Loch stood at the entrance to Bow Lake Fields. He could hear the sounds of people taking down trees, sawing and hammering. A lot of the tall grass had been hacked down. Stacks driven into the ground with thin lines used to measure distances. The grove of trees in the middle of the field remained, planned to not be touched.

  It would become a park someday.

  Standing at the entrance he could envision what it would look like.

  A road heading straight through where the gate had been, ending in a wide square in front of the grove. There might be a statue or fountain in the square. Various ideas were put forward but nothing had been decided on yet. The road would continue around the grove. The shops would be along the road from the entrance to the grove. Houses would be set in organized grids from there to the end of the field on all three sides. The idea was to have the houses back to back, with yards between them, facing other homes across the roads.

  He wasn’t sure how many houses there would end up being. It would be a mix of smaller for single people, a little larger for couples, a medium size for a smaller family and a couple bigger for the larger families. No mansions or anything like that.

  There was going to be a school, a town hall and community building. Barracks for guards would still be at the Clanhold, but there would be a small one at the new town. A wall would go around it, guard posts set evenly along the length.

  He’d seen the plans, had helped in drafting them up. They still didn’t have a name yet. It was going to be an ambitious project and Loch couldn’t wait for them to get started on it.

  In the Spring.

  He walked out into the field, heading for the group of people standing near the grove.

  “TIMBER,” a clear voice yelled out.

  It was followed by a crash. Loch looked to the left, which he thought was north. A group of lumberjacks were clearing the treeline, pushing it past where the wall would be. The ground was frozen, even their Adapted bodies would have a hard time digging it down enough to set up the palisade wall. That would come in the spring. For now they were just clearing the trees, making more open space between the future wall and the surrounding forest. The fallen trees were being cleared of branches, stacked on the grassy field. The branches and smaller trees would be brought back to the Clanhold and turned into wood for the coming winter.

  The plan was to cut the forest back about twenty feet on the three sides of the field. The north might be less, as there was a small stream running along that side, the ground sloping down to it. He thought the plan was to clear all the trees to the edge of the slope, leaving the rest on the other side. It was a lot of work to get done, but it was work that could be done before the snow fell. They’d have a good stockpile of logs come spring.

  He made his way down to the group of people. A couple of them walked off, heading towards the sounds of trees falling. The others met Loch part way.

  “Lord Lochlan,” Tim DeWolfe said, holding out his hand.

  “Just Loch,” he replied, sighing, taking the offered hand.

  “Wasn’t expecting to see you out here,” Tim said, leading Loch north toward where the work was happening.

  “I was out with some scavengers and thought I’d stop by on the way back to the school.”

  “Not much to see yet.”

  Loch looked down the field, seeing some people set up with surveying equipment. Tim looked that way.

  “I managed to get one of the scavenger teams to stop at that Surveying firm on Route 4 up the road from the town dump,” he explained. “Getting real equipment is going to help us really lay everything out.”

  “That’s great,” Loch said.

  When the idea of creating the town had come up, everyone had assumed they’d be laying it out by hand, using ropes and sticks. But having actual equipment would be a huge timesaver.

  “Turns out one of the guys in the Clan was a Civil Engineer and had some surveying experience,” Tim continued, walking Loch down the slight slope to the northern edge. “That list Kristin keeps is a godsend,” he said. “Really helped me find the right people for this project.”

  “That’s great to hear,” Loch said, watching the lumberjacks work.

  They had a variety of saws, none powered. He saw a couple of the old fashioned ones that took two people. Those teams worked on some of the larger trees with the smaller saws being used on the thinner. It was a pretty efficient operation.

  It looked chaotic at first, but Loch saw there was an organization to it, with a couple of supervisors directing. A tree would fall, and another team would go to work cutting off the branches, with a third team taking the branches out of the way and stacking in a large pile. Another team was cutting those branches up into smaller ones to use in the wood stoves. Still another team would take the stripped trees and drag them up the hill, working to get them onto the piles. The thinner ones were brought to another group that used axes and other saws to cut those trees into logs. The last team were using wagons and wheelbarrows, bringing the logs down the road to the school.

  Loch was amazed at how quick it was all going. With the right tools and their Adapted bodies, the workers were fast and efficient.

  Tom led him over to what was going to be the northwest corner of the wall. There was a stake stuck into the ground.

  “That’s the corner and the surveyors are setting the other corner,” Tim explained. “Once we have that set, we’ll start laying out the first of the homes.” He spread his hands as he talked, pointing at spots in the grass where the various things would go. Loch kept up with him, picturing how it would look. “We’re going to have a road run between the wall and the first homes. Double wide with some grass space at the wall for the stairs and watchtowers. The first homes will face the wall. Those will be back to back with the next, sharing some yard space between. Then a road, then another set of back to back homes. That’ll repeat up to the center of the town where the small park and shops will be.”

  “Going to be a lot of work,” Loch said.

  “Yeah,” Tim said with a smile. “Probably the largest project I’ve ever been a Manager on and I did some big ones back before the Connection. You sticking around?”

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  “No, I just wanted to stop by. Going to check out the Corner Tower on the way back.”

  “Mind if I tag along?”

  “Nope.”

  Tim whistled loudly, the sound spreading across the clearing. Most eyes turned toward the two.

  “I’m heading to the Tower,” Tim shouted, making sure he had the attention of the supervisors. “I’ll be back in a bit.”

  “How long?” One yelled back.

  “You’ll know when I get back,” Tim yelled. He started walking away with Loch. “If I told them how long I’d be, they’d slack off until I got back,” he muttered.

  Loch laughed.

  ***

  “We’re almost down,” Steve Haley said, directing Loch’s attention to the tower.

  It stood at the corner of Bow Lake Road and Route 4, with clear views up both roads, which is why it was called the Corner Tower. Four stories tall, the fifth open on the sides with roof above, half walls along the sides. The rest was covered in planks, or would be when it was done. Each side had four windows, stacked on top of each other. They were small, made for archers to shoot out of, and give a decent view in all directions. A single door led into the structure. Access to the roof was by stairs and ladders, each floor open with a dumbwaiter system to get equipment and supplies up to each floor.

  The lowest floor, where the angled walls of the tower were wider, had barracks for the guards on duty. A kitchen area was on the second level with a lounge area. The third story was for the weapons emplacements.

  Steve, with his Class of SiegeGuard, had devised a couple of surprises for the top two levels. For the fourth level he’d created the walls to be on hinges, opening up to expose the weapons but only on the Route 4 and Bow Lake sides. The ballista were small but powerful, designed from plans he’d found in books and modified by the knowledge from his Class. The fourth level had smaller hinged openings where Casters could fire their Abilities from.

  The interior was all done, as was the roof. Most of the planks had been attached to the sides with only the back and part of a side to finish up. Carpenters were up on some rickety looking scaffolding made from trees and planks. The whole thing shook as people moved. Loch was going to point it out, but they’d been using the scaffolding for multiple projects and no one had fallen yet.

  Probably jinx it to mention something now, he thought.

  The tower wasn’t built right in the corner of the roads, but pulled back more to the center of the roads, which is what gave it the clear views.

  “We probably won’t get started on the wall or the smaller end towers before snow falls,” Steve said, walking around the tower with Loch and Tim.

  “Yeah, not worth starting them and stopping,” Tim agreed. “The snow and weather could probably damage them and we’d have to replace the work.”

  The plan was to build smaller two or three story towers at the sides of the roads, connecting them to the larger with walls and gates. It wouldn’t stop an army from getting past, but would help control wagon travel.

  There was just too much land around the Clanhold to do full walls around it all, especially with the fields. It had taken days to come up with a plan, lots of back and forth with a ton of opinions thrown out, but they had all agreed on a final plan. A wall would be on the west, running from the lake up to the corner of the school, then from the other corner of the school down the fields and to where the land sloped up again.

  More towers would be built on top of the slope, spaced along the north side of the school, between the woods and the fields. Those would continue down the east side in front of the fields. Only two or three stories, they would be more open platforms for guards and archers. A low wall, only a couple feet high, would be built between them with gates. Those walls and towers would eventually connect with the Corner Tower. Another tall wall would go from the Corner Tower back down to the water’s edge.

  It was a lot of work and would take a long time, which everyone on the Council was good with. That meant more work to keep Carpenters and Laborers busy through the Spring and Summer. With the amount of work the town would take, pretty much everyone in the Clan would be busy building.

  And that didn’t take into account all the other structures under construction.

  “How goes the Ranch,” Loch asked.

  “Pretty much down,” Steve said. “The chicken coop is finished.”

  When they’d found the chickens near the old town dump, the decision had been made to build a coop there. No one wanted to try and wrangle a couple dozen chickens and move them all to the school. The flock had been growing under the watch of a couple new Rancher Classes. The buildings that had been at the dump had been taken by the Worldcore, except for an old trailer that had been used as an office. It wasn’t big enough to work for the Ranchers, so construction had begun on a Ranch House and Coop for the chickens. Since the Grand Oak was there, a guard tower and barracks was also under construction near the road.

  “The tower up on Saddleback was finished a week ago and last I heard that team is almost down the small barracks there,” Steve added.

  Loch pulled up his mental list of construction projects, adding notes to the status of each they’d talked about. The last nails had been pounded in at the small wall and towers west by the old brewery. The teams had been using one of the local homes for a barracks, which meant they didn’t need another building. The Spawn Field by Loch’s own house, where there were a lot of turkeys, those Ranchers were also using one of the local houses.

  “What about the barracks and tower at the mine?” Loch asked.

  “Almost done,” Tim answered. “We’ve started in on a trail that comes straight this way instead of going to Bow Lake Road and then down. It’ll probably angle to come out nearer the smelting building.

  Loch nodded, mentally pulling up the list of trails to build. The smelting building was just up Bow Lake at the fire pond. Having the trail from the mine go straight there would cut the trip down a couple of hours. It would end up crossing one that would come from the fields and head toward the town up at the Bow Lake Fields. The plan would be to turn all those trails into true dirt roads that wagons could go down.

  More projects for the spring.

  Loch was looking forward to seeing what it would all look like when done.

  “So Tim,” he started.

  “Uh oh…,” Steve said with a laugh.

  Tim looked at Loch like a deer caught in headlights. He wanted to run but knew he couldn’t.

  “When the surveyors get done up at Bow Lake Field…”

  “Yes,” Tim said warily.

  “Why not send them down to Johnson's field and see how much land we got there,” Loch suggested.

  “We can’t do two large building projects at once,” Tim said.

  “This will be for when Bow Lake is done.”

  “Bow Lake will fit what we have now,” Tim said, still looking like he wanted to run.

  “What we have now,” Loch said with a smile.