Chương 30: More Problems

The Great Hall was wonderfully warm, but the air inside was becoming a serious problem. Jack sat in his high-backed chair near the upper inner balcony, watching the villagers eat their morning porridge. Villagers had been living, sleeping, and eating in this single enclosed room for weeks now. The doors were kept tightly shut to block the winter drafts. As a result, the hall smelled terrible. Karen walked up to Jack's chair to collect his empty bowl.

She wrinkled her nose slightly as she passed a group of young boys who were scratching their heads vigorously.

"The lice are spreading again, Lord Jack," Karen whispered, keeping her voice low so the others wouldn't hear.

"Old Martha says if we don't find a way to wash the bedding and the people soon, a fever will break out."

"I know, Karen," Jack said quietly. He had been a manager in his past life, and he knew that poor hygiene in tight quarters always led to disaster.

"The first Winter Cabin in the village is already occupied. As soon as Giles finishes the next four, the hall will be emptied. But that won't solve the problem of hygiene." Jack tapped his cane against the floor lightly, thinking.

"Tell Giles and Barnaby I need them at my table," Jack instructed.

"We have to adjust the village plans." A few minutes later, the lead carpenter and the blacksmith stood before Jack's desk. Both men looked exhausted but eager. The success of the first Winter Cabin had given them a massive boost in morale.

"Lord Jack," Giles said, wiping his brow.

"My men are pulling the wood from the ruined huts as fast as they can. We will have the frames for the second cabin up by tomorrow."

"You are doing excellent work, Giles," Jack said.

"But we are adding another building to the village plan. We need a communal bathhouse." Giles blinked in surprise.

"A bathhouse? My Lord, we barely have enough hands to build the cabins."

"If we don't wash, the sickness will kill us just as surely as the cold," Jack explained firmly.

"It doesn't need to be fancy. Just a large, sealed wooden room built right next to the river. We will use the same double-wall insulation as the cabins. We will build a large stone furnace with an iron boiler on top to melt the river ice and heat the water. The exhaust from the furnace will run under the floorboards to keep the room warm." Barnaby nodded slowly, rubbing his thick beard.

"I can forge a large iron basin for the boiler from some scrap shields we got from bandits. It will take a lot of coal to heat that much water, but if it keeps the fever away, it is worth the fuel."

"Good," Jack said.

"But hygiene is only our first problem. We have a larger issue approaching. The Beast Tide." The mood at the table instantly darkened. Every villager knew about the Beast Tide. When the deepest part of winter broke and the snows began to melt slightly, thousands of starving predators from the high mountains—dire wolves, mountain cats, and giant boars—would flood into the valleys looking for anything to eat.

"The village is exposed," Giles said grimly.

"When we all lived inside the castle walls, we had stone walls to protect us. But now we are moving the families back down into the open valley to live in the Winter Cabins. If a pack of dire wolves hits the village at night, the wooden doors won't hold them forever." Giles swallowed hard, a look of deep dread settling over his weathered face.

"Usually, we rely on the imperial patrols or the mages from the Holy Church to travel north and thin the herds before they reach the valley. If they do not arrive in time like last year, we will surely die. The old village boundaries are completely gone, and rebuilding a proper perimeter cannot be done too quickly." Jack did not speak. He simply leaned forward, resting both hands on the brass head of his cane, and gave Giles a flat, unblinking look. Giles froze.

The big carpenter suddenly remembered the terrifying, silent mages that had casually walked through a firestorm and crushed the bandit mages with their bare hands.

"Ah... my apologies, Lord Jack," Giles stammered, his cheeks flushing red as he quickly bowed his head.

"I spoke out of habit. I briefly forgot that we have our own formidable mages defending the fief now."

"That is exactly why we are going to build a wall," Jack said, ignoring the carpenter's embarrassment. He pulled out a piece of parchment and drew a large circle.

"We will sharpen the ends of logs and drive them deep into the frozen earth. We will build a tall, solid wooden palisade completely surrounding the new cabins." The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

"A palisade?" Giles asked, rubbing his beard nervously.

"My Lord, we can use the leftover timber from the ruined huts that isn't good enough for the cabin walls, but that won't even cover half the perimeter. Just how much wood do you think we can get from some destroyed huts? We must cut fresh wood to build a wall that big."

"Then you will organize a logging camp," Jack said firmly.

"Send your men into the southern woods starting today. Chop the pine. We will need it."

"A palisade will slow them down," Barnaby agreed, leaning over the drawing.

"But a starving beast will just dig under it or try to climb over the bodies of its packmates."

"Which brings me to my next point," Jack said, looking directly at the two men.

"We are not just going to hide behind the wall. We are going to open the gates and kill them." Giles stared at Jack, absolutely stunned.

"Kill them? My Lord, there are hundreds of them. We are just forty people with wood-axes and hunting bows. We are prey."

"We are not prey," Jack said, his voice cold and hard.

"Look at your people, Giles. We are surviving on porridge and dried peas. It keeps us breathing, but a man cannot build a fief on grains alone for months on end. We need meat. We need animal fat for oils, pelts for clothing, and bone for tools. We will use the Beast Tide to hunt." Barnaby let out a low chuckle, his dark eyes gleaming with newfound respect.

"You want to turn a monster siege into a hunting trip. You have changed so much, Lord Jack, since your father died. You have a stone-cold heart. I like it."

"If we are going to fight them at the gates, we need the right tools," Jack said, turning to the blacksmith.

"Wood-axes are too short. If a man gets close enough to hit a dire wolf with an axe, the wolf is close enough to bite his throat out. We need distance." Jack sketched a quick drawing on the parchment. It was a long spear, but just below the sharp iron blade, there was a heavy iron crossbar sticking out horizontally.

"A boar spear," Barnaby recognized immediately.

"Exactly," Jack said.

"When a starving beast charges, it won't stop even if you stab it. It will push its own body straight down the spear shaft just to reach you. The iron cross-lugs will catch the bone and stop the beast from sliding forward. I need you to forge thirty of these spearheads, Barnaby. Make them thick and heavy."

"I will start hammering them today," Barnaby promised.

"Between the spearheads, the bathhouse boiler, and the iron cranks for the heavy wall-ballistas, my forge will not sleep for a week."

"Good," Jack said. He rolled up the parchment.

"Now, Giles. Bring your coat. It is time I showed you how we are going to get all the coal to fuel Barnaby's forge." Thirty minutes later, Jack and Giles were standing outside the sealed wooden entrance of the old Frost-Grip coal mine, halfway up the mountain slope. Giles looked nervous. He remembered the choke-damp gas that had killed a dozen miners years ago. Jack stepped up to the heavy wooden barricade. He didn't pull a single plank away this time.

Instead, he wedged his cane behind a large section of the rotting wood and pulled. The entire center section of the barricade swung open, revealing the dark, gaping tunnel. Giles instinctively took a large step backward, covering his mouth and nose with his scarf. He expected a wave of foul, sulfurous poison to roll out and choke him. Instead, he felt a sharp, cold breeze. The wind was not coming out of the mine. It was blowing into the mine.

The fresh winter air was rushing past them, being sucked steadily into the dark tunnel. Giles lowered his scarf, his eyes wide with confusion. He took a cautious breath. There was no sulfur. There was no stagnant stench of death.

"The mountain..." Giles whispered, stepping closer to the entrance.

"The mountain is breathing inward. How is this possible?"

"My mages have been busy," Jack explained smoothly, leaning on his cane.

"They used their arts to dig a massive vertical chimney at the very end of the main tunnel, leading straight up to the sky. They built a contained fire at the bottom of it. The heat rises up the chimney, creating a powerful draft that sucks all the bad air out of the tunnel. It pulls the fresh air in right past us." Giles stared into the dark, his carpenter's mind struggling to grasp the sheer scale of such a project. Digging a vertical shaft through solid bedrock was a legendary feat.

"Then the mine is safe?" Giles asked eagerly.

"We can send the men down with pickaxes?"

"Not yet," Jack cautioned.

"The main tunnel is clear, but the mine is a maze. There are dozens of branching side tunnels. The draft is currently taking the path of least resistance right down the center. The toxic gas is still trapped in the side branches." Jack pointed his cane into the darkness.

"To make the entire mine safe, we have to control the wind," Jack said.

"I need you to build some airtight wooden doors. We will install them in the main tunnel to block the draft, forcing the fresh air to route itself into the side branches to push the poison out."

"Air routing," Giles nodded slowly, understanding the logic perfectly.

"We build walls to steer the wind. It is brilliant."

"And there is one more problem," Jack added, looking up at the ceiling of the tunnel entrance.

"Look at the support beams." Giles looked up. The thick wooden beams holding the rock ceiling in place were brittle, and heavily cracked.

"The stagnant, wet air used to keep the wood swollen," Jack explained.

"Now that the fresh, dry wind is rushing through, the old wood is drying out rapidly. It is losing its strength. If we start swinging pickaxes down there, the vibrations will snap those rotting beams, and the mountain will crush us." Giles rubbed his beard, his face turning serious.

"We need fresh timber. Lots of it. We need to replace the primary supports before anyone swings a pickaxe."

"Exactly," Jack said.

"We have the Winter Cabins, the bathhouse, the palisade wall, and now the mine supports. We need an immense amount of wood, Giles. Your men have a long task ahead of them in the pine forests."

"It will be done, Lord Jack," Giles promised, looking at the clear tunnel with a renewed sense of pride. The coal mine was the lifeblood of the valley. To have it back was the greatest gift the young lord could have given them. As they walked back toward the castle, Jack's mind was racing. The logistical puzzle was massive, but all the pieces were finally falling into place. The village was expanding, the defenses were being planned, and the mine was breathing.

But as the village grew, the demand for raw materials was skyrocketing. And Jack was about to hit a massive bottleneck that human labor simply couldn't solve.