Chương 466: 460. Planning - II

On another front, Feroy had been out of the village for nearly ten days now, which meant he should be returning soon. The two guards who had gone with him ought to have gained enough experience from this run to handle similar rumor-spreading work on their own later. That was the real point of sending others with the former mercenary now. Two days ago, Duvas had distributed wages again for the current week, but this time there had been no large gathering and no ceremony.

The total amount needed for each team had been handed to the foremen and supervisors, and they had paid their own workers. It had gone much more smoothly that way. As expected, Syrene and many of the senior workers in the manor had deposited some of their coin back into the bank. Guards, servants, and maids had started doing the same too, though in many cases it was only a copper or two. Still, every copper mattered in their current situation, and Duvas had been keeping a separate bank ledger for all of it.

So far it seemed likely that their estimate of getting somewhere between 110 and 150 gold back in deposits every month would prove accurate enough. The burly blacksmith Cedoron had also kept his word. He had finished the steel components for the scorpion within three days of receiving the steel.

That meant Darora had gotten the parts two days ago, and right now Kivamus was waiting for the majordomo and the captain to arrive so the three of them could go test the scorpion, which had been assembled by late afternoon today. After making those scorpion components, Cedoron had turned at once to forging the lathe parts, even though they demanded more precision than anything he had worked on before.

Thankfully, making a set of vernier calipers had not been too difficult, now that they had steel available in Tiranat. Once they had settled on the measurements under the metric system Kivamus kept insisting on, the blacksmith had forged a few sets and marked them carefully using a steel ruler. He had also been told to make more of them so the carpenters and other skilled workers could use them later to improve the precision of all kinds of metal-working and wood-crafting everywhere in the village.

But before anything else, they would help the smith make the lathe parts to the exact size and precisions required for it. Cedoron had already started praising the calipers after making only one set. Now they just had to wait another week for the lathe components to be finished. There would be no shortage of steel for those parts.

The second batch of steel had come out of the second cementation furnace yesterday, and the blacksmith had already put a few apprentices on the third triphammer to forge those bars into usable steel. The first furnace had already been repacked with wrought iron bars, but that one would still need a week of burning coke inside it, then another two weeks to cool down. The third furnace was already cooling now, and it should give the next batch of steel in another week or so.

But from now on the village would keep getting a new batch of steel every week or so. Although the individual batches were very small in size compared to what something like a Bessemer Converter could make, the current output was more than sufficient for the village's needs. That's why a shortage of raw material was no longer their main problem. Whether it was steel for forging or timber and planks for construction, the village now had enough raw materials to keep several projects moving at once.

The real limiting factor was manpower, as always. And because the number of projects kept increasing every month, it didn't seem like they would ever truly have enough workers. Just like in the coal mines—they had already put all the current mineshafts in operation, and the workers had even started digging new ones with the experienced miners leading the task, but the newly migrated workers simply couldn't match the skills of those who had been doing it for a decade.

They often did not even have enough digging and mining tools, simply because there were not enough well-trained apprentices of the blacksmith to make enough tools for them, even though they had more than enough iron and even steel. Even so, it was a massive improvement over the earlier months, when they had lacked both materials and people. Not everything was going so smoothly, though. The adzee howls had become more and more common in the last few nights.

So far only rare glimpses of them had been seen beyond the tree line, but that was enough to affect morale. Any worker who had to go close to the forest for a task had started complaining about the danger. There was already a shortage of trained guards in the village because so many were spread out protecting different interests, but he had those new recruits now, and they had been placed into small mounted patrols with one experienced guard leading each group.

Those patrols could not truly fight even a single adzee. That was not their purpose. Their job was simply to spot danger and get nearby villagers back within the walls before anything happened. If you come across this story on Amazon, it's taken without permission from the author. Report it. That had been enough to keep the work going for now. Still, if the adzees kept circling the village like this, he would have to do something about them soon.

Or maybe it would be the adzee pack who would do something first, and the village would be the one forced to react. Either way, it would help a great deal if they could get a few scorpions mounted on the watchtowers before any attack came. A short while later, Kivamus saw Hudan and Duvas walking toward him. He had been sitting in the shade again, trying to finish the last checks on the tenement block design before the light weakened too much.

But the moment he saw the captain and the majordomo together, he put the quill down and straightened in his chair. Hudan reached him first.

"Darora just reported that the scorpion is ready for testing." Kivamus nodded.

"Good. Let's go."

"I have another piece of news to report first," Hudan said. Kivamus looked at him more closely.

"Another adzee was sighted in the eastern hills this afternoon," Hudan said.

"It stood on top of a hill and watched the workers making the new road to the dam. Thankfully, it went away without causing trouble." Kivamus frowned. He had just been thinking about the adzee problem, and now Hudan was reporting another sighting. That was not a good sign. If those beasts were becoming bold enough to watch workers in daylight, then the situation could worsen quickly.

"How are the workers handling it?" Kivamus asked.

"If they become too afraid to leave the village for work, that will be a serious problem. But I don't want to risk their lives unnecessarily either."

"So far morale is still fine," Hudan said.

"There hasn't been a real attack yet. But if one of them attacks a small group and people die, it could change fast." Kivamus nodded once.

"We can't let it reach that point. And the scorpions are going to be vital for that." He stood and brushed a little dust from his hands.

"Come on," he said.

"Let's see whether the rebuilt scorpion works properly." As usual, four guards formed around him and Duvas in a loose box as they left the manor. Hudan walked close by, already scanning the path ahead from habit. They exited the manor gate and turned north. It was already getting close to evening now. It wouldn't be long before the workers started returning from the mines, farms, roadwork, and the various construction sites.

That's why they needed to finish the test before too many people came back, or half the village would hear about the scorpion before it was even mounted on a tower. At least the testing location was an isolated one, and nobody unrelated to the project had any reason to go in that direction of the village, since there was no gate in the northwest. They kept walking along the road. Soon the first longhouse block appeared on the right, with the second one farther ahead to the north.

At this hour, Gorsazo was probably teaching the children inside, with Syrene and some of the older villagers helping where they could. Across from the first block, on the left side of the road, there was only empty ground with a well dug in it. A woman was standing there, lowering a bucket into the water. Further ahead, across from the second longhouse block was the third one on the left side of the road—the two-story block that still held a large number of people.

They turned left onto the road in front of the third block. After that, the construction site of the fourth longhouse block came up on their right, while the left side remained empty. That space would eventually become part of the new market square. Kivamus looked over the fourth block as they passed. A few workers stood on top of the two-story wooden frame, hammering slanted planks into place for the roof. That was the usual system here.

Heavy snowfall made sloped roofs necessary, and any building that did not shed snow properly would become a problem in winter. The roof work also meant the building was close to completion now. Another few days, and people could start moving into it once the bunks started to get fitted. They walked past the fourth block and then turned northwest. Before long, they reached the shed of Darora's workshop. His half-dozen apprentices were busy at work, shaping and assembling several things at once.

Layita, his most talented apprentice, was checking a newly assembled crossbow. Another apprentice stood near her, watching her face with clear worry, probably expecting to be scolded if she found anything wrong. They did not enter the workshop. Instead, they continued northwest toward the small group of people gathered near the palisade wall.