Chương 324: 320. Scouting

Kivamus glanced around at the daily happenings of the manor as he thought about Duvas' question. Down below, he could see a maid drawing water from the well near the gates, while a servant was pushing a wheelbarrow carrying a sack of grain from the storage barn, probably to make some porridge for the evening meal. The horse stalls in the stable were empty as usual. Even though nearly all the plowing of the fields had been completed, Pinoto still had to use them to drag the seed drills for sowing in the fields.

Of course, a pair of horses was also being used to plow the small area of land which was being cleared by the loggers every day until the sowing was completed. The two nodors they had in the manor had been loaned over to the village miller, so he could rest his own solitary nodor despite being needed to grind more grain these days because of the increasing population of the village. Chickens were clucking in their small enclosure near the stable, while the cows were resting at the time, just like the sheep.

They also had more than a dozen rabbits by now, but they were usually kept indoors to prevent any aerial predators making a snack out of them. On the other side of the manor, in the southeast, guards had already started gathering, where Kerel was supervising a mock fight between two of them. Two hunting groups were out of the village at this point, but there were still more than enough guards in the manor these days that there was a small crowd of off-duty guards gathered to watch and participate in those fights.

Further ahead of them, Hyola was overseeing the other female guards as they tried their best to reload the crossbow quickly and shoot as many bolts as they could into a straw target while Hyola counted down from hundred to one. It was the redhead's own suggestion to improve the rate of fire of the crossbow women. Close to them, Yufim was showing their newest recruit Levalas how to hold a bow properly.

Levalas could hold his own in a sword fight - well, kinda, since he'd mainly used a dagger in the past - but he had shown interest in being able to hit targets from afar, so Yufim had taken him under his wing. So far, there hadn't been any indication that Levalas had any bad intentions in mind, and Feroy had said that the young man was trying his best to change his life, so he had told the other guards to try to include Levalas as much as they could in everything.

The fact that he had worked for the Count in the past didn't hurt his prospects either, since the other guards were often seen asking him for stories about Cinran and the tasks he used to do there. He had no doubt Levalas had more than enough stories to tell, even though it must have been Zoricus who had ordered it instead of Count Ebirtas, but that detail was limited to a few people only.

Still, looking at everything proceeding normally around him made Kivamus proud that the village had come so far within half a year. Who knew just how much better they would be in everything by the next winter. However, they still had to deal with the threat of a big raid from Torhan, which might happen any day now - but that was only if it was happening at all.

"You may be right," Kivamus muttered, "and Tiranat might not be raided at all, but I haven't seen Feroy's instinct lead us astray so far." The majordomo nodded.

"I know, but no merchants have been coming here either, so without enough hunting groups out, it's really hurting our food supplies..." Kivamus looked at Hudan.

"Is it feasible to send more hunting groups right now?"

"I don't want to lower our defenses right when we might need it," the guard captain shrugged, "but including the six newly recruited guards, we have enough guards in total that we can afford to send five hunting groups out these days. Of course, that might mean not having enough guards here in case a raid does happen... but because of the food shortage, we might be able to send another two hunting groups out now. It's not ideal, but having villagers starve is not good either."

Kivamus took a deep breath, gazing down at the people of the manor.

"You are right... but we barely have more than a week's worth of grain remaining right now, if we don't want to stop sowing. That means unless Trevalo comes soon, we would have to send a caravan to Cinran ourselves, like before the winter - which would lower our defenses a lot more, while also risking the lives of our guards on that road. Compared to that, sending hunters out is much safer, since it gives us fresh meat - which we can't buy from Cinran - and only requires four men for a single group."

He looked back at Hudan.

"Tell two more hunting groups to be ready to leave by tomorrow. Include all the new recruits in them. If nothing happens tonight, we will send one of these groups out tomorrow morning, and then another group out the day after."

"As you wish," Hudan nodded.

"Including the earlier two groups we sent, it would mean being down by 14 guards, apart from the two village hunters. The only reason we can afford to do this is because all the watchtowers are nearly ready, and we have enough female guards now to pick out any bandits from the towers. However, I would still like some trenches dug outside the wall sooner rather than later. If we make them wide enough, it would prevent any horsemen from trying to attack any place other than the roads exiting our three gates."

If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

"I think we can afford to do it now," Kivamus agreed.

"The clay diggers who had been digging the foundations of the watchtower are free now, and we don't have any major requirement of clay right now, so we can put all of them on trench digging now. Hudan, meet with them tomorrow morning and tell them the details of the trenches." The guard captain nodded.

"Of course. We will also start putting in the sharpened stakes in the trenches as soon as the diggers move on to dig further. As for making those stakes, we have no shortage of small branches these days, so I'll just put some of the guards to use their machetes to do it themselves."

"Good idea," Kivamus praised, before he glanced at the people of the manor again. While everything looked normal from up here, he had seen the tense expressions in the faces of the guards, and the anxious looks the maids threw to each other. Lucem and Clarisa - the two kids they had here - also seemed subdued these days, and that was having an effect on others as well. He exhaled loudly, as he turned around towards the door of the stairwell.

"We all have work to do. Come on."

It was the next morning and Kivamus had been told that another hunting group had left earlier today, while one more group was ready to leave when ordered. No new merchant had come last night as well, which meant their hopes were only hanging on Trevalo returning in time. He also estimated that Pydaso must have reached Ulriga by now, and hoped he would be able to make a good deal there. Right now, he was taking a stroll in the manor grounds along with Hudan and Duvas, while enjoying the pleasant sunlight of spring.

Gorsazo was tutoring Syryne at the time, while Lucem and Clarisa had gone out of the manor to collect sawdust with other village kids. Duvas had also reported that the carpenter's apprentices had provided the six new moulds and deckles to the paper makers, which would at least double the production of paper in the village.

This would obviously require more sawdust, but for now they had no shortage of it in the village and the kids were already gathering small heaps of it near the paper makers and the wood press machine every day. Of course, eventually they would have to think of a better way - of perhaps using wood pulp directly if they wanted to increase the paper production even more - but there was still some time until then. Soon, he saw Feroy entering the gates of the manor, with dark circles under his eyes.

Noticing him, the former mercenary walked towards him.

"Milord! You look fresh and rested..."

"And you look like you just climbed out of a grave," Hudan taunted with a grin.

"Staying up night after night to scout will do that to ya'..." Feroy laughed, before he took a long yawn.

"I am still thankful to you for that,' Kivamus smiled.

"Others can rest easy knowing that you are out there keeping an eye on any approaching enemies." The ex-mercenary shrugged.

"Somebody has to do it anyway. And I have more experience in this than most others."

"So, did you see anything?" Kivamus asked. Feroy shook his head.

"Nothing but squirrels and other critters. Did hear an adzee howl from the southeast once, but nothing of notice other than that."

"Well, I guess that's good news..." Kivamus muttered.

"What about the other two guards keeping an eye along with you?"

"One of them came back with me, and he hadn't seen anything either. Still have to meet with the other one..." The ex-mercenary glanced at the gates.

"Ah... there he is." Feroy called over the guard, who came jogging towards them. Kivamus frowned when he looked at the guard, who looked a little jumpy for some reason.

"Did ya see somethin'?" Feroy asked with a frown. The young guard glanced at Kivamus' and others faces for a moment, before he winced.

"Uh... I don't know..."

"What do you mean by that?" Hudan immediately questioned him.

"Well..." the guard rubbed the back of his head.

"There wasn't anything out there till the sunrise, that's for sure! But around an hour before I decided that it was time to return, I think I saw the shape of a man in the distance... But you know that the new moon is only three days away, so there is barely any light in the night these days. I wasn't sure what I saw, so I went to take a look, but I didn't find anythin'! I still stayed there for a while, just in case, but still nothin'... That's why I was late. But I'm still sure I saw something..."

"Could it just have been some wild animal?" Duvas asked.

"There are a lot of them in those hills." The guard reluctantly shook his head.

"Not unless it's learned how to walk on two legs..."

"Well... shit!" Kivamus cursed.