Feroy snorted. "Yeah, he might be. Anyway, assuming Torhan had 25 men to fight for him until now, then even if he wasn't related to the baron of Kirnos, the baron simply wouldn't have enough men to get rid of this bandit group. From what I estimated after visiting Kirnos - which is maybe one and a half times the size of Tiranat - their baron must have around thirty to forty guards working under him at most. That is simply not a big enough number to wipe out the bandits in their own home without taking very heavy losses themselves."

Hudan nodded. "Yeah, that makes sense. But what if he really is a bastard of the baron?"

"If he is, then that basically makes him a noble..." Duvas muttered. "I simply don't see a noble of this kingdom not wanting revenge for his men being killed by us."

"If that's true," Feroy said, "we can be pretty sure that the Baron of Kirnos will also support Torhan in some way if - or rather, when - he decides that he wants revenge on us. Even if the Baron of Kirnos doesn't send his own men with the bandits, they might still supply them with weapons and horses to make it easier for Torhan to raid us. Kirnos would be getting its own share of the spoils from that raid as well, which is already a good enough reason for them to support the bandits in an attack as long as they are confident of raiding us successfully."

"Yeah... but our village is not the same as it was last autumn, is it?" Kivamus asked with a smirk. "That time the guards had to huddle inside the manor to protect themselves, leaving the village ripe for plunder. But before he actually comes here, Torhan has no way of knowing that we have a strong palisade wall surrounding the whole village now - taller than the one in Kirnos, from what Feroy mentioned last time. We also have a lot more trained guards now. I think you had what... a dozen guards during that raid?"

Duvas nodded. "Yeah, eleven men apart from Kerel who was acting as an interim guard captain. We used to have around 20 men in the past, but the remaining guards were killed during the ambush on the previous baron. As sad as it is, I'm glad we are in a much better situation now."

"Of course," Kivamus agreed. "After hiring more guards late last autumn, we have twenty four guards apart from Hudan and Feroy - and that was before we started hiring women. While the female guards can't do much with a sword, we have 38 guards in total including them. No... 37 now, since the man who got his arm cut-off wouldn't be able to fight anymore. The other guard who had a leg injury also wouldn't be able to fight for a few weeks. That should give Torhan a nasty surprise if he dares to attack us!"

"But we don't have that many guards in the village at the same time..." Hudan reminded them. "We have three to four hunting groups out at any particular time, which means usually we have around 10 to 14 guards out of the village for hunting, apart from the hunters of the village. Since we can't send the women to fight with a sword, and we still don't have enough crossbows even to let them support the swordsmen from a range, it leaves just 14 male guards, including two archers, to protect the manor and the village. Of course, the watch towers will give us a decided advantage here in defence, since the women guards, or even the older watchman we are keeping there can use a single crossbow to take out some bandits by themselves with the height advantage of the tower."

Kivamus looked at Duvas. "What is the status of the watchtowers?"

"The second one next to the southwestern gate should be completed today," the majordomo reported. "Taniok will start working on the third one in the southeast from tomorrow."

"Okay, that's good news, but it still means we won't even have four watchtowers in a week to ten days time, since that's how long it should take for Torhan to decide to attack us. Isn't that right?"

Feroy nodded. "That's the very minimum, but it will probably take longer, since Nokozal likely won't have horses to ride back to the clay mine. I wanted to bring those horses with us after killing the bandits but we just couldn't risk staying there when we started hearing the howls of adzees. Most likely, those horses wouldn't have survived the night, since they must have been tied to trees by the bandits, and in that case even a single adzee would be more than enough to kill them. Although from what I heard, I believe it was a whole pack of them."

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

"Who knows, we might have gotten lucky and that giant bastard would have been eaten by an adzee..." Hudan snorted.

"We can certainly hope so, but it's not very likely..." Feroy muttered. "That slimy bastard has a way of getting out of situations where he might die. We have to assume that he survived, and probably even managed to take a horse to ride. In that case it should still take him around a week just to find a way to the clay mine, since he used to operate in a different region of these huge forests and he wouldn't have a good idea of how to find the mine without someone from Torhan's group to show him the way. Assuming Torhan decides to attack us immediately after getting the news, he will likely try to get an audience with Baron Farodas in Kirnos to ask for his help, and then it will take a couple of days for them to ride here. That means we should have around ten days before we get raided by Torhan, and probably even two weeks or more in case Nokozal couldn't find a horse."

"Isn't that around the same time when we are expecting the tax collector to arrive from Cinran?" Kivamus asked. "Can't we ask them to stay here for a few more days and help us in case of a raid? How many men do they come with anyway?"

"Unless there is a delay, the tax collector should arrive in around a week," Duvas answered, "since the Count wouldn't want to delay getting taxes any more than he already has. It's been a while since the tax collector of Cinran had to come here, since our previous baron preferred to go to Cinran himself to pay the taxes, but when the last time Count Cinran's tax collector Ustaimo had come to Tiranat, he came with a couple of knights, their squires, and a few swordsmen and archers."

"They would be very helpful if they agreed to help..." Hudan said. "I trained as a squire for many years in Cinran, so I might even know one of them."

Duvas shook his head reluctantly. "Unless a raid happens at the same time they are in Tiranat, I don't believe they will stay here for a single day longer than they have to. That means most likely the tax collector will be long gone by the time Torhan raids our village."

Feroy looked at the others for a moment. "You all are also forgetting that Baron Zoricus in Cinran might even have bribed one of those squires or swordsmen to try to assassinate Lord Kivamus again. I don't think we can trust them any more than we can trust the bandits." Follow current ɴᴏᴠᴇʟs on NoveI★Fire.net

Kivamus clenched his fists, trying not to think about how Levalo had tried to feed him poisoned soup, and had nearly killed the young maid Clarisa in the process. "Alright, let's stop thinking about what-ifs. There is no point in that. I agree that we can't trust any armed men from Cinran to protect us, which means we have to do it ourselves. What I want more than anything is to go and attack Torhan right in his clay mine and kill him right there, so he can't threaten us ever again, but I don't think it is feasible. Even if we sent every single guard we have for this - which we certainly cannot afford to do - we still won't have enough men to be able to kill all his bandits without losing our own people, and that is if Baron Farodas didn't outright help him against us."

"You are right," Hudan agreed. "Joric said Torhan had at least 25 trained men, but Feroy and the others already killed seven of them. That means he should still have around 18 to 20 men now, and to wipe them out fully we will need at least a double advantage in numbers, which means we will need to send at least 40 men, and that is after leaving enough men here to protect the village. That is simply not possible right now."

"Indeed," Kivamus nodded. "Which means we will just have to make sure to protect the village from them. Alright. The walls are completed, so that's good. The second watch tower will be built by today, and a third one will be done in another 4 to 5 days. That means even if we just get around 10 days before a raid on us, we might even be able to build a fourth watchtower by then. Darora should also be able to provide us with at least two, and maybe even three new crossbows by then. We already have a good stock of bolts, so that wouldn't be a problem either."

He looked at the guard captain. "Hudan, select more older men and women who are willing to keep a watch on the towers, and continue giving them some basic training with the crossbow, just in case. However, when the time for a raid is coming close, we will send our women guards up there, since they are already well-trained in using the crossbows." Once Hudan nodded, he asked while looking at Feroy, "That reminds me, how helpful was Hyola with the crossbow during the ambush?"

"She did much better than I expected," the ex-mercenary replied. "The redhead killed two bandits and injured a couple of others, and this was her first time facing bandits coming to kill her. The other guards did good as well, including Tesyb who managed to hold out against Nokozal alone for a while. I would recommend all of the guards to be given a medal, including Hyola."

Kivamus grinned, especially after noticing how Duvas' mouth didn't even close for a while in surprise after hearing about Hyola.