The sailboat bumped softly against the pier, gently bobbing up and down with the flow of the water in the Lokir River. The boat was long and shallow, with a series of iron hooks down each side for use during upriver towing by horses and a short mast set near the bow for use when the wind was favorable. The sail was furled tight at the moment while tar darkened the hull along the waterline.

  Alden let his horse stand and watched. A deckhand was climbing up one of the gangplanks with a cart full of deep red iron ore, loading it onto the sailboat. Down on the pier, a pair of workers were shoveling the same ore from the wagon into another cart to be loaded onto the sailboat next. A woman called something from up on the boat, gesturing at the wagon and a man answered from below, the words lost to the water and wind.

  While the iron ore loading was going at the closer end of the sailboat, more deckhands were unloading crates from the other gangplank of the boat. Two of them slowly rolled a cask over planks while another worker dragged the next crate on the sailboat—likely containing food items—closer to the top of the gangplank, to be transferred next.

  Vusato nodded toward the wagons. “You're lucky that we came here on the day we transport the ore, so you can see how we earn our gold. This is around a week’s output of ore—six wagon loads. Another six will be sent next week through our other sailboat,” he said. “All these workers will finish loading the ore today and return to the village with everything we've bought before it gets dark. The sailors and the deckhands will be back here tomorrow, leaving for Garitus City at first light.”

  “How many go with it?” Alden asked.

  “Along with the boat captain, some of our laborers—rather, the deckhands—go to handle the sails and the cargo, with three of Roderic’s men to provide security on each sailboat, mainly for our gold,” Vusato said. “Usually, a village merchant or two also go along on each run to buy what they need or what the other traders in the village have asked for—mainly wheat, along with some salt, cheese for the manor, lamp oil, cloth, and whatever odds and ends people asked for. The captain sells the iron ore in Garitus City in the baron's name—we already have pre-agreed contracts with local smelters there—while the merchants buy what the villagers have ordered. Once autumn starts, the captain also starts to bring some coal from Tevrim—which is on the same route—if the price is fair.”

  The majordomo explained, “The blacksmiths in Garitus pay us in gold coins. When the boat comes back, the manor uses that coin to pay the wages of the iron ore miners—which is our biggest expense. After setting aside enough gold for paying taxes when we go to Garitus in autumn, we use the rest to buy what the manor needs from our local shops here—wheat from the grain traders, flour from the miller, meat from the butchers, fish from the fishmongers, and other things we need to buy for our day-to-day needs, as well as to pay for any repairs of the manor and the village walls. The rest goes to wages for our own servants, maids, and guards, while whatever remains after that, we keep safe for buying provisions for the manor residents for the winter months in the fortress city.”

  “You said we have two boats?” Alden asked.

  Vusato nodded. “This one, and another that’s downriver right now, probably unloading the ore at Garitus today. They take turns so one of 'em is always here to take the ore.”

  "How long is the journey from here to Tevrim and the fortress city?"

  "Tevrim is located nearly halfway from here to Garitus, but I'm not sure of the journey times." Vusato looked at the guard captain. "You've often gone along with the boats. What do you think?"

  Roderic scratched his short brown beard. "The boat captains obviously don't sail at night, so I'd say it's about a three to six day journey from here to Garitus on a sailboat going downriver, depending on whether the wind is favorable. Coming upriver with horse tows, it takes around 12 days from Garitus to Sarnok. With favorable wind, the time can be cut down in half to just around 6 days."

  Alden made some quick mental calculations. "From what you said, for a round-trip between Garitus City and Sarnok, including a day for loading and unloading on each side, it will be a minimum of 11 days and a maximum of 20 days. So on average around two trips per month for each sailboat?"

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  Vusato nodded. "That's about right. Individual trips may be longer or shorter, but each boat still manages to sell the ore twice every month—around 6 wagon loads each time. That means either one of the boats is here every week, alternating between them."

  Alden watched another ore cart disappear below the gunwales, and tried to estimate how much the boat could carry. He was no sailor, but he had drawn the blueprints of a lot of things in London, including ships, and made a rough estimate that each of these sailboats could carry somewhere around 10 to 12 tons of cargo. Taking into account the weight of the sailors and the provisions they needed, the iron ore they were selling would be even less than that, which... didn't seem like a lot, especially when he remembered the biggest ore carriers on earth could carry 400,000 tons of cargo. Well, those were modern oceangoing ships, not riverine sailboats, and his memories told him that the marine galleons in this world were much bigger than this sailboat, but still...

  For a moment, he wondered how much each wagon load of ore sold for, and how much the manor earned each month, but that wasn't a conversation for this place. Still, couldn't he think of a way to improve their productivity? Although Vusato hadn't gone into details, he had already mentioned a few times that their finances were in pretty bad shape. That meant every extra coin of gold they could earn by selling more iron ore would go a long way to help the manor and the village. Once they returned back to the manor, he had to think if there were some low-hanging fruits to improve their ore output.

  He stretched his arms above him while thinking. It had been hours since they had left the manor, and it would take more than an hour to return to what was his new home, assuming they weren't attacked on the way. His back and thighs were also aching now that he noticed them after riding for so long, and his stomach grumbled the moment he thought about it.

  That's when Roderic brought his horse beside him.

  “We should return now,” the captain said. “It's already late afternoon. My scouts just brought word of a small pack of monsters roaming to the east of here. Not that close to the road, but I want you inside the village walls before dark.”

  “That’s a good idea,” Alden agreed immediately, not wanting to have his first encounter with monsters so soon. “I'm already getting hungry. Let’s go.”

  Vusato agreed, and their small group turned around.

  They took the same track back. Hooves kept a steady rhythm while the shrubs slid by. Alden let his thoughts run as they kept riding towards the east. Even though there was magic in this world, he also had all kinds of modern knowledge in his mind, the likes of which people in this world couldn't even dream of. So there had to be practical ways to make his village stronger and a bit richer even without their own mage.

  If the rumor about Garitus City charging for refuge in the winter proved true, coin would decide who made it through the gates. Knowing his father and his background as a knight, if all the villagers couldn't get entrance inside the fortress city, he'd likely return to Sarnok as well after sending his family there. Who knew what could happen to him and the villagers in the winter, especially with just the flimsy defenses of wooden palisade walls to protect them. Forget a concrete wall, it wasn't even a stone or brick wall, for God's sake!

  He exhaled. Even if that news was just a false rumor, more money still meant better spears, sturdier roofs, and fuller stores. He hoped it would turn out to only be a rumor—he had no desire to leave this world so soon, after all—but it would be better to prepare for the worst, just in case.

  But even outside the dangerous winter months, he could use his knowledge to earn more gold for the manor and make the villagers' life better. As the heir to the barony, it was his duty—as weird as it still felt to him to think of himself as a noble.

  As for what he could do, iron ore was the obvious answer. If they mined more ore and shipped a little more often, their strongbox would grow heavier. A wooden palisade wasn’t anything like a stone wall of a city, but with that extra gold they earned, they could afford to hire workers to clear the forest farther out, maybe dig some ditches around the walls with sharpened stakes in them to protect against at least the smaller monsters.

  The village's defenses could be improved even further if he could help the local carpenters to build something as simple as crossbows. His past memories told him that there were some huge ballistas on top of the city walls of Garitus to protect against the bigger monsters and take some strain off from the mages, so the know-how to make such things already existed in this world. He just had to design a smaller version of it—crossbows—so the guards could use it as personal weapons.

  Wait, would those smaller crossbows even be enough against the monsters of this world?