Pragmatism dictated that I get back to the shipping containers, and I was thankful to find the villagers Trevor entrusted with security were still there. There were twelve people milling about the craters.

They seemed relieved when we arrived. We sent the security guards home. They’d been keeping watch over the containers for a few days without leaving the site. Proctor handed them a gold coin each.

Trevor and I received a pot of tea from Hag, and we relaxed by a fire the security folk had started the night before. I’d sent Proctor to speak with a local named Pete whom the locals had recommended as a man to talk to when it comes to horses.

Pete bred and trained horses, and I’d had the idea to move all of our brand new baseball supplies via horse drawn wagons down to the southwest at the site of the proposed ball park. Pete came through in a big way, and he arrived with eight wagons, each hitched to two horses. Each wagon was manned by two people, and I learned nearly all of the sixteen people were members of Pete’s family. A lot of people in Moonlight had large families.

Trevor and I helped empty the shipping containers, and loaded up the wagons for transport west.

I can tell you, trying to carry many baseball bats at once is tougher than it sounds. Imagine trying to carry an arm load of giant toothpicks. Trevor had trouble too, and he kept apologizing every time a bat fell to the ground as we moved them from the container to the wagons. I found it amusing, but I could tell Pete, the horse master was getting annoyed.

Once Trevor and I saw the wagons off, the giant suggested we check on Kestrel and sons who were hard at work on gate building.

Happily, we were greeted with a lot of warmth from villagers as we walked the beaten path back toward the grand archway. When we arrived, it was interesting to see so many Moonlighters congregated in the area near the gate. If I didn’t know any better, I’d guessed this place would become a common area in time. Which, made sense really, given it was always going to be a high traffic spot.

Kestrel, and his team of builders had several logs laying on the hard packed mud. The logs had already been shaved of their bark. Kestrel had a vast array of tools laying around too. I didn’t recognize most of them, but I’d never been the handy sort, and my knowledge was especially limited when we’re talking about medieval construction.

“Gate’s well under way,” Kestrel said. “We’ll get ‘er hung.”

“Less than a fortnight?” Trevor asked.

“Oh, yes,” Kestrel said. “Much sooner, I’m pleased to impart.”

Gak caught up with us, and he expressed once more how happy he was to have the trench complete. Apparently, he’d wanted the thing to be just as large as I’d wound up making it.

“Would’ve cost us a month’s labor,” Gak said. “You’ve done the impossible.”

“Should we fill it with water?” I said.

Gak shook his head. “‘Tis not for me to say,” he responded. “Moat or not. The drop will slow an enemy down.”

“We’d have to build a bridge,” Trevor said. “May have to put one in anyway, even as it is now.”

“One thing at a time for poor Kestrel,” I said. “Let him complete the gate, then we can talk about a bridge.”

Kestrel hadn’t overheard us, I didn’t think, but he left a few logs it appeared he’d been measuring, and marking and he sidled up to me for a quiet word.

“If I may, sir,” Kestrel said, “a thought done come to me. A pressing need, I should think.”

“What is it?” I said.

Of course, the secretive way Kestrel spoke to me drew the attention of Gak, and Trevor who drew closer. Kestrel seemed bothered.

“It’s fine if they hear,” I said. “Tell me what’s on your mind.”

“We’ve this lovely wall,” Kestrel said. “‘Tis splendid, truly.”

“But?” I said, cutting to the chase.

“Well, it’s the security of the village, isn’t it?” Kestrel said.

“I don’t follow.”

“All incursions,” Kestrel said. “Any threatening force. They’ve one place where we can see. And, with the gate closed, we don’t want to see.”

My face twisted with confusion. I definitely didn’t understand.

“Ah, he’s talking about keeping watch,” Trevor said.

“Aye,” Gak agreed.

“Yes,” Kestrel said. “We’ve no watch towers, sir. Not one.”

Embarrassingly, I’d never even thought of it.

“You’re going to want watch towers,” Gak said.

“Definitely,” Trevor echoed the sentiment.

“Why didn’t anyone suggest this before?” I said. “Where is Proctor right now? I feel like this is something he’d have thought of.”

“We must address it,” Kestrel said. “Respectfully.”

Hard to argue the idea. “What do you suggest?” I asked.

“Need an army of builders, don’t I?” Kestrel said. “Too many demands. Items worthy of address.”

“Watch towers,” I said. “They’d have to be pretty tall.”

“We’ll harvest every tree within the walls,” Kestrel said. “Eight wooden towers. Solidly built. Promise you that. I’ll need a great many laborers.”

“Eight towers?” I said. “That many?”

“His idea’s sound,” Gak said. “Would be a privilege to man ‘em too.”

“I would love to man a watch tower,” Trevor said.

“You are a watch tower, dear boy,” Kestrel said, and he chuckled.

Trevor smiled at the comment. “Gak’s speaking truth, however,” the giant said. “You want to make it a special privilege to work the towers. And, it would be, to have that perch on high. Watching out for village dangers.”

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“Eight towers,” I said. “A lot of work.”

“‘Tis,” Kestrel agreed. “Many hands. The most one can find.”

“For the houses too,” Trevor said. “We must build more houses.”

“You’re making my head spin,” I said. “How many more construction projects can we add to the list?”

“A source for more gold, yes?” Trevor said.

“How do you mean?”

“You pay for houses built, and folks pay you for the place they call their home,” Trevor said.

“Clever,” Gak said. “More gold in your pocket.”

They were talking about me becoming a land lord. Had to hand it to these stone age folk. They were an enterprising bunch. It only took the invasion of an alien System to bring it out of them.

A villager I didn’t recognize walked over to our little group. His drooping eyes portrayed a lack of confidence. It was as though he was afraid of me, which I didn’t feel comfortable with.

“My lord,” the young man said. “I’ve been sent to inform you, Pete has the teams ready for the heavy work.”

I squinted at the young guy, and that probably didn’t help him feel more confident. “Teams?” I said.

“He means the work horses you’d requested,” Trevor said.

With Proctor off in the village somewhere, I was glad to have the giant and his level head around.

“Ah, right,” I said. “The work horses. We should get on that.”

We bid Kestrel good luck with the rest of his gate work, and I gave him the go ahead to start on the watch towers. I could only imagine he’d have to employ Moonlight’s entire population to get a project of that size done, let alone using our new concrete technology to construct bunches of new houses.

We went north of the gate’s common area, and caught up with the horse master who had an entire bevy of work horses split into teams, and strapped together. I’d never seen such a display. I couldn’t even count all the horses the man and his people had assembled.

These horses were larger than the ones he’d arranged earlier to ferry the baseball equipment west to the park site. This time around, these horses looked like the ones you’d see in a beer commercial.

When it’d been suggested to me to use teams of horses to drag the shipping containers over to the ball park site, I’d been pretty skeptical the animals had the strength to do it. But, upon arriving at the array Pete provided, I was dispelled of that notion fairly quickly.

“I take it back,” I said to Trevor. “Look at these beauties.”

“They’ll get the job done,” Pete said. “Honest power.”

They don’t call it ‘horse power’ for nothing.

In an impressive display, Pete must’ve had fifty people running around getting the teams in place with lengths of iron chains, and rope thicker than your leg running from the horses themselves, which were then attached to the containers.

“And this won’t hurt them, right?” I said.

“Hurt them?” Pete scoffed at the idea. “These are built to work. ‘Tis their pleasure.”

One thing that put my mind at ease, was just how many horses he had devoted to each individual container. Working together, as soon as given the instruction, it appeared as though they were more than capable of hauling the steel boxes across the rough terrain. Dozens of horses.

Their grunting, their breathing, the pounding of their heavy hooves. It stirred the heart to bear witness. Raw natural power. I felt such a debt of gratitude to these noble creatures.

Pete’s men whistled, and shouted instructions. They kept close watch for any snags.

The containers slid out of their craters, and thumped onto level ground. The horses picked up their pace once on harder mud, and each of the four containers left a snail trail headed west to the park site.

“Maybe we should’ve helped,” I said to Trevor, as we walked along behind the teams. “We’re both pretty strong.”

Trevor chuckled. “Not that strong.”

“Maybe not.”

At the ball park site, near the battered but not broken soda machine, Proctor, and Kestrel’s son, Denton were waiting for the horse teams’ arrival.

Pete’s men called the work horses to a halt, and I was a bit relieved when the containers reached their resting place, and the huge ropes and chains were detached from the animals. Pete made it seem as though the heavy pull wasn’t cruel, but I felt bad anyway.

Pete and his people organized the work horses, preparing them for a return to his home. The horses which had hauled the equipment supply wagons were detached from their wagons, and gathered together as well.

Proctor paid Pete with an impressive stack of gold. I didn’t even want to look at the coin pouch for fear of seeing it empty. Becoming a big land lord in Moonlight appeared to be a better idea all the time.

Pete agreed to leave the supply wagons for a time. We would keep the baseball equipment in the wagons, and Denton agreed we could convert the shipping containers into housing. In particular, I wanted my living quarters made from one of the containers, and I wanted it adjacent to the park itself, once built.

We’d had the shipping containers dragged to the western edge of the village, and left in the shadow of the great wall. They were arranged in a line of four boxes, parallel with the Boop Soda machine.

“Might I reside in one of these?” Gak said, pointing to one of the containers.

I nodded slowly. “We’ll have to figure something out,” I said. “There’s only so many of these go around. Should I divide them in two, and house more than one tenant in each?”

Proctor shrugged. “A bit crowded, no?” He said. “We’ll have to see how Denton makes out building them into proper dwellings.”

“You could have quarters in the towers too,” Trevor said.

“Towers?” Proctor said, and he tossed me a wide eyed curious glance.

“Watch towers,” I said. “Our friend Kestrel suggested we build large wooden towers. Eight of them, if you can believe it. A means to keep watch outside of the wall.”

“Ah,” Proctor said, truly taking the idea on board. “It seems to me his instincts are right on that.”

“These two are saying we should make it a privilege to man them,” I said. “What do you think?”

“Almost like a competitive assignment?” Proctor said. “I’m taken with the idea. Clever.”

“Once our security folk, our patrol folk… once they hear of them towers,” Gak said. “They’ll all clamor for the space. You make it the thing you earn.”

“I like it,” Proctor said. “Eight watch towers. And, how long will that take?”

My eyes spun around. “Kestrel’s already said he’s going to need an army of workers,” I said.

“Without a doubt.”

It’d been an active day. A lot of walking. We all decided to take a load off, and we rested around a fire expertly built by the barbarian.

We’d talked for a little while about plans for the ball team, and the time constraints we were working under. And, I wasn’t sure but, I’d guessed about an hour had passed.

Then a man rode up to us on a shabby brown horse. He had scraggly gray hair, and a ruddy complexion.

He looked to be wearing rat pelts, and they had splotches of dried blood upon them. My first guess was he was a butcher.

He dismounted with some difficulty, and he never took his eyes off me once on the ground. So, I stood up to meet him, half expecting him to lunge at me with a knife.

“Sir,” he said to me, and he bowed his head with his feet together as if he was addressing royalty.

Weird.

“How can I help you?” I said.

“Sedgewick,” the man said.

“I’m Adam.”

“I know you,” he said. And, not in a friendly tone.

“Bah, what do you want, Sedgewick?” Gak said. You could tell from the way he said it, the men had history.

“Men are dying,” Sedgewick said. “Men young of age.”

“He’s our healer,” Gak said to me. “He can be an annoyance.”

“Life and death is no annoyance,” Sedgewick said, gravely. “You have brought horrible injury. You have.”

“Wait a second,” I said to the man. “Are you talking about those young men who attacked me?”

“I know nothing of an attack,” Sedgewick said. “I know only these wounds to which I tend. Grave wounds, I’m afraid. Some of these men will die. And it’s by your hand.”

“I’m wounded too,” I said. And, I pointed to the welt on my forehead.

“‘Tis not the same,” Sedgewick said. “Two men may no longer walk. Another loses his limbs entirely. You have caused destruction to their bodies.”

“They tried to kill me,” I said. “You’re not going to find a lot of sympathy here.”

“They held him prisoner,” Trevor chimed in.

“These men might die,” Sedgewick said. “Is there nothing you can do?”

“How do you mean?”

“You are a witch,” Sedgewick said. “I need your help.”