Notice
15,000 impera has been paid to Baron Axemere.
Remaining debt: 485,000 impera.
Notice
Interest has accrued on the debt to Baron Axemere.
Interest rate: 2.5%.
Remaining debt: 497,125 impera.
“Have you thought about it?” Alden asked. Running his hands over the bow’s smooth wood and sturdy woven grip, he examined its string with interest, listening to the thrum it made as he flicked it with his finger.
“I have,” Gosfrid said, watching his Lord’s inspection of his handiwork. There was a nervous look on his face, as well as a cowed stature. Faintly, and shockingly, Alden believed he could hear the archer’s beating heart as well.
“Have you come to a decision?” Alden clarified.
Gosfrid shook his head. “Not yet.”
“When?”
“Soon, milord,” came Gosfrid’s uneasy reply.
Alden sighed as he handed the bow back to Gosfrid. His indecision, though understandable, was irksome. There was work to be done, and, depending on Gosfrid’s decision, work that could be created to suit whatever skills he might develop. But, as he was, and though he was a good archer, Gosfrid was little more than a common man-at-arms. Better than most, certainly, but such an achievement was robbed of all merit when compared to what he could be.
“Tell me the minute you come to a decision,” he said. Gosfrid nodded solemnly, then, when he knew not what else to say, inspected the bow himself. “It is a good bow,” Alden offered, though by Gosfrid’s vacant expression it was clear he heard nothing.
A distance from them, on the dirt road to the north and west of Lyonpool, which turned to a cobble just as it reached the town’s outermost edge, there was the sound of horses. The sound was so slight that none could have heard it except himself. And Amice. Yet, when he moved his head to better hear the sound, Gosfrid caught on.
“Someone approaching?” Gosfrid asked.
“Horses,” Alden replied in a quiet tone. He honed his ears further, dissecting the sound to the best of his powers. “Four or five, I think.”
“Should we greet them?”
“We should.”
The horses, of which there were six, were all magnificent specimens. Riding horses, bred for the endurance needed for long travel, their coats were all a mix of white and gray, which accented nicely with the contrasting darkness of their brown and blue saddles.
Riding the horses were four men; three of them were men-at-arms, boasting clean shimmering mail and helms, lances, and swords sheathed in fine leather scabbards. It was the fourth man, however, that demanded the most attention; pale, he wore a suit of dark blue with a gold-thread emblem on the right chest, which distinguished him as a member of the Arvolt Company.
Alden greeted them with an easy smile, barely able to contain the sudden thrill that Lyonpool’s new guests instilled in him. That a member of Arvolt graced his barony so soon after sending out his acceptance to a Contractors Guild could only have been promising.
“It is a great honor to meet you, Baron Lyonpool. I am Tidsige, Guild Head of the Arvolt Company’s Stowgardyn branch.” Climbing down from his horse, Tidsige revealed himself to be exceptionally tall, standing at equal height with his horse and coming almost up to Alden’s chin.
“And it is an honor to welcome you, Guild Head. Come, allow me to escort you.”
Taking them to the stables, the four relinquished their horses and continued to follow as Alden led them to the newly built Guild Hall. Standing four stories tall, the Guild Hall towered over the adjacent smithy and tailor, and its wood, recently stained, was impeccably dark.
“Quite impressive,” Tidsige said, admiring the building. “I must congratulate you, my lord. It is not often that new Guild Halls possess such external grandeur, nor such size. To have gone this far bodes well, I must say.”
Thanking the Guild Head, Alden led him inside, whereupon the day’s light was diminished and replaced by a series of gold and silver sconces providing bright, magical light. Bare as the main room was, being decorated with only the essential furnishings, Alden was hopeful that Tidsige saw not what was was, but what could be.
The Guild Head observed the room with a sliver of a smile. He walked along the outer wall, staring inward and, occasionally, glancing up to the second floor, which overlooked the main entrance. Eventually he stopped at the reception desk, behind which was an open door leading to the back offices.
With his back to Alden it was difficult to say what expression he made, though Alden could guess. Tidsige’s heartbeat had begun to quicken as he took in all that the Guild Hall’s first floor had to offer.
“Again you surprise me,” Tidsige said in a cheery tone.
“Surprising others is a great skill of mine,” Alden said.
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Tidsige turned to face Alden. “So I have heard, my lord. It appears to me that the rumors have not been inaccurate.” Turning around again, Tidsige approached the reception desk, upon which he laid a hand. “May I explore the rest of the building?”
“Of course.”
“My thanks.”
With his hand still on the desk, Tidsige took a small step back, then leapt over the desk to the other side with unusual grace. Then he disappeared into the back offices, leaving Alden bemused.
“He does that sometimes, milord,” one of Tidsige’s guards said. “There is no offense meant.”
“And none is taken,” Alden replied. He followed Tidsige’s movements through the back rooms, which were faster than they had been in the main hall. His head, especially, moved with far greater speed, jerking from one object to the next as if his eyes alone were too slow to take it all in.
When he finished he returned to the main hall wearing a bright smile. “It is simply wonderful, my lord,” he said, leaping over the reception desk once more. “Under normal circumstances it would take a fine architect to build such a Guild Hall. I must ask, my lord, who designed this building?”
“I did,” Alden replied.
“Truly?”
“Very much so. I designed this building myself, though I must admit I used what I could recall from my time as a Contractor to guide me.”
“Even still, this building is a grade above our usual rate, my lord. Not even some of the larger baronies or viscounties possess Halls as good as this.”
“Your words are too kind,” Alden replied.
“Certainly not, my lord. I am only giving the courtesy that is your due. You have shown yourself to be an exceedingly skilled individual, which has not gone unnoticed. There has been a keen interest in your development at Arvolt, which, I presume, is why I have been sent to make the decision.”
“You will?” Alden asked.
“Yes. I have been granted final say by my superiors. That said, while I am so far impressed, you have accepted a Contractor Guild, which brings me to the topic of monsters,” Tidsige said. “I must admit, I am quite excited to see what variety your lands have to offer. There are numerous to the south of us, I’m told, is that correct?”
“Indeed. A great number of them live in Tejin’s Strait, and from time to time some make their way north into Lyonpool. I’ve had to send regular patrols south just to keep them contained. I am hopeful that a Contractor’s Guild, once established, might ease this burden for me.”
Tidsige smiled reassuringly. “I’m certain it will,” he said. “On that note, of course, I must ask something of you, partly out of my own curiosity, and partly out of professional necessity. The flesheater you’ve killed–I must see it.”
Ah, of course. Waiting for this moment, as Alden had, brought something like excitement. Expectation, perhaps. Tidsige was not an appraiser, but as a Guild Head he could, Alden assumed, guess at the worth of the flesheater’s skeleton. And, though he would never admit it aloud, at this point Alden was more than willing to relinquish himself of the skeleton for half its actual value.
“It is quite the sight,” Alden said.
The flesheater’s skeleton was stored in a barn on the northern edge of town, in what was the most remote section of Lyonpool visible from Alden’s manor. The barn, initially commandeered from a freeman farmer, had eventually been bought for a pretty sum, which was only the beginning of Alden’s investment. The barn’s walls, once a bright painted red, had been fortified with another layer of unpainted wood and a latticework of iron fittings. Surrounding the barn, at a distance of a dozen feet from the barn’s walls, was a trench six feet deep and six feet wide, on either side of which was a series of wooden stakes.
Outside the barn, at all times, were three armed men-at-arms, two archers, and five riding horses at the ready. Mages would have been posted, as well, had there been any in his employ.
Tidsige leered at the fortifications. “An interesting choice of defenses,” he said. Then, in his next breath, and in a tone that was almost condescending, said “Shouldn’t those stakes be pointed away from the barn? If you mean to keep would-be interlopers out, I’d think it best to keep the sharp bits pointed toward where they might come from.”
Alden laughed. “They should, if that was my concern.”
“Is it not?” Tidsige asked.
“My concern is not with keeping people out,” Alden explained. “It is to ensure the skeleton remains…contained.”
Crossing the trench with a wooden bridge that was little more than a sturdy board, Alden opened the barn door, heavy with the weight of added wood and iron, to reveal the skeleton within.
Though missing a horn and half a rib on the right side, the flesheater’s skeleton was intimidatingly large. At the very sight Tidsige flinched backward, expecting the beast might attack. As Alden continued into the barn, Tidsige followed sheepishly.
“It’s huge,” Tidsige said. Then, after a pause, “It must be worth a fortune.”
“I think so as well, but there has been some difficulty in having it appraised,” Alden replied.
“Ah, yes, I’ve heard as much. The Licester appraiser, correct? A shame that such expertise was snuffed out due to common banditry.”
Common banditry. Alden wondered if that was merely the publicly accepted answer Arvolt gave, or if their members were truly so deluded.
“A true shame indeed,” he said. “I think that any appraiser would love to see this. The specimen of a lifetime, I believe. Come, let me show you.”
Moving to the skeleton, Alden entered its ribcage with Tidsige in tow, his hand tracing the underside of its spine as he walked into the center of what was once the dead beast’s belly. Smooth to the touch, it was a wonder that the material was as strong as it was, a fact he intended to show to the Guild Head first hand.
“Would you like to hit it?” he asked Tidsige. A fascinated grin spread across the Guild Head’s face.
In a flash his sword was out and aimed at one of the immense ribs, and in another he struck it, releasing the reverberating sound of steel and a sparkling shower of metal shards. Retreating back a step, Tidsige held the shattered blade in front of him with an astounded look.
Eventually he dropped the broken sword to the ground, turned to Alden, and grimaced.
“You killed this creature?” Tidsige asked.
“With help,” Alden replied.
With a furrowed brow, Tidsige turned away and began to explore the titanic skeleton by himself, caressing, firstly, the ribs, then moving on to the legs and, finally, the skull. Alden joined him, making sure to step lightly as he did so. He could hear the Guild Head’s heart beating fiercely in his chest and could see the struggling look of a man coming to a hard decision.
“I was hopeful, my lord, that your lands might prove to be a most profitable location for a Contractor Guild. Monsters are, as you’ve mentioned, a nuisance to civilized people. Despite that, their bodies are a treasure unto themselves. Blood with healing properties, bones that can be fashioned into clubs harder than steel, skin and scales that can be made into the finest light armor available. And even those without such interesting properties can be taxidermied and sold for quite the sum.”
As soon as the Guild Head had begun to speak, Alden wanted to stop him. Every sentence of the man’s speech was already known to him, and, certainly, Tidsige must have known that. To reiterate it, regardless, meant only that, at its end, there would be that loathsome word.
When the word finally came, Alden flinched.
“But,” Tidsige continued, “if this is to be the typical specimen that our dear Contractors are to face, I must, unfortunately, decline to instantiate such a guild in your lands.”