From Londoner To Lord

"Pydaso is only a small-time merchant," Duvas explained. "That's the reason he risked coming to our village even when the threat was so high. Unlike the bigger merchants, who could afford to wait for the winter without coming to our village, Pydaso must have thought it was a good opportunity to make some money by braving the dangerous road, since he would be able to do a lot of business here which he wouldn't be able to do in normal conditions. Still, he simply couldn't afford to hire enough mercenaries to protect himself and his goods well enough, which is why we had to send guards to accompany him. Of course, you already know that our village was in a very desperate situation at that time, so we needed that grain at any cost or our people would have starved in the winter, so we also had a good incentive to send guards with him."

"That's true enough," Kivamus agreed, "and we aren't going to be in a much better situation until we reap our first harvest this autumn. But that is months away, and we will need to buy grain regularly until then, even at the higher prices. Still, I like Pydaso."

He added with a snort, "Although he does want to make money like any other merchant, we've already had dealings with him, and he seems honest enough. So we'll try to give the bigger and more valuable orders to him, and we'll also provide him with protection, while the other merchants can take care of themselves. This way we will be assured of having at least one merchant whom we can rely on to get us good deals in Cinran, while also being confident that at least one protected caravan will be coming to our village regularly. Although we still need to recruit more guards soon for that."

Duvas nodded, "That's only possible if some immigrants start coming soon."

"Let's hope that goes well," Kivamus agreed.

Before long, the groom had a horse ready and they all mounted their own rides. With that, the small group of Kivamus and Duvas, along with three guards and the guard captain exited the gates of the manor and turned north, so they could exit the village through the northern gate.

Soon, they had reached the northern wall, and Kivamus saw with a lot of satisfaction that an older villager was sitting on top of the watchtower keeping a keen eye outside the walls. One of the guards must have hauled a chair up the watchtower, which meant the older villagers wouldn't have to stand all day for all their shift, which would keep them rested and their mind alert. Of course, this was only a stop gap measure, and eventually they would have to put trained guards up there, even if those were women. When they had more guards to call on, perhaps they could even post two of them on the tower at the same time, which would make it possible for them to keep an eye on a wider area, with both of them making sure that the other wasn't getting sleepy, especially in the nights.

Noticing his gaze, Hudan explained, "I have already selected two of the older villagers who wanted to become watchmen on the towers, and they are each putting up a duty of eight hours every day, with the night watch being taken by a trained female guard. I have also been familiarising both of them in using the crossbow, and now they can hit a human sized stationary target outside the walls eight out of ten times. I think within a week they should be able to hit even a moving target."

"That's good to hear," Kivamus said, as the guards on watch duty opened the northern gate for them.

Hudan added, "The crossbow is also kept up there on the watchtower permanently now, so they will have it handy in case it's needed. But it really would help if we had more of them built."

"Don't I know it..." Kivamus muttered. "My mind keeps going back to Feroy, and I wish we could have given more crossbows to them. Hopefully, next time we will be able to do better."

Their small group exited the gates, but just as they reached the fork in the road to turn east, they saw a group of guards coming towards them from that direction. Two of them were pulling a sledge behind them, with a lot of meat packed with snow kept above it.

Stolen novel; please report.

Reaching closer, Nurobo - the fat archer who must be the leader of this group and had some good experience in first aid - gave him a bow. "We are just returning after hunting in the eastern hills, milord. We got a good haul this time!"

However, Kivamus was thinking of something else. "You are just in time." He looked at Hudan. "I think we should be able to send a scout to look for the caravan now."

Hudan nodded and looked at the returning hunters. "Nurobo, you guys have been out for a while, so you all can rest for today, but be alert just in case until I come back. One of you run to the manor, and tell Kerel to pick another guard who is off-duty and to send him to ride east to scout on that road. The scout should hopefully be able to spot the caravan today and return back by nightfall, since he will be much faster riding alone on a horse than the caravan, but tell him to pack some supplies for another day in case he is unable to spot the caravan by evening."

The guard captain ordered, "The scout should keep riding west until he sees them, but he should return back as soon as possible to give us the news and to tell us if the caravan needs any help. Maybe it's just a simple problem like the wagon wheels getting damaged, so it would be good to find out soon so we can send them whatever help they need."

Nurobo gave a nod. "As you wish, captain. One of us will take the place of that scout whenever he is due for his next shift." Then he quickly selected one of the guards who looked young, and sent him to run to the manor with those instructions, before the group of hunters continued towards the village.

With that done, Kivamus and his group started riding to the east again, with his mind more at ease now, since they should hopefully be able to get some news about the caravan by evening.

******

They had been slowly riding the horses between the hills for nearly an hour when Kivamus saw the familiar bend in the path which led to the stream. The snow had started melting here even between the hills, although the tall peaks of the Arakin mountains far in the east still looked just as white as they had throughout the winter.

On their way here, they had passed through the narrow valley where half a dozen former stonecutters were still digging clay, and had also seen the pair of wagons parked outside the coal mines, where the labourers must have been busy mining coal inside the mine shafts, now that all of them had been cleared of all standing water.

As they turned around the bend, he saw the dam not far in the distance to their left. They kept moving towards it, and before long he was standing in front of the biggest man-made structure in the barony of Tiranat. It was way, way too small compared to any modern dam on earth, but for the people of Tiranat, it was still a marvel.

On the left bank of the stream where they were standing, the disassembled parts of the water wheel were kept safely on the side, while many laborers were hard at work on the far side of the dam.

"This is... astonishing..." Duvas muttered from nearby. "I didn't expect it to be this big... I think that the dam I saw on the Romasi river near Risalis in the north was much bigger than this, but this dam is still eye-opening."

"That is a big river," Kivamus remarked as he got off his horse, "from what you told me. We simply can't build a bigger dam on such a small stream as this."

Duvas had to take the help of Hudan to dismount, while a pair of guards took their horses to the side. He looked at Kivamus as they started walking towards the dam, "I've been to this stream so many times over the past two decades I've lived in Tiranat but I never thought I'd ever see the stream blocked like this."

Kivamus pointed at the small trickle of water passing over it on the far side of the dam, even if the stream didn't have much water on this side. "It's not completely blocked, as you can see. Come on, let's move to the top of the dam, and I'll show you how it works."

They started walking upwards on the slope that had been built for just this purpose, with Hudan and another guard following behind them. Before long, they had reached the top of the dam structure, but they kept walking until they were close to the other end of it. Reaching there, Kivamus pointed at a small gap in the structure of the dam, where water was passing over it easily. Some water had already started gathering in the new reservoir created upstream of the dam because of the melting snow, but the water level was not nearly high enough for it to flow over the full height of the dam, or even through the sluice gates.