We'll need to bring down these burnt houses soon. They're unsafe and we need this place clear to start constructing new housing in the future." He added, "How are our coal stores looking? We had nearly emptied them by the end of winter, and we have also sold it to visiting merchants after that, even though only a few of them have come here so far." Duvas immediately opened the small ledger he had brought with him, and began to turn its pages before he cleared his throat.

"The first coal barn is already half full—which is around fifteen wagonloads. The miners are also bringing in more than 10 wagon loads of coal every week. With no new merchants coming to buy it these days, we'll reach its full capacity of 30 wagon loads soon enough. Our second coal barn is still empty though." Kivamus nodded, thinking about it.

"We can spare some hands, then. Losing twenty men will only reduce our output by less than a fifth, so we can afford it. From tomorrow, tell twenty of the coal miners to stay here and start tearing down these shacks. They can keep aside any planks still worth something, though most of them look fit only for kindling."

"As you wish," Duvas said, jotting a note in his ledger. Kivamus gave one last look at the blackened frames of the ruined houses as well as the nearly burnt down shacks, before turning his eyes toward the market square ahead. The steady clang of hammer on anvil grew louder as Kivamus and his group reached the blacksmith's workshop. The air smelled of coal smoke and hot metal, sharp and heavy even from a distance. The forge itself burned bright red, and sparks leapt into the air whenever a hammer struck steel.

Cedoron's shop had nearly doubled in size since the time before the winter. He had taken over an empty house next to it when he needed to expand, and both spaces were crowded with apprentices right now. Inside, men and women were working nonstop. One apprentice hammered short pieces of iron into nails, the sharp ringing of each blow cutting through the steady roar of the forge. A woman nearby was weaving thin, uneven iron wires into a mesh for making the safety lamps.

Another man pumped a large bellows into the forge, the rush of air feeding the glowing charcoal until they spat and flared. Near him, an older worker was hammering a red-hot sword—likely one of those taken from the bandits—reducing it into a lump of metal. Across the workshop, another apprentice was beating that same type of lump into a long strip, likely meant to be shaped into crossbow or scorpion parts.

One more woman was sitting at the edge of the workshop, turning around a piece of shaped iron in the light of the sun, before she put it in a pile and picked up another piece. However, Leah - the manor maid who lived here with the blacksmith wasn't present right now, since she must already be working in the manor, probably cutting and sewing the leather armor they had gotten from the bandits. Cedoron himself stood near the center, a giant of a man, sweat darkening his cut-off tunic despite the mild spring weather.

He was holding a small piece of metal in tongs, shaping it with short, precise blows from a hammer. When he was satisfied, he plunged the piece into a barrel of water with a hiss and pulled it out to inspect it near the forge light. He grunted once, clearly pleased. When he saw Kivamus, he raised a thick finger to ask for a moment more. Kivamus nodded and waited while Cedoron finished checking the metal, before handing it over to the woman who was doing a similar task under the sunlight.

Then the blacksmith set down his tools, wiped his hands on a rag, and strode over, giving a short bow.