Chương 361: 356. An Encampment

Syrene thought for a moment before answering.

"It's already mid-spring, so I think the hunters will probably be able to bring the leaves safely for another two weeks—three at most. After that, the heat will make them unviable well before they reach the village." Kivamus nodded.

"All right. Then let's focus on making as many tablets as possible until then. I'll tell the hunting groups to prioritize gathering losuvil. We have enough wheat for now, so we can afford to get a smaller amount of meat for the next few weeks." He paused, planning the next steps in his mind.

"After that, I've been thinking of setting up a small encampment deep in the eastern hills where the vines grow. It's a full day's journey from here, so it'll need to be a semi-permanent post, with facilities for people to live and a large hall which will serve as the laboratory and the processing room. Doing this will also save time for the hunters—they won't have to rush back every few days after gathering the leaves, so they can spend more time hunting instead." He turned toward Syrene.

"You'll need to go there yourself to supervise everything. You can take around four to five servants or maids to help out in processing the fresh leaves. I'll assign enough guards to protect all of you, and we'll rotate the people as needed. But you'll have to stay there most of the time, at least until you can train an apprentice to handle it in your place." Syrene nodded without hesitation.

"That's all right. I've never lived away from my family until now, but someone has to oversee the processing. There's no one else trained for it yet, so it has to be me anyway." She paused.

"Clarisa's been doing very well in Teacher Gorsazo's lessons—she already knows her letters and numbers, so I think she has the right kind of mindset to learn this work. But that's for the future since she's still too young for this. For now, I'll look for someone among the servants and maids who can learn quickly and pay attention to details so they can oversee the whole process without me present all the time."

"Good," Kivamus said.

"That'll help us a lot in the long run when we expand our production further." Duvas looked at him, his brow furrowed.

"By an encampment, do you mean shacks for living? Will it even be safe in those hills? And we don't exactly have spare carpenters right now to build those or a processing hall."

"I know, so temporary shacks will have to be enough in the beginning," Kivamus said.

"Later, we'll build a wooden dormitory—a large hall where everyone can live and sleep—and a separate laboratory next to it for processing the leaves. It won't be feasible for such a small group to produce food there, so that'll have to come from here. The guards posted there will hunt what they can, but they'll still need a steady supply. So we'll send a weekly supply wagon from the village with food, clean clothes, ceramic jars, ropes, and whatever's needed.

The same wagon can take new servants and guards from here for a rotation of shifts at the encampment, and it'll bring back the tablets made that week as well as the people who need to come back." Kivamus leaned back slightly, gazing outside through the open window of the processing room.

"As for the availability of carpenters, that's why we're building the sawmill. Once it's up and running in a few more days, we'll be able to make the planks and beams for those structures easily. So, after we've gathered enough construction material for a full structure, we'll send it on a small caravan of wagons with Taniok and his apprentice to set up the place." He sighed softly.

"Of course, we have bigger priorities before we can make that encampment—like constructing new housing here. The longhouses are already packed beyond capacity these days with the new arrivals. It'd be impossible to live in those conditions in the summer. So right after we have built a new longhouse block, we'll send the old carpenter to start building the encampment. Taniok and his boys can handle the dormitory and the processing hall, while the guards and servants will raise a boundary of sharpened logs.

That will make the encampment an adequate place to live and work, for now." He turned to the guard captain.

"Hudan, how many men do you think we'll need for that?" Hudan shook his head once.

"Bandits don't live that deep in the hilly areas, so they aren't of concern there. The danger'll come from any roaming wolf packs, boars, bears and other such wild beasts. Adzees are also found in the eastern hills, but they tend not to climb the slopes unless they have to. They're apex predators in this region, so they don't bother with ambushes when they can just chase something down and make them a snack." A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

The captain added, "So, as long as the encampment is built on the slope of a hill instead of on the valley floor, it'll be safe enough from the adzees, while the guards should be able to take down other beasts without much hassle. The real nightmare are those giant flying monsters—bakkores. If one of those swoops down on a camp, then all anyone can do is to pray to the goddess and run for their life." Kivamus frowned.

"Are we really helpless against it?" Hudan scratched his shaved chin.

"Perhaps a really big scorpion might be able to take it down after a few accurate shots, but it'll be hard even to get a flying bakkore on target. So we can only hope it doesn't come there, or even here in the village, since we have no way to deal with them right now. As for your earlier question, for usual predators you'll need at least four swordsmen. More would be better if we could spare enough men—especially until a small palisade is up and the lookouts are set—just in case an adzee comes to sniff around.

Apart from that, since we can't afford to make our archers sit idle there instead of hunting for the village, giving the people at the encampment a good number of crossbows will act as a goddess-sent gift out there. That'll mean every single one of those dozen people could become a menace for any attacking beasts, but we simply don't have enough crossbows for that." He paused.

"Although we can still send a pair of female guards there... They are already experienced in using crossbows, and we should be able to spare two crossbows for them."

"That's a good idea," Kivamus said, "but we still have some time until we have to set up the place, and that'll give us time to stockpile enough resources. Syrene said the hunters can bring leaves safely for nearly three weeks, and that last batch will take another three weeks to process. So we have roughly a month and a half to get the encampment up and running.

We're also producing more losuvil powder than we're selling right now, so we can use the surplus to sell in the intervening days, after the final batch has been processed in the village, and before the first batch at the encampment is ready. There is no point in selling everything immediately and pushing its price down, right after we've started making some good profit from it. Hopefully, we'll get a working lathe in a few weeks.

After that, we can easily make more crossbows to protect the camp while keeping enough here. Hudan, keep looking for more recruits as well. Target ten more men in this round." Hudan gave a short, approving grunt.

"It'll bring the number of our swordsmen up to forty, not counting the dozen women on duty. That'll make it easier to defend the encampment and still be able to send guards as caravan escorts without risking the village's defense."

"Good." Kivamus rubbed his thumb along his jaw.

"By the way, tell the hunters to start looking for any promising sites for it. They've already said that there are acres and acres of losuvil vines out there—the plant is basically a weed on those slopes. That will be very helpful for us until we expand the production further, although we will have to start maintaining big gardens of those vines in the future to maintain their numbers. Anyway, it shouldn't be a problem to find a good spot.

We need a relatively large and flat location, easily reachable by a wagon, but off the valley floor for safety, like you suggested."

"I'll let them know," Hudan said. Gorsazo, who had been listening quietly until now, spoke up.

"In the future, this encampment could also become a place for the children and kids to be taken on an academic field trip. They can see how the medicine is produced, and it'll give them some practical experience of the kind of work they need to do in the future. Some kids might think of it as boring, but even if a few of them find it interesting, it would be helpful to Syrene." Kivamus nodded. He had been thinking the same thing.

"Good idea," he said.

"This way, we can train some dedicated apprentices for making the medicine instead of using the manor servants and maids for it. But that's for later, since there would be a big risk of the kids telling about it to their parents, who could blab about it to anyone who wants to sell that info to our foes.

For now, after the encampment is built and is safe enough, you can take Clarisa, and perhaps Lucem, on the supply wagon once a month so they can meet Syrene and learn a little without making the process fully public." Kivamus glanced at the ceramic jars on the new shelf, before he looked at Syrene, who had been listening with the same practical, watchful expression she gave to everything.

"Excellent work on the tablets. Keep working on the next batch." He looked at the majordomo.

"Now, we should give these jars to Pydaso. It's still morning so he can leave within the hour." Duvas stood up.

"I'll send a servant to find him immediately."