Kivamus began, "I agree that the guards acted bravely against the bandits and we'll give them the medals later today. Still, crossbows are usually better when used as a defensive weapon, like when the person using them is standing in the safety of a watch tower, so they can keep shooting at the attackers without risking themselves. But they can also be used effectively in offensive situations, although that will only happen when we have enough of them to shoot the bolts in bulk."

He glanced at Duvas before adding, "Just imagine how the ambush would have gone if all eight of the guards had a loaded crossbow with them at the beginning of the ambush. Even an archer like Yufim could have used it once to shoot a bolt before returning to use his bow after that. In that case, with eight crossbow bolts being shot out immediately after the guards recognised an ambush - even assuming half of them missed completely - they still would have injured or killed four of them."

Feroy interrupted him before he said any more. "Actually, I saw that Hyola had just enough time to load the crossbow one more time before the bandits reached too close. In that case, we could have shot another eight bolts. That might have completely removed the threat, since even if the bandits didn't die, only a few of them would have been left uninjured enough to keep attacking us. And that's the best case scenario for the bandits. Sixteen crossbow bolts being shot at them in two waves could very well mean that all of the bandits might have died before they even reached the wagons."

Duvas shook his head in wonder. "I had expected that the crossbow might come as a surprise to any bandits... but to think that the guards wouldn't even have to lift their swords to wipe out all the bandits if they just had more crossbows...?" He sighed before looking at Kivamus. "You were right, my lord. In such a case, it wouldn't even matter if all the eight guards were men or women if the crossbows could finish that many bandits before they even reached in sword-fighting range..."

Hudan also looked surprised. "I have already seen how effective a crossbow can be in the fight with the adzee a month ago, but to hear about them being so useful even in a sudden battle with armed bandits... Huh... At this rate, the guards might as well stop training with a sword altogether and start learning how to use a crossbow better!"

Kivamus grinned again, not mentioning that this was exactly the eventual result which had happened on earth after the invention of guns, which worked on a very similar principle to crossbows, due to the fact that they could be used by anyone without any prior training. "That's why I keep insisting that crossbows are going to be our secret advantage in the short to medium term. Anyway, now that we have gotten fourteen more refugees, we can afford to hire a few more guards. Hudan, you had given some basic training to half a dozen villagers with machetes a few months ago and we had decided to keep them as reserve guards. This is the time to give them an offer to join us permanently."

Duvas interrupted, "You are raising our expenses again and again, my lord, without worrying about the consequences. We can't keep spending gold like this!"

"There is no point in keeping any gold if there are no people to use it!" Kivamus retorted. "Let me worry about how we will finance it." ᴛhis chapter is ᴜpdated by novelꞁire.net

"I'll ask them today when they return from work," Hudan said.

"Good. I think they all should agree easily enough, which will give us another six guards, even though they won't be on the same level as the other guards for a while."

Thinking about the estimate Feroy had given them, Kivamus added, "We should have at least a week on the minimum before a raid from Torhan. That means it should be okay to send the hunting groups out on one more trip, but once they return from it, hold them back so we can protect the village better. Extra meat won't help us if you don't have people to feed them to. With the two wagon loads of smoked fish we got today, we now have more than enough food to feed everyone for the coming week, even without the guards going hunting for a while. Even if we somehow run out of stored food supplies, we will just have to use some of the seeds to feed the people. This might lead to a smaller harvest, but that is still better than losing our people to a raid or getting our village burnt by bandits."

"I'll let the hunting guards know about it," Hudan replied. "In fact, they usually stay out for three to four days at a time, so I'll tell them to take longer on their next trip to get as much meat as they can. That way we will still have all the guards in the village within a week, and we will get more meat to eat or smoke as well."

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Duvas looked at Kivamus and gave a sigh. "I know you are doing your best to keep us all safe, but your ideas just seem too irrational sometimes for me to agree to them immediately. But doing all this might just help us to get out of a raid better than I could have imagined a few months ago."

"I agree," Feroy said. "It's not like Torhan can even bring every single bandit from his clay mine to attack us. He has to keep some of them right there to keep an eye on the slaves. With every single guard in the village ready with a sword, along with the archers and crossbow-women keeping a watch sitting on top of the towers and with us also having some men in reserve with these six new guards... we might just be able to deal with Torhan without much losses, if at all."

Kivamus look at everyone's faces and gave a dangerous smile. "As much as I want it, we might not be able to go and punish that bastard Torhan right in his home, but if he does dare to attack us here, he won't know what hit him!"

"That reminds me," Duvas interrupted, "just like Feroy had hidden the crossbows when he went to Kirnos, we also have to hide the existence of crossbows from any visiting knights or the tax collector, since it is prohibited for anyone to have them outside of Duke's army in Fort Aragosa."

Kivamus nodded. "That's a good idea. I don't want to let any other nobles know that we have them, or that we also have the capability and designs to craft them here. I don't want to see Darora being taken away by those knights for that. Anyway, those men are only going to stay here for a couple of days at most, so we can just keep those crossbows out of sight for the time being when they arrive. It will make us a little vulnerable without the crossbows on the watchtowers, but the knights will also be present here within the manor for that time. In case of a raid, they will have to help us at least a little bit... to protect their own lives, if nothing else. That should still help us enough for us to deal with the rest of the bandits."

He looked at everyone for a moment. "Well, that's all for now. You all know what to do. Hudan, you have to hire the reserve guards, and talk with the hunters. Feroy, you ask Joric everything he knows about Torhan and his men, then put him to work in the coal mines from tomorrow. Duvas, make sure we have enough medals so we can provide them to the guards in the evening."

The others gave nods before getting up and moving out of the manor hall to complete their tasks. Once he was alone, Kivamus glanced at the shelf with the blueprints. Others were doing what they could to defend the village, so now he also had to do his own part to make sure Tiranat had enough gold to fund everything he had just ordered and the things he planned to do in the future."

******

~ Joric ~

Joric was feeling confused. No, overwhelmed might be a better word. It hadn't been even half a day since he had arrived in this unconventional village, and he already found it difficult to reconcile the memories of how a village was supposed to be run from what he had seen living in Kirnos against what he was seeing right now in front of his eyes.

Throughout the nearly two day journey from the ambush site near Kirnos to the bustling village of Tiranat, he had been dreading what he was going to find here and what was going to happen to him. Feroy, the leader of the caravan - who acted more like an experienced mercenary than a travelling merchant, or even a lazy village guard - had been asking him all kinds of questions about Torhan and his clay mine. Instead of hiding anything, Joric had told the mercenary everything he knew, just so he wouldn't be thrown away as some adzee food by Feroy, with his throat slit while he was sleeping, but thankfully the mercenary had believed him and left him alive.

Despite the guards acting more or less friendly to him throughout the journey, even after knowing that he was the one who had stopped them for the ambush, Joric had still been fearful of what would happen when he arrived in Tiranat and the baron met him. However, back in the afternoon, when one of the guards had mentioned that Tiranat was only a short distance away now, his heart had started beating faster and faster, fearing the baron would execute him for helping the bandits in the ambush. After all, any noble leading such a poor and destitute village wouldn't have any heart to show him generosity anyway. From what he had heard for most of his life, Tiranat was barely a village, and didn't even have a wall surrounding it, like the mighty palisade walls of Kirnos.

From what others used to say about this poverty-stricken settlement when he lived in his home village of Kirnos, the beggarly villagers of Tiranat just mined coal all day, then drank ale all night, only to go back to mine more coal the next morning and then drank again in the evening. There were no other jobs here, and no new opportunities for people - unlike in Kirnos, where a person could become a farmer, a fisherman, a merchant or could even join a visiting ship as a deckhand if he didn't have any other opportunities. Not that any of those tasks were easy or paid much, but Kirnos still seemed like a much better place to live than Tiranat. Or so he used to think before arriving here.