Of course I didn’t disclose my total and complete plan. My primary goal is of course to get rid of Alfred. But why let some other noble get all the gains from my efforts. I and my new team walked to my smithy. The three sergeants were Archer named Todd, a swordsman called Alex and a spearman called Frank. They were all mid-thirties. They all had good reasons to hold grudges against Alfred. Somebody should have told him if you're going to make people hate you at least be smart enough to kill them. The other members of my team were Tim, My father and the ax carrying a big hunk of a guy called Tom. Tom was a handsome muscle bound guy. He had a pretty sad story. His father tried to prevent one of Alfred’s knights from violating his wife, Tom’s mother. They killed them all. Only Tom is able to escape.

When we reached my smithy everybody looked surprised, I said to them “We are here to take smithy equipment and those crates. Frank looked at the crates and whistled “Somebody has a great talent, I never seen any spearheads this good in my entire life.” Of course they were perfect. They were made from purest hardened steel and shaped by magic, not hammer, so they didn't have minor hammer marks on them. We disassembled my machines. They were all wondering what the heck all that stuff was. But I didn’t tell them anything. We had my horse included 4 horses, three of which belonged to the sergeants. Two oxen which are my fathers and a mule belong to Tom. I put all the equipment in my father's ox cart. The spear heads were put in crates and loaded on my horse. Mule carried our provisions and we shared other three horses riding them in turns.

If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

We walked right on the territory of Baron Herch. We looked like wandering traders and in four days’ time we were at the northern side of Herch land. Steel’s land was in the south and in the north some other Baron called Josh Stone ruled. He wasn’t as good as Marcus, or as bad as Alfred. He was the run of the mill Baron. As long as taxes paid in time he did not bother his villagers much. He didn’t demand as much tax to crash them. And he provided some security against bandits. Which this was a problem because of his land’s forested nature. That's why I chose there.

We looked around and found a small forested hill, in the hill there was a stream of water around 20 cm wide. On the road I showed and told them what to build and how to build it. Other than my regular water powered smithy machinery we were going to build a water pressure powered buzz saw and a drill. I left them there and said “I will return in two weeks’ time. So ready everything. We have a lot of work to do. Tom was a talented carpenter and my father and Tim were not slouches either, my guess three sergeants also really liked the idea of the secret weapon manufacturing base.

I took my spearheads and started my walk on the Baldenburg. Normally I was going to meet Bruce near Baldenburg some weeks later, but now plans had changed.