From Londoner To Lord

This way, if he made a reasonable assumption that a single mine shaft could be cleared of all gathered water every day or maybe even every two days, then they could start sending workers to dig coal from there much sooner. The reason for it was that he had designed the whole waterwheel system in a way to make it easy to disassemble, so that they could easily shift the waterwheel to another mineshaft with the help of a couple of nodors and a wagon when one of them had been emptied of all gathered water, and then repeat the same process in the next shaft.

This had added to the complexity of the water wheel, and would add an extra day or so in building it, but it would be worth it in the long-term - especially since he had estimated that with the eastern stream was a little below the level of the ground in the village, so they would need to lift the water for two or three metres before it could flow on its own to the farms in the South. So once all the mineshafts had been cleared of all standing water, he planned to shift that water wheel to that stream. The only difference would be that instead of using human power, it would use the force of the flowing water to turn the wheel, and that would still lift the water to the full height of the wheel which would be enough to transfer the flowing water from the stream to the canal they planned to dig from there to the farms.

If all went well, he estimated that all the mineshafts should be free of water within fifteen days or so after the water wheel was built. These three weeks - including the one needed to craft the wheel system - should be quite helpful for the labourers to clear a lot more land in the South before they had to return to coal mining - which was quite unlike doing it manually bucket by bucket, where they would need to send a lot of workers to clear that water for those three weeks as well, which would have wasted a lot of productive man-hours. But this way, once everything was installed and tested properly, they needed only a few men in the mineshafts to move the wheel in turns, with gravity taking care of the rest once the water was lifted to the troughs. That would leave the majority of workers to keep working in the South and the other projects.

There was also the fact that they had two extra iron axles to use for the wheel, which Hudan had liberated from the damaged wagon at the limestone quarry. That was what had made him decide on the water wheel design, since having those sturdy axles ready to use would make it much simpler to build the waterwheel, since they didn't have the necessary knowhow to build those axles here. Although he was fairly sure that Cedoron could still do it given enough time and resources - but time and iron were always in short supply, so those axles had turned out to be a blessing for them.

Giving a satisfied sigh, he carefully rolled the parchment with the finished design until the time he met with the carpenter to explain it to him. Right after he was done and had kept the parchment on a nearby shelf, he heard the outer door of the hall opening. Turning around, he saw Syryne walking inside with snow already gathered on her fur coat.

"Milord," the young woman reported excitedly, "I'm just coming back from the servant's hall with good news! I had given the losuvil extract to drink with water to a guard who had gotten injured while training earlier today. I wanted to test it sooner, but I had to wait until someone had gotten injured with a cut and bruise on his shin, so when Hudan told me about the injury, I saw it as a good chance to test it today."

"Alright," Kivamus nodded. "What's the verdict then?"

Syryne stopped in the process of removing her fur coat, and looked at him in confusion. "The what?"

"Uh..." Kivamus hesitated. "I mean, what's the result of that test?"

Syryne stared at him for another moment, before she shook her head and grinned. "It works! And it works much better than even a freshly made losuvil paste!"

Everyone in the room turned to her, listening carefully as she began to explain. "For reference, a fresh batch of losuvil paste starts working within an hour for a small wound, and the person doesn't usually feel pain anymore after a few hours. This time, when I told the guard to consume the reddish powder along with water, Hudan had to uh... nudge him to do that, since the guard wasn't ready to believe that something edible - like it was just normal food - could help him to heal."

She added, "The best part with taking the powder directly was that he didn't even have to remove the bandage from his leg like he would have to if he had to apply the paste directly on the wound, as it is done usually. I had even taken the hour glass from your room to measure the time accurately."

Duvas immediately reprimanded, "That's the only hourglass we have in the manor, and it's for Lord Kivamus' personal use! What if its glass had broken when you had taken it away? It was very costly for the previous baron to buy it!"

Before Syryne replied anything, Kivamus interrupted. "Don't worry about it, Duvas. I was the one who had told her to take it. We needed a way to measure how long it takes for the powder to start working." He gestured to the young woman to continue.

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Syryne nodded. "Anyway, the guard consumed the powder right after we heard five bells from the temple, and within half an hour he was walking and jumping around without any pain at all!"

"It still wasn't a good idea for him to jump around right after an injury," Duvas remarked, "even if it was a small wound and he was bandaged already."

Syryne laughed. "Of course, Hudan had immediately scolded him and told him to sit down immediately, but the point is that the powder worked, and it worked much better than I ever imagined!"

Kivamus glanced at his former teacher who had gotten quiet, so he walked over to Gorsazo gently put his hand on his back in consolation.

Gorsazo gave a weak smile. "Don't worry, I'm okay. I just wish such a thing was available in the past..."

"So do I," Kivamus agreed. "But we can't change the past, so we have to do our best to make this powder - this medicine - available to everyone who needs it in the future." His former teacher just gave a nod in reply.

Seeing that Gorsazo would be okay, Kivamus looked at the young woman. "Well done, Syryne! You have done everything outstandingly! Now that we have confirmed that it works even in a powder form - as something which can be ingested, it will make it a lot easier for us to package it in an easy way to transport and store it, like as pills or small consumable tablets. Once we are able to make it regularly after the winter, I will talk with the blacksmith to make a simple tablet press machine, by which a person can use it to compress the powder into small pills." He added, "That being said, how much of the powder did the guard have to consume?"

"Not much at all!" Syryne replied. "Barely a small pinch of it was enough to start working within half an hour."

"That's very good," Kivamus smiled. "That means this powder is very potent and even a small amount of leaves will allow us to make a lot of pills."

He pointed at the shelf containing parchments nearby, "Now that we know that the process of preserving the losuvil extract works so well, you need to write it down again in another place, just as a backup. Once it is done, Duvas will keep this new copy, as well as the original copy you had written earlier, inside two separate strong boxes so that it makes it less likely for the exact process to be lost or stolen. We will keep it there, until you need to start making it again after the winter, after which you will return the parchment to him once again for safekeeping."

Syryne looked confused. "Is it really necessary to go that lengths to keep it that securely?"

Kivamus nodded, remembering that she wasn't present for the discussion where he had explained the risks of the process leaking to someone like Zoricus. "It really is. Trust me on this." Then he looked at the majordomo and smirked, "Be happy, Duvas, you are going to get another source of revenue stream after the winter - just like you always wanted."

Duvas grinned. "I can't wait for the day, milord. Our strongbox has been nearly empty for months now, and I really want to see it full of gold for once!"

Everyone laughed at that golden vision, but suddenly they heard the sound of the same howls they had been hearing for the past few days.

"Those adzees are still here..." Syryne muttered with a tinge of fear in her voice.

"So it seems," Duvas agreed, "but they haven't tried to attack the village, so I think they aren't going to do that anyway. We should be safe enough."

"What about the labourers working outside?" Kivamus asked. "They would still be out of the village walls at this time, won't they?"

"No. Since the first time we had heard the howls," the majordomo explained, "Hudan had decided to bring all the villagers inside the walls at least an hour before sunset, so that there wouldn't be any risk of them being attacked by the beasts. With an hour wasted in the morning, and one in the evening, that slows down our work progress on clearing the forest outside the walls, but that was still deemed to be safer than risking the villagers' lives."

Duvas continued, "Anyway, he had decided to do that only whilst the danger of an adzee attack remained here. So we will return to the regular work schedule of using every available hour of daylight after a few days, once we are sure that the adzees have moved on completely."

Kivamus gave a nod. "That was a good decision. Let's just hope they decide that we aren't an easy target for them."

Syryne gazed towards the north fearfully. "Yeah... I would certainly prefer not to become an evening snack of an adzee..."

Kivamus had thought that the joke would work to change the tense mood inside the hall, but immediately, they heard another howl, with Gorsazo frowning towards the north where the sound had come from, while Clarisa had clutched a nearby chair in fear. Looking around for Lucem, he found that the boy was actually hiding under the long table.

"Don't worry kids," Gorsazo tried to reassure them. "Our guards are strong and ready for them, and nothing will happen to you all."

Clarisa gave an uncertain nod, but at the same time, they heard the loud sound of a horn blowing from the north.

"Is that...?" Kivamus looked sharply at the majordomo.

Duvas, who had stood up in surprise on hearing the horn, nodded with a wavering voice. "It is. An adzee must be attacking the northern gap in the village wall..."