The dirt road in the southern part of the village passed between patches of vegetable plots on both sides. Marking proper blocks and putting gravel on the roads here had been postponed for the future when the village needed this space. Some patches belonged to the manor and were tended by Madam Nerida and the maids for use in the manor, while other patches had been assigned to families living in the longhouse blocks, who took care of the vegetables in exchange for getting the produce for their own block. The plants had started to droop under the summer heat, but they were still green, and a few women were watering the nearest beds from wooden containers with small holes, brought there on wheelbarrows—which the village finally had a good number of.
Farther south, the animal pens took up more space. Goats, sheep, chickens, and a few pigs shifted inside their enclosures, most of them gathered wherever a wall or post gave even a little shade. The nodor pen was empty at the time, the hardy beasts being used at the farms these days. The hunting groups often brought one or two with them whenever they found a nodor roaming in the hills or the forests. The smell was stronger here due to the presence of so many animals, though not unexpected.
Near the largest pen, four workers were building another shed.
One carpenter’s apprentice stood with a cord in his hand, squinting at the line of posts already set into the ground. Three laborers were raising a new wooden pillar while he told them to shift it half a handspan to the left. Another shed had already been finished nearby, giving shade to a section of the animal pen.
Kivamus stopped for a moment to watch them settle the post into its hole.
“Hopefully it will be done soon,” he said. “The animals need shade as much as we do.”
Duvas nodded. “The carpenter apprentices have been rotating through this work whenever Darora can spare them. The first shed was finished yesterday. This one should be done by tomorrow. Having no shortage of planks these days helps a lot.”
Hudan looked at the animals gathered beneath the completed shed. “They seem to know which one is already finished.”
“Animals are sensible that way,” Duvas snorted. “They don’t wait for a formal announcement before using shade like the villagers need to do for a new longhouse block.”
Kivamus laughed and then they continued toward the southeast gate.
The gate guards straightened as he approached. One of them gave a quick report before Hudan could ask. Nothing unusual had been seen since morning. Three patrolling teams of guards were out at the moment to cover the farms, the fields were clear of any danger, and no adzee howls had been heard from the southern forest.
Hudan accepted the report with a nod, and the gate opened for them.
Outside, the road led south toward the farms.
The land beyond the walls looked different from how it had when Kivamus first arrived in Tiranat. Back then, much of it had been rough ground, scattered scrub, and half-cleared space that showed more intention than success. The forest had loomed not far from the village—which didn't even have a wall at the time. Now the fields spread wide under the sun, with rows of wheat standing across a large area that had taken months of labor to prepare.
The farmers had already spread manure across the fields recently—the animal pens being located so close to the southeast gate helping with that task—and the wheat showed the benefit of it now. The plants were nearly at their full height, yellowish-green and thick across the open land. The heads had begun forming, though the grain inside them would still need time to fill out properly.
Standing at the start of the fields, Kivamus could see farmland stretching farther than Tiranat had ever managed before, and the view felt satisfying in a way words couldn't easily describe.
Beyond the wheat fields, the line of cleared land stretched farther than it had a few months ago. The logging crew had kept working there with a dozen men, cutting trees whenever other urgent work did not pull them away. It was not fast, but the steady work had opened a useful strip of land ahead of the farms and kept fresh timber coming into the village, even though Tiranat already had log stockpiles in more places than Kivamus could easily count. Once the wheat was harvested, Pinoto could plant liwabeans in the cleared up wheat fields and in the newly cleared ground as well. Then, when winter freed more workers from farming, Kivamus intended to send them back to clearing trees so the farmland could be expanded properly before the next wheat sowing in spring.
The sight of so much grain in one place made Duvas stop beside him. “I never imagined I would see wheat fields like this outside Tiranat.”
Kivamus understood the feeling.
Even though he knew the harvest would not nearly be enough for the entire village, seeing the fields growing so close to the walls still felt like a victory.
“It’s only a start,” he said. “When we planned these fields, the village had less than half its current population. The harvest won’t feed everyone for a year, not anymore. But every sack we grow here is one less sack we need to buy from Cinran or Ulriga.”
“And wheat is never cheap,” Duvas said.
“No. It definitely isn’t.”
Pinoto—Tesyb’s father—emerged from one of the paths between the wheat rows before they reached the nearest well.
The old farmer walked with the careful steadiness of a man whose body had been shaped by work and injury together. He had lived in Tiranat long enough to remember how the village worked before most of the newer residents had even heard of it, and though his leg still troubled him, he had become the natural choice to oversee the farming work.
He turned to speak to two farmers behind him.
“Finish that row first,” Pinoto told them. “Then check the far side near the ditch. If the soil is drying there too, don’t wait until afternoon.”
The men nodded and moved away.
Pinoto came toward Kivamus and bowed. “My lord.”
“Pinoto. How are the fields?”
“Growing well, considering the heat.” Pinoto looked across the green wheat with a farmer’s worried eye rather than Duvas’s pleased one. “But the lack of rain is starting to trouble us.”
He pointed toward the stone-lined well not far from the field path. Several workers were already using it, filling buckets and carrying water toward the driest sections. “This well helps a lot, and the workers have been drawing water continuously from it, but a well can’t make up for more than a month without proper rain. If we had better irrigation, the field would be much safer.”
“Yeden’s road crew is still cutting through the hills between here and the dam site,” Kivamus said. “Once that path is ready, they’ll dig the canal alongside it. That should give you water from the reservoir.”
Pinoto’s gaze sharpened. “How long?”
Kivamus looked toward Duvas.
The majordomo already kept track of all the projects in the village and was always ready to report upon the progress of anything.
“Yeden is pushing the road crew hard,” Duvas said. “They are cutting through the final hill now. That should be done in a few days, though cleaning away the loose soil, gravel, and broken rock will take another week. After that, they can properly level the road and make a gentle slope coming down to the village from the height of the hills, and then the canal can be dug along the side as Lord Kivamus planned.”
“Another week for the canal?” Kivamus asked.
“Roughly. Perhaps a little more if the soil gives them trouble.”
“So three weeks before water can reach the farms.”
“That is the current estimate,” Duvas said.
Pinoto let out a slow breath. “Three weeks isn’t ideal.”
“No,” Kivamus said. “But will it be soon enough?”
“If the crops keep holding as they are, it should be. The heads are forming now, and they’ll need water badly before the grain fills out. If the canal water comes in three weeks, it may prevent the worst harm. The rainy season is at least a month away, so we can't rely on that to irrigate the fields in the meantime. Though it would help a lot if it rained earlier, even if just for a day.”
That was not as comforting as Kivamus would have liked, but it was better than hearing that the crop was already doomed.
Pinoto looked back toward the wheat. “There is another matter, my lord. The harvesting tool you mentioned.”
“The mechanical reaper?”
“Yes. That.” Pinoto looked slightly uncomfortable with the unfamiliar term. “There are still a couple of months before harvest, but with fields this large, we would need at least 150 workers. More, if we want the work finished quickly and without losing grain or letting them rot if the rainy season is heavier than usual. I know you might not be able to spare too many extra laborers when the time comes, because you need to sell coal to pay us all and buy food for the village. The farms aren't paying for themselves yet, nor are the longhouses you’ve made for the village, since you don't charge anything to let people stay there. You don't know how thankful the villagers are that the adzee pack couldn't breach the walls and we killed five of them without any deaths on our side, but those guards also need to be paid, which again would be coming from your coal sales.”
Kivamus smiled. The old farmer was sharp, and he had guessed a lot about the financial situation of the village despite not knowing anything about it personally. Although he didn't know anything about the income from paper and acelos tablets.
Pinoto shrugged. “So if that tool can truly allow just thirty of us full-time farmers to manage it, then it would help us greatly. I don't even know that… machine would work as well as you say but after seeing the seed drills in work during spring, I have far less reason to doubt your claims. Do you think you’d be able to do something about it in time?”
Kivamus had expected the question.
He had also been hoping for more time before someone asked that.
“I am still working on the design,” he said. “I’m sure we can make at least one before the harvest begins, but I don’t know if we can make enough of them to cover all the fields quickly. Darora and the carpenters are already buried under other urgent work.”
“Because of the mercenaries,” Pinoto said.
Kivamus nodded.
Pinoto’s face grew more serious. “I remember when they came last year. They didn’t harm the village because the previous baron paid them, and only a dozen of them came as far as the manor. But we all heard about the whole mercenary group camping out just a few hundred paces from the village in the forests. There was fear in the village for days after they left.”
Hudan’s expression hardened slightly.
Pinoto continued in the careful tone of a villager speaking honestly to his baron without forgetting who he was speaking to.
“It’s nearly that time of the year, so those of us who have lived here for long enough are already thinking about it. Tiranat has changed a great deal in the past year. If the mercenaries come again, they may not be handled so easily this time.”
“I know,” Kivamus said.
He did know.
Last year, Tiranat had survived by paying them off with 400 gold coins because there had been no other choice. This time, the village had more people, more wealth, more industry, and far more secrets worth taking.
Which meant paying them off might not be enough even if he wanted to.
“That is why the village defenses have taken priority,” Kivamus continued. “But I have not forgotten the harvest. I will keep working on the reaper design, and we will try to build threshers and winnowers as well if we can manage it.”
“There is another machine the carpenter and I have been working on,” Kivamus added, thinking about the lathes but didn't name them out loud. “If that gets ready in time, and if it works as I expect, we might just be able to provide you with all the machines you need, starting from harvesting the fields to getting the grain ready to store.”
Pinoto listened closely.
“The reaper should cut the stalks far faster than men with sickles,” Kivamus said. “The thresher would help separate the grain from the stalks and husks with barely any manual work. The winnower would use moving air to blow away the lighter chaff, leaving the heavier grain behind.”
Pinoto’s brow furrowed as he followed the explanation.
“So less cutting by hand, less beating the grain loose by hand, and less tossing it in the wind by hand.”
“That is the idea.”
“Then even one of each would help!”
“It should. But the plan is to make more of them if we can manage it.”
Pinoto nodded. “I know you have too many things to manage at once, my lord. I have no doubt you are doing what you can.”
Kivamus appreciated that more than he expected.
Not because it solved anything, but because Pinoto understood the problem without turning it into a complaint.
“I will meet with Darora soon once he has finished his current project,” Kivamus said, not mentioning the scorpions here. “That other machine I mentioned will come right after that, because it will help both the carpenters and blacksmiths make other tools faster. After that, we will see what can be done for the harvest.”
“That is enough for now,” Pinoto said. “If the canal arrives in time, the field should hold. And if even a single machine for each of those harvesting processes works as expected, the farmers will bless you for it.”
Duvas clasped his hands together briefly. “May the Goddess ensure it arrives before it is needed.”
Hudan looked across the wheat. “And may the mercenaries arrive late. Or they don’t.”
“That too,” Duvas said at once.