Chương 191: 188. Traveling

Darora nodded, "I have, milord. There are a lot of them on the Kal river in Ulriga, as well as a few even in Cinran."

"That' s great. I'll need you to make something similar at a high priority, before you craft anything else. It will work in the opposite way of those water wheels you have seen, but it has the same concept, so you should be able to do it easily enough." Darora looked confused.

"But you just told me to start working on the second crossbow from tomorrow..."

"Yeah, and you should," Kivamus explained, "but it will take me a few days to draw up a suitable design for the water wheel to remove water from inside the mines, so until then you should keep working on the second crossbow. But once I provide you with the design, you will need to postpone making more crossbows until you have finished the water wheel." Darora smiled.

"Oh, I understand it now!"

"Good. In Tiranat everything hinges on having enough coal for heating and cooking in the winter, and we are already using a lot more coal this winter than the previous ones - without even mining any new coal at all." Kivamus continued while looking at Hudan, "If we run out of coal here, most of the village would just freeze to death even without any bandit raid. That's why dewatering the mines has to be the first priority for us." He looked back at the carpenter.

"This water wheel design will be smaller than the ones you have seen and it isn't going to be nearly as complex as the crossbows, since we only need to remove the water from the mines instead of running them continuously in fast flowing and deep river waters to use them as a power source like in bigger cities, so I think you should be able to make it within a week."

"I'll do my best, milord!" Darora said enthusiastically. Kivamus smiled.

"I know you will."

Kivamus tightened his fur coat around him before mounting on a horse near the stables. Although the temperature had remained below freezing, the snowfall had stopped for the moment. It was cloudy as usual, but with the time being just after seven bells of the temple, it was bright enough to see even without the sun. Hudan and four other guards were already sitting on horses nearby, with two of them in front of him, and two behind him, while the guard captain was right next to him on another horse.

All the guards were heavily armed with swords, spears and daggers, while Yufim had his trusty bow with him, just in case an archer was needed. Kivamus had taken his own sword as well, not that he considered himself anything close to an expert with it. But having something to defend himself with was much better than being defenceless. Duvas was standing on the snowy ground nearby with a regretful face.

The majordomo wanted to accompany him to the mines, but he had caught a cold at some point in the night, so Kivamus had ordered him to stay here and get some rest in the manor hall with a fire to accompany him. The losuvil extract would also be very helpful to him, and he was very glad they had been able to preserve it. That's why Tesyb, their new guard who used to be a former coal miner was included in the guard complement to show them around the mines in place of the majordomo.

Feroy was also going to stay back at the manor - with quite a bit of reluctance - since Kivamus had decided that he needed a trustworthy guard with good experience to stay at the manor to organise the defence in case there was an emergency. That meant one of Hudan and Feroy always had to be in the manor whenever he wasn't present here himself. Turning to the side, Kivamus gazed at the manor grounds, where all the maids, servants, grooms and guards were busy doing one thing or another.

It was so good to see everything going so well and everyone being enthusiastic about their tasks. Then he looked at the guard captain.

"Alright. Let's go!" Hudan nodded, and relayed the order to the other guards, and with that, their small group started moving towards the manor gates. Passing the three guards at the gate duty, including one of the female guards, they reached the empty area outside the gates, and turned north, before they walked their horses on the narrow alley parallel to the palisade walls of the manor. This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

Soon, they reached the end of the village, and Kivamus saw the current status of the construction projects in the north. There was a steady stream of men and women going inside and coming out of the first longhouse block. There was also a thin plume of smoke rising from the inside, likely from the kitchens where their afternoon meal must already be in the process of cooking.

The supervisors of the block had been chosen wisely by Duvas and they had been able to manage any arguments or quarrel from the residence by themselves. He was glad to see that this system was working out so well. As they moved further, they passed next to the second block, which also looked complete from the outside, which meant the remaining task was finishing up the insides - likely to install all the bunks there.

Just like in the first block, he had ordered Taniok to leave a tree standing in the courtyard of the second block as well. While that was only a Fedarus tree, unlike the Bilona Tree in the first block which gave its famed Bilona nuts, it would still be enough to provide shade in the summer months. They kept moving further north, and before long they reached the gap in the new village walls where a gatehouse would be built in the future.

He looked to both sides of him, and was glad to see the tall and sturdy walls extending far into the east and the west. There was a series of horizontal logs on the inside of the wall, which were supported by slanted logs to give the palisade walls extra support. That was a later addition they had decided on, at Hudan's recommendation, and they had decided to do that for the whole length of the walls a few weeks ago, and by now that was completed as well.

Once they had all three gates completed, it would make their village more secure than it had ever been in the past. Noticing his gaze, Hudan mentioned, "It's not possible to dig in the winter, but once the ground thaws in the spring, we will dig a shallow but wide trench parallel to the walls on the outside, along with sharpened stakes in it to deter any cavalry charge against it. Kivamus nodded with satisfaction.

However, despite seeing all the progress, it still felt to him that everything was happening so slowly here when compared to the modern Earth standards. Relative to this place, construction work happened at a lightning pace with the help of modern construction machines on Earth.

However, while the current technology level of this kingdom meant that such a thing wasn't possible here anyway, from his talks with Duvas and Gorsazo, he still knew that the current pace of construction in the village was still far higher than what was common in this kingdom. He sighed. There was no point in comparing Tiranat to London anyway. He would just have to do his best to protect the village and make it prosper within the limitations he had here.

They kept moving on the northern road laden with snow, and soon, they reached a bend in the road, and turned to the east in the direction of the coal mines. He had been told that it was only around a half hour walk on foot, which meant the mines couldn't be more than a few kilometres away from the village, so it wouldn't take them too long to reach there. He kept observing the surroundings with curiosity, this being the first time he was going towards the east.

Before long, they reached the end of the plains, and he saw the hilly terrain starting in front of him. Looking towards the east, these foothills eventually led to the snowy peaks of the mighty Arakin mountains further ahead at the Horizon. They continued riding their horses slowly on the narrow and winding paths between the hills, with Tesyb leading them from his experience, while Kivamus gazed at the countless leafless Fedarus trees and other plants and shrubs on the hills.

With the ground covered with snow everywhere, only the trees broke up any monotony in the mid-winter landscape. He thought he even saw a rabbit flitting around somewhere near the bottom of a tree, but it ran away so fast that he couldn't be sure about it. After a while, they made a sharp bend towards the right, and Tesyb, who was riding in front of them along with Yufim, looked behind towards Kivamus.

"We are here, milord," the bulky young guard announced. Pointing further ahead at a few hills one by one, he showed the entrances to the famed coal mines of Tiranat.

"In that case. let's walk on foot from here," Kivamus said while dismounting from the horse. Looking around he saw that there were many large to medium size hills all around him - all of them being covered with a layer of snow. But despite the snow, it was easy to see that the empty area where they had stopped - which was located in the middle of three different hills - was mostly flat. Tesyb explained, "This is the area where wagons were parked for the miners to load coal into them."

Pointing ahead at what only looked like a dark cave from the outside in one of those hills, he added, "Those are the entrance to the nearby shafts. There are more shaft entrances further ahead in other hills as well. The miners went inside these mine shafts to dig coal, while the women brought it in small baskets to the wagons.

Some children, mainly those whose both parents were working here, helped around as well for a few coppers from the majordomo, usually to pick up the lumps of coal which had fallen down on the ground while carrying them here." Kivamus nodded, having already been told about the child labour by Duvas in the past. He would have to see what could be done about that in the future.

"Let's see a mineshaft from the inside now."