Chương 469: 463. Concealment

They started walking toward the manor, this time taking the long route through the western side of the village, with the usual four guards settling around them again. After a few moments, Duvas spoke.

"You had mentioned earlier that it wouldn't be a good idea to keep the scorpions up on the towers, because merchants would easily see them. That's going to be a problem."

"I've been thinking about that," Kivamus said.

"If we put just one scorpion on one corner watchtower, it won't help much. The attack could come from another side. So we'll wait until more of them are ready." Hudan glanced at him, listening closely.

"Darora said he can finish another one in a couple of days," Kivamus continued, "and then one more a few days after that. So once the second one is done, we'll mount both of them together. One on the northeast tower, and one on the southwest tower, so we get the best coverage from the start. When the third one is ready, we'll mount that on the southeast watchtower. That will cover all three gates. The last one will go on the northwest tower once it's finished." Duvas nodded slowly.

"But what about hiding them?"

"That part may not be as difficult as we first thought," Kivamus said.

"Crossbows are different. The guards use them regularly, even if only for practice, and they need to be ready at any moment, especially outside the village. But the scorpions will rarely be used. Only against knights, large beasts, or maybe a large bandit group. And we should not be seeing large bandit groups often anymore. Tiranat is not the same as it was a year ago. It is a walled village now, with watchtowers on each side." He looked along the road ahead, where the longhouse blocks stood in rows.

"The mercenaries are not going to attack us this summer. Even if our relations with them go badly, it will only happen when we refuse to pay them next year, since we have already managed to gather enough gold to pay their tribute this time. So if we ever expect an attack by mercenaries or knights—whether they are from Kirnos or Cinran—it will not come as a complete surprise. There will likely be weeks of worsening relations before that happens. We will have enough time to uncover the scorpions and prepare them."

"That makes sense," Hudan said.

"For normal days," Kivamus continued, "we'll keep them wrapped in thick cloth. But not tightly enough to show the exact profile. We can even add old rags under the cover in some places to break the shape. Anyone who sees them will get curious, yes. But curiosity is better than them knowing exactly what we have up there." Duvas considered that for a few steps.

"We might have to rethink it when the tax collector and the knight arrive."

"We have time until then," Kivamus said.

"And even then, they don't know of a weapon this size. The scorpions are much smaller than the ballistas, so they won't recognize them at a single glance, even if we do not remove them. And we probably shouldn't remove them anyway." He added, "So we'll keep them covered until a night when we start hearing adzee howls right around the village, or until the night guards see a pack roaming close. Other than that, they can stay covered indefinitely, apart from occasional testing." Hudan scratched his jaw.

"It does make sense. But we do need to test them a few times after mounting them. The guards need practice using them from the towers. It won't be easy to target an enemy properly without practice, especially from that height."

"Yeah," Kivamus said.

"For testing," Hudan continued, "we'll also need target boards at marked distances. The guards will need to know what the weapon does at each range."

"I know," Kivamus replied.

"After the first round of testing against planks, we'll place some medium-sized rocks at marked distances around the wall. We can put them at 100 meters, 250 meters, and 500 meters from the walls." Hudan looked interested at once.

"We won't make them look like markers," Kivamus said.

"Just leftover rocks. To anyone else, they'll look like nothing. But the guards will know exactly how far an enemy is when he reaches one of those points. That will make targeting much easier. Now that the scorpion can actually reach that far, distance matters." If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it. Hudan nodded.

"That's a great idea." Duvas frowned a little.

"But testing them up there in the open will defeat the purpose of hiding them. If everyone in the village already knows exactly what they are, then there is no point in covering them afterward. Any visiting merchant will hear rumors about it."

"I know," Kivamus said.

"But there's a simple way around that." Duvas looked at him.

"The workers don't really get any days off here," Kivamus said.

"Everyone reports to work every day unless they are sick or have some other commitment. So once all four scorpions are mounted on the watchtowers, we'll give the workers an early release for a day. Instead of everyone returning from work at five or six bells, we tell them they are free after, say, two bells in the afternoon." Hudan understood first.

"So everyone outside the village will be back inside by three bells."

"Exactly," Kivamus said.

"After that they'll be busy with their usual tasks, families, meals, or resting. So we'll use the remaining three hours of daylight for testing. There will be nobody outside the village to watch it. We'll still send a few guards out to bring back bolts and put up targets, but they already know not to talk about manor matters with outsiders." Duvas nodded, though he still looked thoughtful.

"Some people will still notice something happening on the watchtowers."

"They will," Kivamus agreed.

"But we already do mock drills where guards rush to the walls to simulate defending from an attack. The female guards sometimes practice with their crossbows from up there too. The villagers are used to strange things happening around the manor and the watchtowers." He glanced up toward the nearest tower.

"And the scorpion will be mounted on the outer side of the tower. Anyone watching from inside the village won't have a good line of sight anyway. It isn't ideal, but it is the best we can manage to make sure we can give some targeting practice from up there for the guards."

"True enough," Duvas said. They passed the longhouse blocks and continued toward the manor. Hudan kept scratching at his chin as he walked, clearly thinking something through.

"Actually," the captain said after a while, "I think I have a better idea for hiding them." Kivamus looked at him.

"Go on."

"We should still cover them with thick cloth," Hudan said.

"But even then, a trained eye might guess the general shape. A villager won't know anything, but an experienced guard traveling with a merchant might realize it is some kind of large weapon. Especially if he has a background of serving at Fort Aragosa in the past."

"That is possible," Duvas said.

"So instead of just wrapping the scorpion directly," Hudan continued, "why don't we firstly use some sticks tied with rope in a circle shape, as a frame around it, then put the cloth over that? The shape would be completely different." Kivamus thought about it for a moment.

"That's a good idea. But instead of random sticks, we'll tell the carpenters to make a loose cage for it. Something easy to lower over the scorpion from the top. The guards can place that half cage over it, then wrap the whole thing with cloth, and it will look like a box."

"A box on a tower," Hudan raised his brows.

"Hardly a common sight..."

"Better than an obvious weapon on a tower," Kivamus shrugged.

"In fact, we can even wrap some vines around the outside over the cloth. Maybe put a small planter on it or something and make it look like decoration." Hudan snorted.

"I'm not sure that would fool anyone with a trained eye. Someone like Feroy would know something was wrong after one glance." Kivamus chuckled.

"We're not trying to fool Feroy, are we? We just need the guards of visiting merchants to not get too curious. As long as idle curiosity does not turn into definite knowledge that we have a new type of weapon up there, it is good enough." He looked ahead toward the manor gate.

"After these four scorpions, we'll put Darora back on making the lathes. Once he has those, it should become much faster to make everything else. It will still take some time, but eventually, we will be able to mount the remaining towers with scorpions too, and even place some at the industrial area by the dam." Hudan's eyes sharpened.

"You're thinking of putting scorpions there? I'm not sure they'll have enough range from the ground."

"They won't be on the ground," Kivamus said.

"I'm planning to build a wall around that place too, along with watchtowers covering all three entrances to the valley. One toward the village, and one going away from it, and one going south following the stream. The north is already protected by the reservoir, so only the south will need a watchtower apart from the valley entrances on the east and the west."

"That's a lot of work," Hudan said.

"It is," Kivamus agreed.

"It will take a few months at least. But I want it done before winter." Duvas looked at the walls around the village.

"It does sound ambitious, but I think we can manage it. We will have to be careful when the mercenaries arrive, because there is no way we finish all that before then. But it will certainly help later. That industrial area is still expanding, after all."