Tok tok tok.

Alden stirred at the gentle knocking. He put down the parchment held firm between his fingers, their contents already forgotten, desiring nothing more than a moment's rest and a glass of ice cold water. No, he thought again, a moment’s rest was much too little. He needed a week's rest at least, ideally in some remote cabin far from civilization and, thus, from the problems that people brought. Problems like the one that was no doubt about to be presented to him.

“Come in,” he said. The door opened to reveal the tan pockmarked face of Uhtric. He pulled at the collar of his doublet, obviously uncomfortable despite its custom tailoring.

“Dreary as always, I see,” Uhtric said, squinting in the dim light of Alden’s office.

“Apologies,” Alden said and, with a simple conjuring of magic, lit the lantern that sat upon his desk’s edge. Light was forgotten when he worked alone. In the darkness he saw as well as any normal man saw in the day. Better, even. And besides, visitors were infrequent at even the busiest of times.

These were, of course, convenient excuses for his strange behavior, the truth of which would have seemed even stranger to others. Darkness brought with it a sort of comfort to Alden that the light did not, as if the darkness itself was a warm mother’s arms wrapping over him.

“Better?” Alden asked.

Uhtric looked upon the office space with concern, as if he’d expected more from it, then shrugged. “I suppose it’ll do,” he said.

It was an understandable feeling. The office was a simple space, devoid of the fineries one would expect in the great manses the other nobles called home. Temporary, Alden liked to tell himself, but as the days passed on and on he began to wonder.

“What brings you here?” he asked, wishing to dismiss the thought.

“News, milord,” Uhtric said, and Alden felt a the corners of his lips curl upward, if only slightly. No matter how many times he heard the words they always seemed to brighten his mood.

“Let’s hear it.”

“The locals are… they’re not happy, milord.”

When are they ever, he thought. There was naught to be done. They were a conquered people, and conquered people rarely took kindly to the laws of foreign conquerors.

Leaning back, Alden glared at the paper framed just above the doorway.

Lyonpool Barony, it read at the top. What followed was merely the mundanities of bureaucracy, words dressed up such that their importance and their power could be understood even to the illiterate. And what power they had! A mere document, yet it called out for wayward eyes and drew them in. It was an immaculate thing, with midnight black lettering that contrasted brilliantly with the bone white parchment, complete with the Emperor’s own red seal at the bottom. He had stared hard and long at that seal, attempting to decipher its intricate circular design, until one day he had an epiphany. The seal was a birds eye view of the Imperial Capital itself.

But the seal, interesting as it was, was only to give the document’s word credence. Words that should have given him peace. Instead, they mocked him.

Lyonpool Barony. He hadn’t expected it. How could he have? Ormar had said otherwise, and with such conviction. ‘Licester will be yours,’ he’d said. It was not meant as a lie. But it was the Emperor’s will that land be granted to Alden at all, and it was the Emperor’s will that the newly conquered land southern reaches of the Empire be formed into a new barony.

And so I have become a baron of empty lands and angry people.

There were sparkles of gold amidst the dirt, of course. The harbor, though newly built, provided a great deal of fish and easy access to trade with the local nobility. Little as it was, he could make something of these circumstances.

“Let us go and see if we can’t brighten their day,” he said, standing.

“Before that,” Uhtric said. He produced a wax-sealed letter. “From a courier. Said it was from Arvolt.”

Dangling from the letter was an ethereal string of gold so thick it was almost rope. String that only he could see, and only he could guess the meaning of. Fate itself, or so he thought. And how alluring today’s string of fate was! It danced in the air like a writhing serpent, moving back and forth in such a seductive manner he felt his heartbeat quicken.

He snatched the letter from Uhtric’s hand, peeled off the wax, and read its contents so quickly he barely understood its words. When he was done he read it again in disbelief.

He let the paper drop to his desk.

“In the future, deliver any such letters to me first.”

“Apologies, milord. Will do.” Uhtric stood on awkward feet, a hint of shame tinting his face. Then curiosity got the better of him and it was gone. “Can I ask what it's about?”

Alden smiled and patted him on the back. “They want to build a guild branch here.”

“Here?” he asked, incredulous. “They daft? Ain’t got damn all here but fish and grass. Ain’t no labor guild who’d want to set up shop this far south.”

“True enough. But it wasn’t a labor guild they were offering.”

“Ye don’t mean…” Uhtric trailed off.

“I do. We’ve got plenty of them just south of us, don’t you think? Perfect for a guild, even a small branch.”

“Perfect for a bunch of dead men, you mean.”

Alden shrugged. It would pose problems, certainly, but with time and effort it would prove lucrative. Very lucrative.

“Maybe.”

“Ain’t no maybe, milord. We’re far off from the Empire proper. Hell, any civilization for that matter. Monsters outside the border ain’t something to mess with.”

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“But,” Alden interrupted, “their parts are worth a small fortune. And we need the money.”

Uhtric scrunched his face, but remained silent. Scratching his face, he looked about the room as if he would find his answer somewhere. Then, by some chance, he seemed to.

“Monster huntin’ requires killin’, you know?” he asked.

Alden’s shoulders laxed. “I know. But I don’t ban hunting.”

“And Gosfrid thanks ye for that, loudly and often. The rest of us, as well, I suppose. I’m about sick of fish, now that it’s all I eat. Still, for a man who don’t kill, which I understand some, and who don’t eat meat, which I’ll never understand, I just thought it best to… ye know… ”

Alden shrugged. “I thank you for the concern, Uhtric, but I’ll be fine. We need the money, and the trade. I’m just worried about Arvolt’s terms.”

“Terms?” Uhtric asked.

“They want me to pay for the construction. Most want me to pay for it directly, which I can’t. The rest are willing to front the cost as a loan, but would require repayment with interest.”

“Ye’d have to pay them to let them do business here?”

Alden shrugged. “It’s a sensible offer, much as I don’t like it. You said it yourself: we’re far from the rest of the Empire. Constructing guild offices here is going to be risky business. They might not even turn a profit in the first few years.”

“There must be some other way,” Uhtric said.

“It’s that, or,” Alden said, reading the offers over once more, “I’d just have to exclude them from taxes for…”

He chuckled humorlessly.

“What?” Uhtric asked.

“10 years. Five at the least for some of the minor guilds, but the ones asking for 10 are offering branches for their labor and engineer guilds, too.”

“10 years?” There was a pause as Uhtric dwelled on the thought, his face scrunching and easing and scrunching again as an idea rolled around in his mind. “Sounds like a ripoff, milord.”

“Ha! Probably is, but I’ve little choice in the matter. We need a guild branch. An Exploration Guild’s fine and dandy, and an Adventurer’s Guild is even better. But what we really need is laborers and engineers. So, my choices are to defer taxation for an unreasonable amount of time, or to come up with 20,000 Impera in the next two months.”

Uhtric stumbled backwards as if struck. “Gods have mercy.”

“Mercy indeed,” Alden said in a quiet voice. There was none to be had, especially not from the Gods, but he kept that to himself. “At least if we can come up with the money they would owe us and not the other way around.”

“What are the terms for that?”

“Negotiable, it says. Vague, I say. I have a feeling they don’t think we have the money.”

“They’d be right.”

“But we can get it,” Alden said. He had a notion of what to do. The idea came simply enough. He needed money, and the Arvolt Company thought money could be made in his lands through monster hunting. The only thing to do, then, was cut out the middle mane. “What do you know of the monsters in this region?”

Uhtric scratched at his chin, losing himself to thought. Then there was a shine in his eyes.

“Fuckin’ flesheaters,” he said, as if the matter was settled.

“Flesheater?”

“Ah, sorry milord, forgot you’d’n’t know. Fuckin’ vicious things they are, and like nothin’ else alive, if they even are in the first place. Tall as a mule and long as a wagon with horses, least the dead one I saw. Some mage’s demonly creation, most think, bein’ that they’re all bones.”

“Bones?”

“Bones. Well, mostly. Big moving skeleton things with all the flesh in a pink sack that bulges out from the inside their chest, ‘cept the older they get the more bone they’ve got, with the oldest ones being completely covered in bone.”

“Are they hard to kill?”

Uhtric chuckled. “Damn hard. Bones’re harder than steel. Takes either a handful of knights or a half dozen mages just to put one down, usually. Course that don’t mean much, considerin’ knights like yer lordship. Ye know, when ye was one. But they’re worth a hell of a lot. Just one’d get ye that 20,000.”

Alden smiled wide and patted him on the shoulder, taking care to hold back his strength. Just the month before he’d knocked Caldwell to the ground, much to the jeering joy of his other men. Caldwell’s pride took a greater blow than his body, so he’d worked on keeping himself in check since then. Most of the time it worked.

Even holding back Uhtric was jostled, but he returned Alden’s smile, regardless.

“We should head out now, if I can make a suggestion,” Uhtric said, rubbing his shoulder.

“Why’s that?”

“Reason I came here, milord. Locals ain’t happy. Dayan says they want to hunt.”

2

More than twenty men and women had gathered at the front of Alden’s manor, which was only called such due to his living in it. In truth it was no more than a double story home without furniture, save for the number of beds occupied by the men and women that followed him here. It served its purpose, however. The locals, who were primarily nomadic until their conquering, looked upon it with the same awe and fervor normal men looked upon true manors.

Now, however, they did not gaze in awe upon his temporary home, but instead himself. He was shorter than he had been at his largest, transformed by his own magic after finding his previous stature to be unwieldy, but even now he stood taller and broader than any other man.

Awe and wonder suited Alden just fine, especially with these people. Just a generation ago they had been entirely nomadic, having settled only due to steady trade with the empire, and many still felt the call of travel and adventure in their blood. They would leave given time, unless he could answer that call for them, even if only in part. That his size helped keep their attention made it somewhat easier.

“Is everyone ready?” Alden asked Uhtric.

“Ready as they can be. Horses ready and waitin’, armor and weapons in the carriage. Food, too. Rope, tents, what have you.”

“Good.”

He surveyed the crowd of people, scanning over their Stats. Even the weakest of them was above the average Drygallin in terms of physical attributes, though often at a slight cost to Intelligence. The only number he cared about, however, was Loyalty.

“Dayan,” he called out. From the crowd of men and women he pushed his way through, a blue screen with the number ‘79’ hovering above him, and presented himself to Alden, lowering himself to a single knee in the Drygallis fashion. He wore a long, white deel, which to Alden resembled an overcoat that wrapped around his body and was held in place by a series of clasps, which covered from chest down to the midpoints of his shins, meeting the dark collar of his brown leather boots. At his waist was a sash of yellow silk, the finest thing the man owned; a gift from Alden in return for the man’s service as liaison with the locals, as well as an official mark as Alden’s steward.

“Yes, milord,” Dayan said with an accent that betrayed his roots.

“I’m told you wish to hunt. As it happens, we are in need of a flesheaters corpse. Is this a suitable prey?”

“Most certainly, my lord. It would be a great honor.”

“Is everyone ready?”

Dayan turned and yelled something in a foreign tongue. When none spoke back he turned again to Alden and said “They are ready.”

“Then let us ride.”

The twenty or so southern locals, who called themselves the Chanat, mounted their horses and awaited Alden’s lead, a custom Alden was uncertain he would ever call his own. The Chanat people were horse riders by necessity, and to lead the Chanat required one do so literally, as well as figuratively. Sending out scouts, as was common in Drygallis, was an idea unheard of, and even anathema, to them.

So, having no choice in the matter, Alden grabbed the reins of his destrier and urged it gently towards the great southern expanse.