From Londoner To Lord

"That's true," Duvas commented. "Even if we had just three crossbows ready, it would have made us a lot more secure..."

"That's why Yufim and Nurobo - our best archers - will also be on duty," Hudan reported, "one of them at each of the other gaps in the village walls."

"That's better than nothing, I guess..." Kivamus muttered. He looked at Duvas. "Still, tell the fletcher to start working to make as many bolts as he can from tomorrow. Even though we only have a single crossbow right now, having a surplus of bolts is only going to help us in the future when we have more crossbows ready."

"He already has orders to finish up two dozen bolts for the first crossbow," the majordomo replied, "but I'll let him know to focus on making bolts until we have a stockpile of a hundred bolts at least, before he returns back to making arrows for the warbows."

"That should work," Hudan said, "although we could still use a dozen more spears. Usually the dozen we already have is enough for us since only around half of the guards are on duty at any time, but in emergencies like this when we have to put more guards on duty at the same time, it would help us a lot by allowing us to arm everyone properly."

"Duvas, now that Cedoron has forged all the tools we needed, tell him to start working on the spearheads in his spare time," Kivamus ordered. "I am soon going to give him another order for a safety lamp which can be used without much risk inside the coal mines instead of using an open candle there, but by the time I am ready with the design he can finish up the spearheads." He added, "We are paying his wages anyway, so we might as well use the stock pile of iron we had bought. Once he has done that, Taniok's apprentice should be able to provide good shafts for them."

The majordomo nodded. "I'll let him know, but you do realise that we can't keep splurging iron and money on everything at the rate we are doing currently, right?"

"We still have enough coin remaining to pay the taxes after the winter, even if barely, and by that time we should be able to start selling coal again," Kivamus reassured him. "But for that to happen, we need everyone to stay safe until then. So we simply can't start penny-pinching when it concerns our defence."

Duvas just grumbled something under his breath in reply.

Hudan began after a moment, "While it's certainly not going to be easy to fight against even a single adzee, I've told the guards to call me if there is any sighting of them in the nights, since other than Feroy, I am the only one with any experience fighting against an adzee."

"I would hardly say that I have any experience either," Feroy snorted. "Apart from that one time when the mercenary group I was a part of had to take down one of them which was already injured, we just moved our camp if we heard adzees howling from nearby. It's foolish to try to fight with them if there is even a small chance of getting away from those beasts without a battle."

"That's still a lot more experience than the rest of our guards," Kivamus said, "and that experience is going to be invaluable if we really do have to defend against them."

"Let's just hope it doesn't really come to that," Duvas muttered while looking upwards with his hands joined in prayer.

After a while, Kivamus began, "There is something else I wanted to talk about. When I visited the coal mines today, I saw that even the areas so close to the village seem unexplored." Looking at the majordomo, he added, "You have already told me that because of the dangers of the forests and the previous baron's orders that nobody was allowed to claim anything from there, villagers just didn't have any reason to enter the forests. But I was thinking that if nobody has ever checked the nearby regions, then it's very much possible that we could be sitting on a gold mine nearby without even knowing about it!"

Duvas chuckled at that suggestion. "I can guarantee you, my Lord, that there is no gold or silver mine anywhere here. Getting easy money was something that the previous baron was very much interested in, so he did send some prospectors he had brought in from Cinran to take a good look at the nearby areas in case there were any precious metal veins in his domain."

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Everyone listened carefully as the majordomo continued, "The previous baron started the search right after the village was established here, and he only gave up after the prospectors hadn't found any such ore in this place for more than three years. By that time the cost of keeping them on our payroll was getting too much, so he reluctantly had to accept that there was a reason that nobody in the kingdom cared much about this area."

Gorsazo, who had been quiet so far, spoke up. "But how far did those prospectors search? You have told us that the borders of this barony are not properly defined, nor is the south eastern border of the kingdom." He explained, "While the Nisador mountain range is accepted as our border in the South, it's not so clear in the southeast is it?"

Gorsazo added, "The wastelands south of those mountains aren't desirable anyway for any kingdom, but these dense Southern forests of the Reslinor Kingdom - which start close to Cinran - extend far into the territory of the Girnalican Oligarchy, so there is no clearly defined boundary between the two countries in this direction. There has never been any reason for that anyway, since neither of the countries wants to fight just to get control of more trees. But all of that forested region from Tiranat to the edge of the kingdom's border in the Southeast still lies within this barony. So, how far did they go to search?"

Duvas gazed into the distance for a moment. "I can assure you that they had searched till the Nisador range in the South, including the foothills of that range. As for the Southeast, I know that they went quite deep into those forests, and still didn't find anything, but as you can guess, it's... dangerous to go too far in that direction."

"Because of Girnalica?" Kivamus asked with confusion. "But you just said that nobody wants control of these forests, and with the borders so ill-defined in that direction, they can't keep armed knights stationed there anyway, just like Reslinor. So how would Girnalican rulers even know if the prospectors had gone too far?"

Duvas hesitated before speaking. "I suggest you leave that topic for the future, since it is a lot more complex than you would expect. There will be a time to talk about it, but we have a lot of other important things to consider right now."

Kivamus frowned at that, but gave a nod. "As you say, Duvas. Suddenly, he realised something. "Wait, you said the previous baron searched for precious metal veins. So did he search for iron at all?"

"Not that well," Duvas replied after thinking about it for a moment. "The prospectors had certainly explored everything in the areas close to Tiranat - including iron, but as for the areas further away, the baron had told them to focus only on gold, silver and gemstone deposits as well, in case they got lucky. So I can't be sure about it, but it's possible that the prospectors overlooked iron ore in the distant parts of the barony."

"But why?" Kivamus asked with confusion. "I know that iron prices have fallen in the past few months as an indirect result of the recent food shortages, but even then it still sells for a lot of coin. And in case the food prices are not sky high, iron would be even more costly. You said that the previous baron was interested in making easy money, so why didn't he look for iron as well?"

Duvas chuckled. "I did say easy money, milord, and smelting iron from its ore is not easy at all. But you are right, usually, even selling iron ore would have been profitable enough, but this search by the prospectors was around fifteen years ago, and Reslinor was just settling down after a recent war with Binpaaz over the control of the Tolasi hills. Of course, during the war, iron was in very high demand - even as its ore - but when the war ended, the prices of iron crashed sharply, since there was no real demand for tools of war like armor for knights, swords, spearheads and iron tipped arrowheads - not anymore. All the nobles in Southern Reslinor already had a big stockpile of weapons gathered for the war, and there was no point in buying any more of them unless another war seemed imminent, which it certainly didn't just after the end of the previous war."

The majordomo continued, "The coal mines of Tiranat were discovered around the time of the end of that war, and that's when Tiranat was founded here. So, while gold, silver, and even copper would always stay in high demand because of their usage as currency, selling iron wasn't profitable anymore. That's why the previous baron had told the prospectors not to focus on iron after they had searched the nearby areas and didn't find it."

Kivamus nodded thoughtfully. "That does make sense." He added with excitement, "But it's still good news for us! If we hire prospectors again and send them everywhere within the borders of this barony, they might just be able to find iron ore here!"