A/N: Enjoy another super long chapter today!
***
After the last shot, Kivamus had Darora check the frame again. The carpenter took his time. He inspected the pivot, the base, the gear housing, and the steel fittings. Then he stood and wiped sweat from his brow.
“No cracks,” Darora said. “No shifting either. The tower mount works just as expected.”
Kivamus glanced toward the northeast, where the other scorpion was also being tested at the same time on the watchtower there, with Layita—the talented apprentice of Darora—present there to make sure there were no problems.
“Then let the guards get as much practice as they can until it gets dark. Cover it after we’re done.”
Darora nodded. “The loose frame and old cloth are ready below. We’ll make it look like a storage box from a distance.”
“Good.”
Hudan looked out beyond the walls, toward the tree line and the forest beyond it. “With the howls we’ve been hearing most nights, I’m glad we have at least two of these up now.”
Kivamus followed his gaze.
There had been another adzee sighting near the southern farms earlier in the day, which had given a plausible reason for bringing the villagers within the walls that early in the afternoon. That had made sure most of the villagers wouldn't think to guess the real reason, and would only be happy seeing the baron care about their safety.
There was still no attack yet, but the beasts were circling too often for comfort. The barracks' palisade was only half finished, the new recruits still needed training, and too many guards were already spread between the merchant escorts, farm patrols, hunting groups, and the encampment in the eastern hills.
Two scorpions were not near enough.
But they were better than none.
“Darora,” Kivamus said, turning back to the carpenter, “what's the progress for the third one?”
“Cedoron sent most of the steel components already,” Darora replied. “If the last pieces come tomorrow, I can mount it on the southeast tower within two days. The fourth one will take maybe four or five days after that. After that, the fifth and further ones will take much longer. My best estimate is two weeks for each scorpion—at least without a lathe.”
“Then we’ll focus on the first four,” Kivamus said. “The first three scorpions will give cover to all three gates, and the last one will go on the northwest tower. Everything else comes after that.”
Hudan nodded firmly. “Agreed.”
Kivamus looked once more at the scorpion. It sat on the outside edge of the watchtower, crude, ugly, but dangerous. Once covered, it would not look like much from inside the village. From outside, anyone who noticed it might wonder what it was, but they would not know for sure.
That would have to be enough.
“Keep the cover up here, so it doesn't take long to cover it after the practice is over,” he said. “And make sure the guards assigned here know no one talks about this outside duty.”
Hudan looked at the guards on the tower. “You heard him.”
Every guard nodded.
Darora began calling for his apprentices below to bring up the wooden cover frame and cloth. Kivamus stepped back from the parapet to give them room, then looked once toward the forests beyond the wall.
For now, the testing had gone well.
The scorpion could shoot accurately from the tower, the mount held, and the guards had taken their first real shots from height. And the next couple of hours would give them some decent target practice, in case it was needed soon. The best thing was that there was no shortage of plank boards to make the targets, or the large bolts used for the scorpion.
He just hoped they would have enough time to prepare if an adzee attack came.
When it came.
***
By the time Kivamus returned to the manor hall, the light outside had started to dim.
The scorpion test had gone well enough that he felt more comfortable leaving the tower. Darora had stayed behind with his apprentices to finish covering the weapon and to instruct the guards how to do it properly, while Hudan had gone toward the training ground to help Nesser with the new recruits. The captain had been muttering something about making sure the new guards learned how to stand straight before they learned how to die badly, which probably meant Nesser’s evening drills would be unpleasant for everyone involved.
Another guard had brought news that the testing at the northeast watchtower had also gone well, except for the target at 400 meters. The scorpion bolt reached that distance every time, but it was difficult to target it accurately.
Kivamus sighed, knowing that this was only the beginning for Tiranat. They weren't going to break any long-distance shooting records from Earth any time soon.
He sat at the long table with Duvas beside him and spread the finished blueprint of a tenement in front of them.
He had completed it that morning, after several days of checking measurements, supports, and load estimates. The design looked simple from a distance, but the fact that it was three stories tall made everything more difficult. A longhouse block was broad, low, and forgiving. This was different. The posts, beams, floor supports, stair access, roof slope, and central chimney all had to be thought through together.
Duvas leaned over the drawing, then tapped the corner of the page. “The fourth longhouse block should be ready by evening, just as the apprentice had estimated. They are finishing the last of the roof and bunks now. I'll tell those sleeping on the floors of the third block to shift there tomorrow, but we will still have more than 100 bunks empty after this, even though the village population is above 700 now. Actually, there are a few dozen more bunks empty in the other blocks, because of the guards and the workers who have gone to the encampment, but I didn't think it was a good idea to allot them to others, since it would be bad for morale if those people came back and found the only place they call their home occupied by someone else, so I hadn't shifted any of the people sleeping on the floors to those bunks. With the fourth block ready, now I won't need to. ”
“Good decision,” Kivamus said. “The extra sleeping space in the fourth block will still take a couple of months to be filled, unless Feroy and his rumor spreading is more successful than we expect, or a large group arrives at once. It means the longhouse team can start on the tenement blocks from tomorrow.”
“It will make the apprentice nervous,” Duvas said.
“I know. But he will have to step up in the absence of Taniok.”
A few moments later, one of the guards opened the hall door and stepped in with Finn. He was the same person who had stepped back after being selected in the very first guard recruitment, since his wife had been worried about his safety because of their infant. Finn had worked as a laborer for a while after that, then joined Taniok as an apprentice, where his talent had shone.
Finn was already a senior apprentice of Taniok, though by now calling him only an apprentice no longer felt quite right. He had led much of the fourth longhouse block construction himself while Taniok was away in the eastern hills, and from what Duvas had reported, he had handled it well. He was not a master carpenter yet—that would take years of experience—but he was no longer just a worker waiting for orders either.
The guard remained near the door, standing quietly in the corner. Hudan had kept the usual practice of having a guard present whenever anyone came to meet Kivamus from outside the manor. It was not because he expected trouble from the man. It was simply easier to maintain one rule for everyone.
The carpenter bowed. “Milord. Sir Duvas.”
“Come here,” Kivamus said. “I want you to look at the next design.”
Finn approached the table, and Kivamus turned the blueprint so he could see it properly.
The man leaned over it. At first his face showed only curiosity. Then he realized the height of the structure and went still.
“Three stories?” he asked.
“Three stories,” Kivamus nodded.
The carpenter let out a slow breath through his nose. “This will be the first time I'm working on a three-story building, or anything with that kind of height.”
“I know. Can you do it? Or should we wait for Taniok to return?”
“It’s going to take time,” Finn said after a while of looking at the blueprints. “But I can do it, and I’ll make sure it is built just as well as Master Taniok would have made it. If we do it properly, and with no shortage of seasoned wood in the village now, it should last for decades once I'm done with it.”
Kivamus nodded, happy at the carpenter's pride in his craft.
He hoped they would be making brick buildings by next year or so, so he did not actually need these tenement blocks to last for decades. But having them remain useful would still be good. If the buildings were strong enough, they would not have to tear them down the way they likely might have to with the first two longhouse blocks. They could build better brick housing in a different area without immediately losing what they had already made.
The carpenter’s expression shifted as if he had remembered something unpleasant.
“That reminds me,” he said. “The posts in the first two longhouse blocks are still warping. The unseasoned wood in both of them keeps twisting. I think they may last until the beginning of winter, but I would not trust them much after that.”
Duvas frowned. “That bad?”
“I’m not sure they can bear the weight of snow as they are,” the carpenter said. “Not if the warping continues, and it will. The roofs were built well enough with the planks, but the posts and beams are not behaving the way seasoned wood would have. If we let people live in them after snowfall starts, there is no guarantee they will not just bury people under them if the posts buckle or break.”
Kivamus looked down at the new blueprint for a moment. He had expected that problem to get worse. They had built those first blocks in a hurry before last winter because people needed shelter, and there had been no time to wait for the wood to season properly.
“That’s fine,” he said after a moment. “First you’ll work on building four of these tenements. After that, we’ll build a fifth longhouse block. That should be done by mid-autumn, I think. Once that is ready, we’ll shift people out of one of the first two blocks and tear it down. Then we’ll build a new double-story one in its place, and then repeat the same thing for the other block with unseasoned wood.”
The carpenter nodded. “As you wish, milord.”
Kivamus tapped the blueprint. “Now, this design is very different from a longhouse. It is not meant to house hundreds of people. It is for those who can pay rent for a private place. Craftsmen, merchants, skilled families, and people who want more privacy than a bunk in a shared hall.”
Finn bent closer again.
“The footprint of each building is 11 meters by 11 meters,” Kivamus continued. “Four of them will fit inside a standard 25-meter village block—the same as what a single longhouse block occupies. There will be a three-meter wide cross-shaped lane between them, with shared covered stairs and balcony access for the upper floors.”
The carpenter traced the plus-shaped space between the four buildings with one finger. “So the stairs are not inside the rooms.”
“No,” Kivamus said. “If we put the stairs inside, we waste too much space. This way the stairs sit in the inner lane, but still under cover. People can go up from there and enter the upper rooms from the inner side.”
“That makes sense,” the carpenter said. “I can see that each tenement will have access to stairs on two sides—both of the inner sides. It will give them another way out if something happens.”
“Exactly. Apart from the ease of construction, that was another major reason for me making four separate buildings in that standard block size, instead of a single large one. That would have made giving access to the upper floors much more difficult, and it wouldn't have been much more private than a longhouse block that way. There wouldn't even have been any proper windows for the rooms in the central area in that large block design, so I discarded it. But this way, with four separate tenements in each standard block, each room on every floor gets at least two windows—one looking at the road and the other at the tenement block next to them."
He continued, "It was also difficult to design a kitchen for 60 people without making it look exactly the same as a longhouse block, but now the tenement kitchen will only serve just above a dozen people—cozy enough.”
Duvas leaned in. “Explain the room layout to me again.”
Kivamus pointed to the blueprint for the ground floor. “The ground floor is split in half. One half is a two-room apartment. That one will likely be used by a family with elderly parents, or someone who cannot climb stairs easily. The other half is a shared kitchen room, for use by everyone living in that tenement. It will also serve as a small, but warm, community room for the residents when they are cooking, especially in the freezing winter months.”
He pointed to the center of the square. “The fireplace and the chimney are here, in the middle. It has three cooking faces opening into the kitchen. The fourth side is sealed and faces the ground-floor apartment as a warming wall.”
The carpenter frowned slightly. “A stone stove in the middle of a wooden building.”
“Yes,” Kivamus said. “That is why the area around it will be lined properly. This way, there will be no braziers in any rooms, and no smoke gathering in them. The heat will come from the warm stone and clay mass, not smoke passing through living spaces. This design with a smaller footprint ensures that every apartment on every floor will have a section of this stone chimney as a part of their rooms' walls for heating.”
Finn looked doubtful. “I’m a carpenter, milord. I’ve done hearth framing and some chimney support in the longhouse blocks, but I’ve never built a stone fireplace, not with its chimney going up for three floors.”
“You won’t be doing that part alone,” Kivamus said. “Taniok will help in that once he returns from the encampment. He was the one who built everything in the manor, including the fireplace, and knows a lot more about that kind of construction than you do. Until then, you can build the tenement frame, floors, posts, walls, stairs, balconies, and roof—everything but the stone parts. Leave the chimney and the fireplace for when Taniok returns. They are not load-bearing structures for the tenement, so there wouldn't be any problem in the construction by leaving that space empty till later.”
The carpenter relaxed a little. “That sounds much better.”
“And we are also making tiles for the inner lining of the chimney,” Kivamus added. “A new kiln for fired clay slabs is nearly ready now, and the potters will start experimenting with the first batches from tomorrow. The straightest tile pieces will line the flue. The rougher ones will go around the kitchen hearth floor—it can't be made of wood because of the fire risk, and I don't want people stepping on the freezing ground in winter. The rooms have plank floors, but the kitchen will have these tiles. These fired-clay tiles will absorb and store heat from the fireplace, and will keep the place warm overnight—much better than the frozen ground.”
“Fired clay slabs,” the carpenter repeated, thinking it through.
“Yes. Thick ones. Not delicate tiles." Kivamus snorted. "We only need them to resist heat and reduce fire risk, not to look good and shiny for a noble's mansion.”
The carpenter nodded slowly. “If the stone and clay are doing the heating, and the wood stays properly away from any fire, it can work.”
“It has to work,” Kivamus said. “People cannot live in individual rooms through the winter without any heating source. But giving every room a brazier would be asking for a fire to spread.”
“That would be dangerous,” Finn agreed at once.