Things were finally, tentatively, beginning to look up for the settlement. We were working on a secure base and the food shortage had improved, if only slightly, thanks to those nuts, which did turn out to be edible once properly processed.

  I walked through the settlement along with my new guards, my nose wrinkling at the smell of boiling bones. The people didn’t waste a single scrap of potential food. Guts were cleaned and filled with blood and grain to make sausages. Bones and hooves were simmered multiple times until they surrendered the last trace of broth. The sight of the hollow-eyed people gnawing marrow shot a pang of guilt through me.

  While that God had given me the amazing power to heal quickly, he hadn’t mentioned it also gave me a voracious appetite. Hunger constantly gnawed at me, so I was eager to survey the land, catch some game in the process and fill my own belly.

  I could not bear the shame of asking for more food in the settlement when most people ate thin gruel with the occasional fleck of meat. They were already feeding me far better than the rest, but it just wasn’t enough.

  And as if hunger wasn’t trouble enough, there was also the matter of the prick who knew of my real identity. I had to do something about him, soon.

  Looking at my new bodyguards' bows reminded me of something. I had the young inquisitive carpenter brought over. He arrived nervous, eyes darting.

  “Aramid, why did your mentor glare when I spoke to you? Was it just that I addressed you before the more experienced folk, or is there something more?”

  “He—he doesn't like that I ask too many questions, my lord.”

  “Then he’s a fool. A man who doesn’t question, doesn’t learn.”

  His face lit up with something that had been beaten out of him, hope. “How would you like to work directly for me?” I asked. “I have some projects in mind that will require a sharp mind: someone who doesn't just mindlessly repeat the way things have always been done, but tries out new approaches. Special projects.”

  “Me?”

  “Yes. But remember: experiments are worthless if they don’t deliver results.”

  He nodded, clearly embarrassed. I knew that look. Over-optimization was the bane of many an engineer and craftsman alike. It had taken years of frustration to pull myself out of the trap of perfectionism.

  I sketched the design for from memory, which made Lothar raise his eyebrows, as he quickly figured out its purpose.

  “Like what you see, hunter?” I asked. “It will more than double your rate of fire, and let you hold your bow drawn practically forever.”

  His eyes almost popped out of their sockets in response, making me chuckle.

  “Here's your first project, Aramid. It's a fairly simple construction, but it must work flawlessly. Unreliable tools can kill their wielders. Work with my bodyguards to test and refine the prototypes, and remember, it's to be kept secret at all costs.”

  He nodded so hard I thought his head might fly off. I handed over the plans to him, which he held gingerly, as if they were a sacred relic.

  ----

  “Aprilia, bring some water!” Old Matilda screeched.

  “Coming!” Aprilia bellowed in response.

  She straightened, wincing at the ache in her back. “Damn that Supreme Leader!” she muttered. Her hands still ached from smashing thousands of nuts. Thankfully, that job had been handed off to children.

  “I kind of like the taste of his nut flour,” Emma said, grinning.

  “You would eat his farts and call them fragrant,” Aprilia shot back.

  “Look who’s talking. I’m not the one who stayed by his side every chance I got,” her new friend teased.

  “He almost died saving my family. It was the least I could do.”

  “And now that he is up and walking? You know that hussy Mia and her friends have stationed themselves next to his tent, ready to ‘serve’ him whatever he wants, right?”

  “I’m not going to grovel for his attention like them.”

  “They’re not grovelling, they’re being practical. If one of them catches his eye and marries him, that’s food for her family for life. If you want to have a chance, which I know you do, you might want to do the same.”

  “No, I don’t!” Aprilia spat with clenched teeth. She would not disrespect Paul by finding another man so soon. Sure, Lord Jack was a gallant warrior who risked everything for them, but he might also be a terrible man in other ways.

  “Aprilia dear, can you fetch me some water?” her father asked at ‘home,’ an old musty tent.

  Handing him a cup, she asked him, “How are your knees?”

  “Still hurt. They’re asking me to switch to less demanding work.”

  “Then why don’t you?”

  “It pays less.”

  The pay was food, which they didn’t have much of. Aprilia knew that the work on palisades and the surveys were important, but she wished everyone would just focus on the damn food. While they were not starving, the Cha weren’t thriving either, and she hated that nut flour. Looking at her father’s gaunt frame, she wondered if she should follow Emma’s advice.

  ---

  Even with hundreds of men laboring an hour or two everyday, it took more than a week to dig three hundred fourteen meters (1030 feet) of deep foundation, thanks to a lack of proper tools. At the same time, the strongest and most skilled men cut down, processed and transported fifty of the biggest trees to the construction site.

  Meanwhile, I worked with the craftsmen on refining the paper production method. I also came across another source of food in the process.

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  “Cambium,” I said out loud, looking at the thin white layer between the tree’s bark and heartwood.

  “Milord?” the budding paper maker asked.

  “It’s edible,” I said, chewing the tasteless strips before wary eyes. It was the thin, nutritious stem-cell layer of trees.

  I took some of it to a communal kitchen, boiled it, and offered it to the nearby people. They looked at me skeptically, but reluctantly tried it after I ate some myself. It tasted like cardboard, but it was calories. The people weren’t thrilled to eat boiled wood, but it would stretch our food stores by weeks.

  Once I was strong enough to walk for hours, I began a survey of the valley, to find out what other resources were available to us.

  We started from the eastern mountain range and headed towards the sea. The mountains melted into the heavily forested area two hundred meters before the sea, through which the refugees had entered the valley. The forest came to an abrupt end at the cliffs by the shore. We named the forested stretch East Gate, as it was the only way to enter the valley from the east.

  Instead of delving deep into the dense forest, we approached the shore and walked along it, towards the other end of the triangle of the valley. The shore turned out to be around five kilometers long, the valley's widest part, and somewhat craggy. The only large beach we found surrounded the estuary of our river, Wendau, which formed a bay. Still, there were multiple spots where people on boats could land, which worried me.

  Two dozen men were fishing with lines and small nets and harvesting salt.

  “How’s the fishing?” I asked one of them.

  “It’s alright, milord.”

  I looked at his basket. Four dead eyes, belonging to four plump foot long fish, looked back at me. It was indeed alright, for a man feeding his family of five, but not enough to feed thousands.

  “You need bigger nets,” I remarked, earning a doubtful glance.

  I smiled at him and continued our survey. Seine nets would feed thousands where small ones fed a hundred.

  As we approached the other end, I was delighted to see the other mountain range jutting into the ocean. The mountains at the end might be only worn down stubs, but they were still hard to traverse, fother-mucking mountains. No way any large group of people could enter the valley through that route rapidly, or without being seen. We named it West Point.

  As we neared the mountains, I noticed they were gray in color. I hit the stone with a pickaxe, exposing chalky white rock. I suppressed my excitement, steadied my breath, and crushed a bit of freshly exposed rock into powder, by grinding it between two rocks. I then poured some vinegar, which I had brought in anticipation of this very moment, over it, and it, began, sputtering.

  “Is this? It is! Limestone!” I roared in triumph.

  “My lord?” my confused bodyguards asked.

  “Limestone, Lothar, limestone.” I grabbed the wider man by his shoulders. “One of the most crucial ingredients for civilization! Put it in the foundation of our palisade, and the wood will not rot! Roast it and you get lime, a flux for producing metal and glass. Mix lime with sand, soot and seawater, and you get concrete. Liquid stone!”

  I returned to our settlement, Cradle, happy as a clam. This was a big leap. I arranged for the lime to be extracted, and took a well deserved rest day, which was ruined by an unwelcome encounter.

  That evening, as I was touring the settlement, I had the misfortune to come across Elder Hyde.

  “Supreme Leader, a word,” he called to me, voice dripping with mockery.

  I forced a smile. “Yes, Elder Hyde?”

  “People in the settlement are not happy with the changes you are bringing. Already, carpenters have complained to me you are stealing their apprentices and farmers told me you forced them to change their ways, as if they haven’t worked for generations.”

  “Aramid is a journeyman, Elder, not an apprentice, and I needed a personal craftsman to develop weapons for our safety. As for the farmers, you can judge the efficacy of my methods yourself when we have a bumper harvest.”

  “You will not guile me with your words, fraud,” he sneered.

  I was going to ignore him, when his words made me recall something. “Wait,” I said, with realization dawning. “That was you? You put that stone under my pillow?”

  “Yes. I wanted you to know that not everyone has been ensnared by your silver tongue, like Erickson and Lothar.”

  “So you think I’m a fraud because I cannot deliver on anything I have promised?” I asked to confirm.

  “Obviously. You are not a Cha, so there’s no way you can be our Messiah.”

  I chuckled in relief, which seemed to infuriate him further. My secret was safe! I turned and left him choking on his own righteousness.

  I visited Aramid the next day. He had managed to steal a wood plank from the people working on the palisade and already built some prototype magazines.

  “These look good,” I said, admiring their construction. Nothing fancy, but functional. His nervous face relaxed into a smile.

  “Thank you, milord. I tested them myself, but couldn't hit a thing,” he said apprehensively.

  “They provide you firepower, not skill. That comes with a lot of practice.”

  My bodyguards, the pompous asses, puffed up their chests in pride.

  “Enough posturing, you lot. Start fixing them to your bows. We need to test them...” I trailed off as an idea came to me.

  “Lothar, contact the Elders. Tell them the Supreme Leader requests their presence. That he has something special to show them.”

  He hesitated, but upon receiving my insistent look, sighed and went to fetch them.

  While we waited for the Elders to arrive, Aramid helped the hunters attach the magazines to their bows. As soon as they were done, they loaded the mags with arrows and began testing them on dummy targets.

  “This thing's amazing!”

  “I'm three, no, four times as fast!”

  “I can hold the bow drawn forever! Nothing's going to escape me now!”

  “You definitely need it, Sir Miss-a-lot.”

  “Hey! That was only in the early days! I got good faster than you!”

  While the hunters were having fun with their new toys, the Elders arrived accompanied by Lothar, Elder Hyde not bothering to hide his annoyance.

  “Elders! Welcome!”

  “Supreme Leader, you have something to show us?”

  “Yes. When you gave me that title, I promised you that I would help you develop a powerful military. We have taken the first step. Let me show you our new weapons.”

  While the hunters loaded the magazines, Lothar whispered in my ear, “Was it necessary to antagonize them by summoning them here on such a short notice?”

  “Yes,” I said, as the hunters took aim. “Just wait and see.”

  The men hit their targets, eagerly and repeatedly, turning them each into a pincushion within seconds. I turned around to see the Elders standing still, slack-jawed, staring at the targets.

  “Okay, I get it. That was quite a display,” Lothar conceded.

  “I have sufficiently demonstrated my usefulness and established my authority at the same time. Those who are with me will be happy and more supportive and those who are against me will think twice before getting in my way. It should wipe out any opposition they would have to my more unconventional ideas.”

  He seemed unconvinced. “If they are military matters, but don't be too confident about other fields.”

  I smirked in response. He was right, of course, but I had just begun. This magician had many rabbits to pull out of his hat.

  “Continue making more, Aramid. I would like to see all the hunters and their apprentices equipped within a fortnight.”

  “Are we going to need them soon?” he asked fearfully.

  “Hopefully not,” I said. “But better to have and not need, than to need and not have, right?”

  Everyone around nodded in response.

  “There is that band of brigands that had a hideout this side of the Bog, who might arrive at any time, and I wouldn't put it past Count Zock to send soldiers to harass us further,” I added.

  Things might look peaceful at the moment, but you could never rely on them to stay the same. Especially not when you were as weak as we were. As if on cue, someone shouted out. I followed the pointed finger to one of the hillocks near East gate.

  A dark column of smoke was rising into the morning sky.

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