Chapter 46: Development Of The Town & Guardsmen
As the golden rays of the sun spread across the sky, casting warmth over the bright blue heavens where white clouds drifted like lazy sails, the bustling life within Redwood Town stirred to motion.
Both the inner and outer walls teemed with activity. It had been just a month since Kaelor arrived in this strange new world, and already the scars of wilderness were giving way to the first breath of civilization.
Within the inner wall, timber frames rose like skeletal monuments to progress.
Those with even the faintest grasp of architecture guided the construction of key buildings, a sturdy workspace for the Leather Armourers, a place for the Armour Tailor, and rows of humble dwellings to house the growing number of settlers.
Beyond the walls, in the open expanse of the outer fields, over fifteen women worked diligently in the rice paddies, their dresses soaked at the hem, arms moving rhythmically as they nurtured the tender stalks.
Nearby, men and women alike toiled in the dry fields, clearing and tilling nearly twenty plots of land in preparation for the wheat sowing.
Damien stood among them, a quiet authority in the sea of motion. Arms folded, eyes narrowed, he watched silently.
He had shaved his face clean, not even a shadow of stubble remained, and had trimmed his once-wild hair into something neat and striking. His transformation was nearly unrecognizable.
The slaves who had worked alongside him for weeks could hardly believe the man before them was the same. Where once had stood a rugged, rough-edged figure with a wild tangle of hair and a haunted look, now stood a young man with a noble bearing and a face so finely sculpted it seemed carved by an artist’s hand. Many could not help but stare astonished by the stranger hiding beneath that forgotten beard.
On the other side, so far away that the people there looked like wandering ants in the dust, mere silhouettes blurred by distance stood the Guardsmen, all thirty-nine of them, forming a wide, loose circle. Their eyes were fixed on the scene unfolding in the center: Kaelor and Hound, facing off like two beasts preparing to clash.