Chapter 44: The Great Earthworks (Part 2)

Amutenya sat on his horse for a long time, watching the massive columns of dust rising from the frontier. The temptation to immediately ride to Tangeni and overhaul the blueprints with multi-story architecture was strong. The urge to sprint to Hedimbi and order the construction of a blast furnace burned in his chest. 

But as a former corporate strategist, Amutenya knew the deadliest trap of rapid expansion: burnout. 

His people were already pushing their physical limits. They had just survived a brutal year of famine and war, and now they were breaking ground on a project that dwarfed anything the Cuvelai basin had ever seen. If he suddenly demanded they haul heavier stones for taller buildings, or subjected the smiths to the grueling, flesh-melting heat of early steel production, he wouldn't build an empire. He would break his workforce. 

'Let them dig,' Amutenya decided, dismissing the holographic screen with a thought. 'The foundations must be laid first. The steel and the towers can wait.'

Instead, he turned Ash around and spurred the stallion back toward the completed walls of the 1st County. There was one Tier 3 upgrade he could implement immediately—one that required brains, not brawn, and would passively strengthen his people against the toll of their grueling labor. 

Basic chemistry. 

The medical ward of the 1st County was situated near the eastern canal, surrounded by neatly tended plots of medicinal herbs, aloe, and bitter-leaf. It was quiet here, a sharp contrast to the roaring earthworks outside the city. 

When Amutenya entered the shaded courtyard, he found Meme Kauna and her three nieces—Kapandu, Ndilimeke, and Nelao—grinding dried roots in heavy stone mortars. Nearby, Ndapandula was carefully organizing small clay vials of concentrated plant sap, her face set in its usual mask of clinical detachment. 

Since Amutenya had appointed her as the 1st Rank Military Director of healing and poisoning, Ndapandula had transformed this ward into an incredibly efficient operation. 

"Leader Amutenya," Meme Kauna greeted warmly, wiping the herbal dust from her hands. The three sisters offered respectful nods, though they kept grinding. 

"I need everyone's attention," Amutenya said, pulling up a wooden stool and sitting across from Ndapandula's work table. He picked up one of the clay vials, uncorking it to smell the pungent, earthy medicine inside. "The men and women out there are going to get hurt. There will be crushed fingers, deep cuts from the pickaxes, and exhaustion. How is our infection rate?"

Meme Kauna frowned. "We wash the wounds with boiled canal water and pack them with spider webs and marula bark. Most survive, but the deep cuts still rot sometimes."

"Because boiled water isn't enough," Amutenya said. He looked directly at Ndapandula. "I am going to teach you a new process today. It is called distillation."

Ndapandula paused, a scalpel made of sharpened bone hovering over a dried root. "What does it do?"

"It separates the pure essence of a liquid from its impurities," Amutenya explained, tracing a simple diagram in the dust on the table. He drew a closed pot over a fire, a curved pipe, and a second, lower pot. "If you take fermented grain mash, or even just dirty water, and heat it in a sealed copper pot, it turns to steam. The impurities—the dirt, the rot, the weak parts of the plant—stay at the bottom."

He pointed to the curved pipe. "The steam rises into a copper tube. We run that tube through a trough of cold water. The cold forces the steam to turn back into a liquid, which drips into a clean glass jar. What you get at the end is pure."

Ndilimeke leaned over, her eyes wide. "So if we do that to water..."

"You get water that will never cause an infection," Amutenya confirmed. "But more importantly, if we ferment our surplus sorghum into a strong wine, and then we distill it through this process, we will create something completely new. A clear liquid that burns like fire."

"Alcohol," Ndapandula said softly, her sharp mind immediately connecting the dots. 

"High-proof alcohol," Amutenya nodded. "If you pour it on an open wound, the man will scream until his throat bleeds, but the wound will not rot. It kills the bacterias that cause infections. You can also use it to soak your bandages, or to clean your bone scalpels before you cut into a patient."

Meme Kauna looked at the diagram in the dust, her maternal eyes widening with awe. "This will save dozens of lives, Amutenya. Maybe hundreds, once the heavy lifting starts in the new counties."

"That is not all it can do," Ndapandula said, her voice dropping to a low, intense whisper. She looked at Amutenya, the cold, calculating spark in her eyes flaring to life. "If I take my toxic plants... the Damara toxin, the snake venom, the sleep-inducing herbs... and I boil them in alcohol instead of water, and then distill them..."

"You will extract the absolute purest, most lethal concentration of the chemical," Amutenya confirmed, a faint, proud smile on his lips. "A single drop of distilled toxin could do the work of a whole cup of tea. A single drop of distilled pain-killer could let a man sleep through an amputation."

Ndapandula stood up immediately. "I need Hedimbi to make me copper pots. Sealed ones, with the long tubes you drew. And I need glass jars."

"I will send the order to the 7th District," Amutenya said, standing up to leave. "Meme Kauna, you and the girls focus on the medical side—pure water and wound-cleaning alcohol. Ndapandula, you focus on the extractions."

Amutenya walked back out into the bright afternoon sun, leaving the women furiously whispering among themselves as they studied the diagram in the dirt. He hadn't given them steel or tall towers, but in the brutal reality of the scrubland, a guaranteed way to prevent infections and weaponize medicine was worth a thousand iron swords.

Now everything was on the right track, and everyone is where they're supposed to be.

Amutenya rode Ash back to the central administrative office, to tie up the loose ends.

The large chalkboard that had dominated the wall of the central administrative office for the past year was covered in a thick layer of white dust. 

Amutenya stood before it with a damp rag in his hand, wiping away the last remaining columns of the daily ration distribution tallies. The physical labor-point system had been the beating heart of their early survival. It had tracked every hour worked, every bucket of water hauled, and every grain ration distributed to the starving refugees who had built the 1st County. 

It had kept them alive. But it was no longer needed. 

"It feels strange to see it blank," Tuwilika said from the doorway, holding her heavily annotated ledger of work chits. Beside her stood Meme Nangula, representing the Treasury. 

"Survival requires a ration system. An economy requires a wage," Amutenya said, tossing the chalk-covered rag into a wooden bucket. He turned to his Head of Human Resources and his Treasurer. "The labor-point chits are officially abolished as of this morning. It is time we establish the standardized salaries for the City-State."

Amutenya pulled a fresh sheet of paper onto his desk and picked up a pencil.

"With the introduction of the new coinage, we need absolute clarity on what a citizen’s labor is worth," Amutenya stated, drafting a clean organizational chart. "General labor—digging the trenches, hauling clay, and basic farmhand work—will be set at a base salary of one Copper Leaf per day, paid weekly. This ensures every worker can afford their daily meals and begin saving."

Tuwilika nodded, rapidly copying the numbers down. "And the specialized workers?"

"Artisans, smiths, medics, and Vanguard soldiers will receive a baseline of one Iron Gear  per week," Amutenya continued. "Supervisors, foremen, and department heads will receive two Iron Gears. This gives the workforce immediate upward mobility. If a trench-digger wants to earn more, they will strive to learn a trade or join the military. 1 copper coin= 5 kg worth of food, 1 Iron coin= 50 kg worth of food, 1 silver coin= 500 kg worth of food."

Meme Nangula reviewed her Treasury numbers. "It is sustainable. With the new glass payment strategy we plan to impose on the merchant caravans, the Treasury can support these wages indefinitely."

"Good. Post the new salary tiers in the central plaza by noon," Amutenya instructed. "But there is another matter. Tuwilika, we have over four thousand people mobilized on the borders of the new counties, plus massive new herds of livestock inside the 1st County. I smelled the mobile camps this morning. The waste is accumulating."

Tuwilika sighed, rubbing her temples. "The latrine trenches at the dig sites are filling up too fast, and the farmhands are leaving manure too close to the primary water canals. It's becoming a logistical nightmare."

"It's a biological nightmare," Amutenya corrected firmly. "Disease can wipe out this city faster than any army. We need a dedicated Sanitation Lead. Someone who doesn't care about being polite and will ruthlessly enforce hygiene protocols across all the counties."

"Meme Ndapewa," Tuwilika suggested without hesitation. "She used to run the largest household in our old village before the drought. She is terrifyingly clean, completely uncompromising, and the younger workers are already scared of her."

Amutenya smiled faintly. "Perfect. Give her a dedicated crew of fifty men. Her word on waste disposal, water boiling, and latrine depth is absolute law. If a foreman argues with her, she has the authority to dock their pay."

Tuwilika jotted the promotion down, relieved to have the burden of waste management off her shoulders. She and Meme Nangula bowed respectfully and exited the office to begin drafting the public notices. 

As they left, a broad-shouldered, scarred man stepped into the office, standing at rigid attention. 

Tate Shaningwa had served as the backbone of the Vanguard’s discipline for months. While Nangolo trained the men in combat and tactics, Shaningwa had been the one desperately trying to keep track of the rapidly growing armory—counting iron spearheads, repairing acacia-wood bucklers, and organizing the soldiers' ration distributions. 

"Leader Amutenya, you sent for me?" Shaningwa asked, his deep voice rumbling in the quiet room. 

"I did, Tate Shaningwa. Please, sit." 

Shaningwa cautiously sat in the wooden chair opposite the desk. He looked deeply exhausted. Managing the logistics of a few dozen spearmen had been hard enough; now, with the Vanguard swelling in numbers and rotating through heavy labor shifts on the frontier, his primitive tally-stick system was completely breaking down. Not to mention the extra load of looking for his own replacement.

"Did you find the replacement already?" Amutenya asked his uncle. "Not yet, I've narrowed it down to four men who seem fit to do the task, but they all need more training and experience before I can hand over the army's ledgers to any of them." The man sighed wearily.

"Uhmm, that's a good point, teach them as much as you know right now, when the construction is done,  we will have our very first national exam, you can set a question paper for those four, highest marks gets the job."

"Okay, I will teach them." 

"It's just that, you will have to suffer for a while and not get your knowledge book, which could set you behind everyone else."

"It's okay, getting the army into safe and stable hands is more important."

After the two uncle and nephew chatted for a while more, Tate Shaningwa excused himself to go continue monitoring the ledgers while Amutenya stayed in his office, trying to finalize the development plan.