It had been four days since the tax collector had returned, and there was still no sign of Torhan or his bandits. It was difficult to say at this point if it was for better or worse. On one hand, it might mean that the western bandit chief had decided not to attack them at all, which could only be good for the village. On the other hand, it might mean Torhan was still gathering more bandits and weapons to attack Tiranat with more strength. Only time would tell, but hopefully the village would be ready for him this time.

Right now, it was late morning of a new day and Kivamus was walking to the north of the village along with Hudan and a few other guards on the invitation of Taniok. The weather had remained pleasant, so he had again started participating in some light workouts with the guards while also getting some basic sword training with the guard captain, not that he expected to become an expert in that any time soon, if ever.

Darora had already received the updated blueprint of the scorpion a few days ago to study in his free time, but he wouldn't start working on it for now. However, Cedoron had started to forge the iron parts of a crossbow once again from the newly bought iron ingots, which had allowed the carpenter and his apprentices to keep working on them, and Darora had already provided a new crossbow to the manor two days ago, and they were expecting another new one by today. It was slow going, but one day they would be able to provide a crossbow to every single guard, which required nearly 50 weapon pieces to arm everyone, including all the woman guards, as well as the six new guards they had recruited after getting news of Torhan's impending raid.

Soon, he passed the second long house block, and turned towards the northwest. Before long, he reached the place where Taniok had been working on the fifth watchtower. Seeing him approach, the bald carpenter quickly climbed down the ladder, and bowed to him.

"Milord, I thought you'd come by the afternoon," Taniok said while scratching his neck. "This watchtower would have been completed by then."

Kivamus chuckled. "Don't worry about it. So it's nearly done?"

The carpenter nodded proudly. "Just need to fix the planks for the outer parapet. That's the last thing due for this one."

"That's good to hear," Kivamus praised, before looking at the guard captain. "Have you already started putting guards here?"

"Of course," Hudan nodded before he grinned, "although we might really need to hire even more guards if you keep making more towers! We have 12 women guards right now, so after the sixth watchtower is built, I'll only be able to put them on duty for two shifts out of the three every day."

Kivamus frowned. "Aren't the older villagers being used as watchmen too?"

"They are, and that's how I will have to manage it in the future after our guards start going out hunting again. For now, I am posting one guard during the day and two at night on every watchtower, since we can afford it these days and the threats are high. We had recruited half a dozen older villagers, so in the future they will work the dayshift from eight to four, while the women will be used for each of the two eight-hour night shifts, since they'll have better night vision than the older villagers. Of course, there are still two men posted at each gate as well, especially in the night, so they can bring the news of an attack to the manor quickly and to provide support to the crossbow women if needed." Hudan shrugged. "I think it will be fine as long as there are only six watchtowers. Six older villagers and twelve women guards can easily cover those in three shifts, although it will still mean reverting to only one person on each tower."

Kivamus shook his head. They were probably already overdoing it in terms of how many villagers they were using as guards, but with all the threats surrounding Tiranat, it was never enough. Still, now that new refugees and immigrants had started coming here, and with more than enough space between the village walls and the present houses in the center of the village, Tiranat's population could expand quite a lot even within these walls. Eventually they should be able to hire more guards, although it would take time.

He looked at the carpenter. "You'll still start on the sixth watchtower in the afternoon, right?"

Taniok nodded enthusiastically. "Its foundations should be completed by then, so you can take back the clay diggers after that. My apprentices have already started stacking up on planks, so I'll start putting in the pillars today, and the last watchtower should be completed in another four days, I think."

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"Excellent!" Kivamus grinned, waiting for the day when the guards would be able to have a good line of sight in every direction. "You have to start working on the trip hammer after that."

The bald carpenter grinned, with gaps easily showing in his teeth. "I really want to try something new, so I can't wait to start on it! Darora has been taunting me these days that I am getting old and can't build anything new, so this will show the young'un that these old bones can still compete with him!"

Kivamus chuckled hearing about the friendly rivalry between the two village carpenters. "I'm sure you will. Go on then. We need all the towers built as soon as possible."

Taniok turned around, and climbed up the ladder with an agility belying his age which was certainly above forty. Kivamus watched the carpenter working for a moment before he turned around as well.

Two longhouse blocks had helped the villagers survive the harsh winter here, but once Taniok was done with the triphammer, he would have to start constructing new longhouses as well. The same size and design as the earlier ones should be good enough, so two new blocks could be constructed on the other side of the wide dirt road which ran in front of the two older blocks. That should ease up the strain on the older blocks enough for the carpenters to start demolishing the shacks and huts in the village center, and make proper housing there. However, he had to consider if it was worth allowing people to live in separate single storey houses, which would require a lot of space and would need them to expand the village walls far sooner than they would have to if everyone lived in longhouses.

But letting everyone live within longhouses wasn't a good idea either, since the coming summer would mean very congested and muggy conditions inside the blocks, which could give rise to all kinds of diseases. He sighed. If they could make concrete here, it would allow them to create high-rise buildings, but Tiranat just wasn't there yet. They simply didn't have the production capacity to produce enough steel or concrete for that, nor did they have workers trained in that. Truthfully, their current population didn't even require high-rises, so perhaps brick buildings would be better for now.

Hmm... that was a good idea though. While concrete was out of their hands, making bricks should be much easier. They would still need to make cement for those buildings, but it would be required in far lower quantity than it would be for a fully concrete-made building. Brick houses couldn't be made too high, or they would be unsafe and be at a risk of collapsing under their own weight, but they should still be able to make five or six stories and be safe. Earthquakes could certainly damage even them, but from what he remembered from the original Kivamus' life, they weren't a major concern, at least in Reslinor.

Eventually, they would have to move to concrete buildings for sure, but this would allow the workers to get experienced in making multi-story buildings, since the two-story wooden manor house was the highest most of the local workers had worked on. Also, cement production - whenever it was started here - would take time to catch up to the amount needed to make a fully concrete building anyway.

Yeah, this should work. He remembered that the first industrial revolution in England had mostly started with the countless cotton mills being housed in brick buildings. He snorted, thinking about the new blueprint design he had started. Perhaps brick buildings really would be what helped bring an industrial revolution here as well. It would also prevent the risk of a fire breaking out and burning everything into the ground, which was always a nagging worry in his mind these days - especially knowing that for Zoricus or Torhan to destroy this village, all they had to do is to smuggle in an arsonist inside the walls who would set the houses on fire in the night, which would destroy overnight all the progress they had made over the winter.

He glanced at the wooden longhouse blocks on the left, and the empty space on the right full of dirt and weeds swaying in the wind. He sighed. Yeah concrete buildings were still a long way away, and perhaps even brick buildings would take time. At least he had some time to make a decision on it, since Taniok still had to build two more longhouse blocks first.

***

In the evening, he was sitting in the manor hall working on a blueprint, while Hudan had also returned to the hall after training the guards. The two guards who had been posted inside the manor while the knight stayed here had returned to their usual duties as well. That's when Duvas walked inside the hall and interrupted his sketching.

"Milord, the fifth watchtower was just completed," the majordomo reported. "Also, a new merchant has just arrived from the north."

"Finally!" Kivamus exclaimed, turning his head to look at him. "I was getting worried about our food stocks emptying before the next merchant arrived. We have less than a week's worth of food remaining after accounting for all the seeds we need for sowing."

Duvas looked frustrated. "No, the merchant has hardly brought any grain!"

"What?" Kivamus pivoted around on his chair in surprise. "But why?"