Chapter LXXX – We the townspeople. (Patreon)

58th of Summer, 5859
Some field right outdoors where there’s currently a lot of kilns, Libertycave

The kilns roared, the copperworkers poured, and the sky was filled with soot. Libertycave had come back to life once more. For Bilal, it had felt way too empty after the League had left for Azdavay. Now however, the slaves freed from the plantations had made their way up to the Promised Land where there’d be plenty of accommodations. Mud huts and slime soup weren’t exactly the best of accommodations, but one could definitely do much worse.

Bilal was the one who had been left in charge of Libertycave, so he was responsible for finding out what to do with all these refugees. Some had made their way to Zon’guldac as usual, those people would be given food and clothing for their journey, but the percentage of the freemen who decided to stay had increased. A lot of them had volunteered to be on the frontlines, but Brown had instructed them not to strain their logistics too much by taking in everyone who wanted in.

Even a thousand people were causing the old man quite the headache in terms of supplies. First was the provision of food, which was important for the continued functioning of your average member of the Homo sapiens. That was currently solved with foraging the land and buying food from the local merchants, though this wouldn’t be scalable for a bigger army. Second was the provision of equipment, mostly spears and javelins. One spear was easy to make; a thousand wasn’t exactly any harder, but it did take a lot of work from a lot of people and making that many people cooperate efficiently took a whole lot more.

“Treat the molds gently, there- there you go.” Bilal watched as a group of newcomers operated one of the newer kilns. Unlike the older kilns made out of clay, mud, hopes and dreams, the newer kilns were made out of bricks smeared with mud for isolation and bound together by mortar made of lime mined from Mount Curry. The bricks themselves were made en masse clamp by clamp, where clay bricks would be set in a huge pile before a pile of charcoal would be set on fire to bake them.

All this brick and copperwork required plenty of raw material however, and Bilal and his mining comrades had also been left in charge of that. Thankfully, copper wasn’t complicated to mine since it could be found in the surface, and the copper mine of the late Sir Algernon was a perfect place to find some. Clay was easy to find as well, so easy in fact that the people in Libertycave stepped on clay for most of their waking hours. Brown had told them that he must have been led to this location by Providence, and that sort of sentiment wasn’t all too uncommon amongst the people of Libertycave. Carts filled with copper rolled down the mountain, pits of clay rolled up to their clamps and the workers toiled to-and-fro to build in this bountiful land.

Build they had, much more than the aforementioned brick kilns they had built in fact. Mud huts were slowly going extinct in Libertycave as brick houses with copper rooves proved the fittest. For now the rooves were an earthly orange color, but they’d slowly turn green as it got covered by patina from oxidation. Compared to mud or straw, copper wouldn’t leak much water which would be very desirable once the rainy season came back.

However, Bilal wasn’t focusing on roofing at this moment. Construction had slowed down as weather would be the least of their concerns if they weren’t focusing on making weapons required for war. The new copperworkers broke the molds after the copper had cooled down, revealing a newborn spear tip. This tip was broad, of a model that was meant to be wielded rather than thrown. Other kilns were working on spear tips that were much narrower and long, ones that were meant for throwing. There were also other lines making bowls/helmets to secure the most important part of the body. Having a full set of armor would have been nice, but that was a consideration for a time other than “this week”. They had to be so quick in fact that they only made the spear tips and left the assembly of shaft to the folks in the army to do on their march. Newly constructed boxes were being filled with tips and transported on to donkeys, and those donkeys were coming back with fresh food from the newly liberated farms and plantations from which Hakim, the cook, would make something palatable to eat.

With the molds broken and newbies trained, Bilal made his way to a local barrel full of water. He splashed the water on his face to cool down after having stood next to the kilns for so long, though the water itself was far from cool as well. He washed his face to clean the soot, and a nearby bar of soap helped his hands be pristine once more. Hygiene was #1 despite everyone’s busy schedule. Libertycave felt like #1 despite it being a whole lot smaller and less grand than many of the cities in Gemeinplatz. The air might have been filled with smoke from the kilns, but the air was free for all to breathe. The buildings may be clumsily built, but the buildings were theirs to inhabit. The food may be meagre, but it was food made by free men who worked for no lord. The land was theirs, the seas were theirs, the skies were theirs…

“Mister Bilal! Mister Bilal!” A shout came from a young boy, Ejike who was a fellow former slave of Sir Algernon, running towards Bilal.

“What’s happening, lad?” replied Bilal, who was still trying to cool off near the barrel.

“Nothing.”

“Then why are you shouting at me?”

Ejike took out a letter from his pocket and handed it to Bilal. “To deliver you this letter.”

“This’s not nothing.”

“I didn’t say I had nothing. I was just saying that nothing was happening.” Ejike said with a knowing smirk that only a little brat could have.

“You kids are way too clever for your own good. Now git!” Seeing Bilal’s annoyance at his antics, Ejike disappeared off the scene and left the foreman to his own devices. He was left with a large piece of paper accompanied by a smaller paper.

Bilal began by reading the smaller piece of paper, which was no easy task. Sure, he had newly learned how to read and write Latin script, but the problem lay in the fact that there was no standard for writing in Gemeinplatzish. Brown spelt words as if they were English words, Watanabe spelt them like Japanese, the freemen had wildly varying standards… One had to slowly and vocally read a message to understand what it was supposed to be. The letter went thusly [all sic]:

To Mr. Bilal,
I hope that you and the others in Libertycave are faring well.

With the Lord ever graciously watching over us, our men are prepearing to set out on schedule. The men are most gratefull for the Equipment coming their way, and I hope that you’ll continue your excelent Work by helping Doctor Rabanovich with a special Project. She has made designs of a Machine that we believe has the potential to be of great Help in the upcoming battle. You may find her designs illustrated on the other paper.

Signed,
John Brown

As Brown stated, the larger paper contained detailed sketches of three machines that were to be cast from copper. Two were cannon-sized while one looked to be some form of infantry weapon. These made Bilal a bit nervous. The largest pieces he had casted were roof tiles which were all basic flat sheets that were easy to cast. What Rabanowicz wanted was a whole lot more complicated than simple flat sheets. She wanted thick, sturdy tubes like that of a cannon. Bilal would have been sure that they were cannons if not for an attachment, labeled SUPER IMPORTANT and underlined several times, which looked like a reinforced barrel that attached to all these devices.

Bilal truly had no idea as to what they were cooking up. He gave up on thinking too hard on it. Clearly it was some sort of siege engine and promptly finishing it seemed very important for crashing down the walls of Casamonu.

As the old man said and Bilal would say to himself at the moment, “Let’s not stand idle and get to work.”

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I've heard that readers love the chapters focusing on the goings-on in Libertycave, so here's a chapter dedicated to just that.