Chương 346: 342. Mercenaries - III

Feroy snorted.

"No. Plate is far too costly. Maybe a few of their leaders might have it—men who've killed knights and taken their armor—but not many. Most of them wear layered leather or chainmail. And yes, a crossbow bolt can kill any man if it hits right, but for that, our guards would have to get close enough to aim properly, and that would be suicide. Even if Velonox's group has just a hundred men, they'll have at least two dozen archers, probably more.

And those aren't villagers with bows who learned hunting in their spare time—they're trained soldiers, who've already used them in a war to good effect. Warbows in their hands will shoot far and hit hard. Velonox's group will use them to set the village on fire from a distance before we even see them properly. The towers, the roofs, everything will burn before we can react." He paused, his voice hardening.

"And that's if they come alone. If Velonox calls in the other smaller mercenary groups for help—and he can, since most of those men have fought beside him before—it won't just be a hundred. It could be two hundred. Maybe even more." Kivamus stared at him for a long moment, then muttered, "That's… a depressing thought." No one said anything for a while. The fire in the brazier crackled faintly, filling the silence. Duvas was still looking down, his expression dull, as if he had already accepted all of this long ago.

Hudan stood near the table, his hands clenched into fists, the muscles in his jaw tightening and relaxing. He looked ready to kill someone—anyone—but he knew as well as the others that training their forty guards well simply wouldn't be enough if a hundred or two hundred seasoned war veterans came for them. Remembering about the latest weapon they were building in the village, Kivamus looked at the former mercenary and asked, "What about our scorpions? Their range is much higher than the crossbows.

We've cleared five hundred meters past the wall, and from the height advantage of the watchtowers, they should cover nearly all of that. The mercenaries' warbows can't possibly have a longer range than our scorpions." Feroy nodded slowly.

"That's something that could be a game changer—if it works like you say it does. I haven't seen a working one yet, so I can't say for sure, but if it really works like you've said, then yes, our scorpions could easily kill their men at a range their archers can't reach. But you still don't see the full situation." Kivamus frowned.

"What do you mean?"

"Let's say all the mercenaries attack from the south," Feroy went on, leaning forward a little.

"Let's assume they only have a hundred men, no more. Even then, we'd have just three scorpions covering that side—one on each of the southern watchtowers. Even if none of the scorpion bolts missed, which is unlikely, that's just three men killed in the first volley. Then the guards'll have to reload. For now, I'm assuming it will take the same time to reload as the crossbow does. By the time they've done that, the mercenary archers might already be close enough to fire.

Even if they aren't, at most the guards will be able to get out one or two more volleys. Again, that's just three to six more men killed, out of the hundred coming to attack us. Eventually, the mercenary archers will still get close long before we can kill enough of them to make a difference. And once those flaming arrows start flying, it'll only take one or two to set a tower ablaze. The moment a tower's on fire, that scorpion becomes useless." Feroy shook his head.

"Even if our crews reload faster, I'd say at best we could take out something like 10 to 12 men before all three towers are burning. After that, the watchtower guards will have to jump down for their lives, and the mercenary swordsmen will close in. You can imagine the rest..." Kivamus let out a long breath and sat back.

While Feroy was only comparing the scorpions with the crossbows, he had a nagging suspicion that with the considerable power of the scorpions and their huge bolts - which would be much, much bigger than the crossbow bolts - they might easily take out more than one man at a time if the enemy was massed together, but even then it probably wouldn't be enough to make a difference against what was basically a small army of a hundred men...

"Then it seems we have no choice but to pay them this year," he said quietly, "as much as I hate the idea of handing over our hard-earned coins. I simply don't see how it would have been possible to do that right after spending a lot of gold to basically pay the Count's taxes twice if we hadn't made the acelos powder, but either way, we do have that option now. That medicine, along with the improved papers we are making now, will earn us all the gold we need to pay these bastards, and likely more." Duvas nodded.

"I'll also try to see how to manage that new income source to save as much of it as we can. The best thing is that it's tax-free." Kivamus nodded and ran a hand through his hair, thinking about other possible options. If only they had guns—something that could kill many people before a magazine needed to be replaced—they could have taken care of these mercenaries easily.

But he knew that even if he tried to somehow make a few guns in the coming months by putting all the other projects on hold, it would only be a crude matchlock or a flintlock, not a modern machine gun with a replaceable magazine. And as revolutionary as those flintlocks may be against a bandit group, they'd still be useless against a trained army - which is what the mercenaries were.

On the other hand, if he tried to make bigger cannons, those might still be useful against a massed enemy, but those needed to be well tested and safe enough that they wouldn't explode under the much higher pressures needed for them to work. It wasn't something that could be made in a hurry, or the rest of the guards would just refuse to use any gunpowder weapons once they saw a comrade being blown to pieces by their own weapon.

The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. That didn't even take into account the various kinds of raw materials, machine tools and metallurgy skills needed to produce even a primitive gun. From what he remembered from his memories, no such guns existed in southern Reslinor, including in Ulriga and in Fort Aragosa, from what Hudan and Duvas had told him.

It still left open the possibility of at least a primitive type of gun or cannon existing somewhere out in the world, even if they might not exist yet in Cilaria. He'd have to ask around about it in the future, but for now, gunpowder weapons wouldn't be helpful for them to deal with these mercenaries, at least in this summer. He looked back at Feroy.

"Is there any way to keep our walls from catching fire? If we can make them at least somewhat fire resistant, it would help us a lot." Feroy thought for a moment.

"It won't be completely effective, but we can still coat the outer sides of the walls and the towers with a thick layer of clay. That would at least reduce the chances of the logs catching fire. We should also make a lot of wooden buckets, fill them with water, and keep them near the gates and towers. It wouldn't be much, but it'd give people a way to put down a fire quickly if they reach it in time, especially since the fire'll spread slowly if the logs are coated with clay. Hmm...

Apart from that, we only have two wells right now—one in the center of the village at the market square and another here inside the manor. I'd say we need to dig more of 'em. If a longhouse catches fire right now, villagers have to run all the way to the well in the market square to fetch water. That wastes time and gives a chance for the fire to spread further. That's a risk even if the fire is caused by a mistake and not by enemies attacking us.

So we should dig new wells so people don't have to cross the whole village to fill their buckets." Kivamus nodded, already forming plans in his head.

"Those are good ideas, and we'll use all of them. I was already thinking of digging another well in the north for the longhouse blocks, but yes, it's better if we have more. That's our only source of water without a river nearby." He turned to the guard captain.

"Hudan, go to the north tomorrow where the trenches are being dug. Take any free guards and manor servants with you. Tell them to use ladders to coat the outer side of the walls and the watchtowers with clay." He looked at Duvas next.

"Meet with Yeden and ask how long it'll take to dig a well and how many men we'll need. The good thing is that we already have people who know how to dig now. Those clay diggers can handle it easily. Tell Yeden I want half of them reassigned to digging wells from tomorrow. Once that is done they can return to digging trenches." Kivamus started listing the locations on his fingers.

"We already have one well in the market square and another in the manor. That covers the center of the village and the east. I want a third one dug just across from the road running in front of the longhouse blocks. I've already planned to make a new market square there, so that new well will fit right in. That'll cover the north. Another well will be dug in the southwest, close to the southwestern gates, and a fifth one in the southeast near that gate. That'll give us five wells in total—one in each direction.

It'll help us fight fires quickly, and as the population grows, we'll need the extra drinking water anyway. We can easily make enough charcoal to clean that water from the new wells and make it drinkable too." He thought for a moment. They already had plans to dig a canal connecting the dam reservoir to the farms, but that might take time. He said, "Add one more well near the farms. It will help the farmers a lot if they don't have to return back inside the village to carry the water bucket by bucket."

Duvas nodded.

"I'll talk to Yeden. Even after the sowing is completed, we can allow the farming foreman Pinoto to use a wagon and a pair of horses to carry enough buckets of water to the farms from the well, but that would still need a lot of buckets. What should we do about them?"

"Talk with Darora," Kivamus said.

"Tell him to assign one of his apprentices to it. He'd told me that he'd taken on a new one who couldn't yet help with the intricate work of crossbow or scorpion parts. But making buckets is simple enough—the apprentice can easily shape the wood, and someone else can teach him how to finish it up. For the iron bands to strengthen the buckets, talk to Cedoron. He can put one of his own apprentices on that. Between them, we'll have what we need.

We don't have any shortage of iron right now, and we are never going to be short of Fedarus wood. So they can keep making new buckets until we have enough of them to keep near each well." He paused, glancing at each of them in turn.

"That'll take care of the basic precautions. But don't mistake this for us surrendering to these bastards. I'm not giving up on fighting these mercenaries. I won't let anyone threaten my people or my village. Once we have the scorpions installed on all the watchtowers, the village will be considerably better protected than it is right now, but we'll also start thinking of new ways to defend ourselves if it comes to that." He turned to the captain again.

"Hudan, your task for now is to keep training our men as best you can. We can't afford to hire more guards right now, but if more refugees arrive, we'll add some new ones to the ranks. I'll also have that dedicated training ground built in the east soon. Until then, make do with what we have." He looked around the table once more.

"You all have your orders. Get to them. Now that we know about this new threat, we don't have any time to waste." Hudan, Feroy, and Duvas stood. Each gave a short nod before leaving the hall, already discussing their parts of the plan as they went. Kivamus stayed behind. He stood up slowly and started pacing, his mind still working. At least they had a few months to prepare. If things went well with Pydaso in Ulriga, they should be able to pay the tribute easily this year, but he would never pay it again.

Not to these mercenaries. He looked toward the window, where the last traces of daylight still showed over the walls. Whatever it took, he'd protect his village and his people from anyone who wished them harm. By now he realized that problems never seemed to end in Tiranat, and probably never would—but his people depended on him, and he wasn't going to let them down.