“Do you have solutions?” Frederik asked sharply, “Or just criticisms?”

Arvel looked directly at him and said, “Yeah, my solution is that y’all go home.”

“Arvel!” Rain snapped as she stepped up to the table, “You’re being impolite. Now, I’m sure we can come up with a reasonable middle-ground. What are our most pressing needs?”

Fidget squeaked softly as Rain stepped forward, and clung tighter to the back of her skirt, burying her face against the fabric.

“Shelter, food, and defenses,” Lunette replied, “We have preserved goods but they won’t last us through the winter unless we’re able to supplement them with fish and meat.”

“You picked a rotten time to found a new settlement,” said Arvel, “You’re past the planting season for pretty much everything.”

“Not everything,” said one of the older men, “We’re hoping to get settled in time to put down winter wheat, and I want to start getting cabbages, radishes, and carrots in the ground as soon as possible. We harvested and preserved as much as we could to stock the expedition, and we’ve been subsisting off of what we could gather on the way here to make sure that stock lasted as long as possible.”

Arvel fell quiet, looking down at a rough sketch on the table of the area. He could recognize certain landmarks; the way the foothills and the mountain stretched out toward the plains, a rough outline of what was once a riverbed, a marker for where his farm was located, and the location of the Elediah’s Trail settlement on the winding gravel road. Arvel sighed heavily.

“Well seeing as I ain’t gonna be rid of ya,” Arvel said, “I’ll show ya where to get your lumber from. But you ain’t gonna be making whole buildings out of it, just the framing. That dry river bed is where you’re gonna get your clay for daub, and the folk who can’t haul logs need to be out collecting branches and twigs for the wattle.”

As Arvel tapped the map to point out the dry riverbed, he ran his fingers over to the area around their proposed settlement.

“You also need people scraping off the top layer of dirt,” he said, “This grayish looking, dry and crusty stuff is no good for planting in, and it’ll wither anything it comes in contact with. The spots where the demons died might run even deeper.”

“Where the demons died?” Rain asked, “Why is that?”

“Demon blood just sucks the life outta everything if you let it,” Arvel said, “If you leave it on your skin it’ll start burning, and it ruins the soil if it touches it.”

Rain looked down at the dull, taupe colored dirt beneath her feet. Even after the previous day’s rains, the surface looked cracked and dry, and too hard for anything to grow up from beneath it. She toed at a crack, flaking up some of the dirt, before lifting her head to look around. As far as the eye could see across the plains, with the exception of a few patches, the ground all looked just the same until it reached the foothills at the base of the mountain.

“This was the site of Sir Elediah’s greatest victory,” Lunette said, “They say that thousands of demons fell to his sword on these plains... That he put an end to the demonic invasion on this very ground.”

“Not how he told it,” Arvel said quietly, “Thousands of demons died here, and thousands of humans too. The ones they called ‘winners’ were the ones who hadn’t run out of warm bodies to throw on the field yet. He wasn’t real fond of the idea that a general got the credit for a whole army’s doing. But that battle ruined this land, and he decided if nobody else could live here, that’s where he’d build his house when it was all over.”

The group was at a loss for words. If one stopped to think about it for long, most places in the east marches were sites of battlefields and mass graves, but the truth was never so brutal as standing on land that was soaked across every square inch by spilled demon blood.

Lunette took a deep breath, before exhaling slowly, and asked, “How deeply must we dig to get beyond the layer of tainted earth?”

“A few inches,” said Arvel, “Three or four in most places. Could go as deep as a foot in low-lying spots, or where the most recent fighting happened.”

“Then we’ll start digging today,” Lunette said, “We’ll figure out the best places to plant our crops and then lay out buildings around them. We’ll also see what soil can be brought down from hilltops to make up for what we have to carry away from the garden plots.”

Several of the men around the table went to carry out her directive immediately, already discussing the finer points of what tools they’d need, how they’d haul the dirt away, and to where.

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“Can you lead our logging team up onto the mountain tomorrow?” Lunette asked, looking at Arvel. Her eyes were focused, almost piercing, and the intensity of her gaze took him aback.

“Yeah,” he muttered with a nod, “I can do that.”

“Good,” she replied, “Then I will make ready to accompany you all as well.”

Rain opened her mouth, but no words came out. She stood quiet for a moment, considering her question, before asking simply, “What should I be doing?”

Arvel and Lunette both stared at her, quietly, before Arvel asked, “Shouldn’t you be the one telling others what to do? You’re the marchioness and all.”

Lunette lifted a hand to beg Arvel’s pause, and said, “My lady, I believe you might best be served with the other women who are sewing. There are many tents and wagon covers in need of repair and clothes that want for mending. Whatever you can do would be appreciated.”

“Of course,” Rain replied. She reached back to pet the top of Fidget’s covered head and said, “Well find some way to make ourselves useful, I’m certain.”

As Rain and the quietly hidden Fidget turned to leave, Arvel watched them go, before looking at Lunette and asking, “Is that really alright? She’s supposed to be a leader. You gonna let her just keep looking to others to figure out what she’s supposed to be doing?”

“Lady Deleraine is her mother’s daughter,” said Lunette, “A child of times of plenty and a product of a peaceful upbringing. She is well-educated in her numbers and literature, and skilled in needlework and diplomacy. She was taught to delegate the tasks of a gala being organized, not the construction of a new settlement or an army.”

Arvel’s brow furrowed.

“I’ll say it again... You think that’s alright?” he questioned, “Because folk are gonna keep looking to her for answers and she ain’t got none.”

“It isn’t about what’s ‘alright’,” Lunette said, growing more exasperated, “None of this is what I would call an ‘ideal situation’ but it’s the situation we’re saddled with. I trust Lady Deleraine to know how to delegate to those of us who do have the answers when she doesn’t. But no one will benefit from holding her feet to the fire, not before she’s had the opportunity to properly learn.”

“She never should’ve come out here,” Arvel grumbled.

“I disagree,” she replied, “You are looking for her to offer skills or knowledge that she does not possess. But Lady Deleraine possesses something that others hold in high regard, even if it means nothing to you. She is the marchioness of Nathulan. Nothing made her come here, endure hardships, and risk starvation or demon attack. Yet, the fact she has chosen to come here has filled her people with hope. By seeing her at the lead, they view Elediah’s Trail not as a last-ditch effort to carve out some semblance of civilization, but a promising new settlement where they can build their new lives.”

“Is that all a noble has to be?” he asked, folding his arms, “Someone to make people feel good?”

“It is not,” she answered, “But as Lady Deleraine learns to rise to meet her obligations, it is the best that she can provide her people for now.”

Fidget kept her head down, her face buried against Rain’s skirt as she trudged behind her through the camp. She would only let go of Rain’s skirt to tug the edge of her makeshift red-and-white gingham cloak around her more tightly.

“Good afternoon, my lady,” a woman said.

“Good afternoon,” Rain replied, “I was hoping my friend and I could help with some of the mending that needs doing.”

“Of course!” the woman said, “Oh, what a pretty little blue dress she has! I don’t believe we’ve met?”

“Oh, thank you!” said Rain, “I sewed it for her with the remnants of an old gown of mine. This is my friend Fidget...”

“Fidget?” the woman asked, as if inquiring whether she’d misheard.

Fidget peeked up from behind Rain’s hip, and saw a plain-looking middle-aged woman in a simple brown dress with her hair up under a white cloth cap. The woman stared down at Fidget, before her eyes slowly widened in realization, and she let out a loud shriek.

“Goblin!” the woman yelled, “Goblin!”

Nearby, other women jumped to their feet. Some of them hurried to the safety of a nearby wagon up off of the ground, while the braver ones grabbed their shears from their sewing baskets as they looked around for the threat.

“No, wait!” Rain shouted, turning to wrap an arm around Fidget.

Fidget whimpered, grabbing more tightly onto Rain, tight enough that her sharp nails began to slice into Rain’s sleeves. She tucked her head down, closing her eyes tightly as the wind began to pick up more violently.

“Marchioness, please, back away from it,” one of the women said.

“What’s going on?” a man asked as he approached the ruckus, a pitchfork in his hand.

A harsh gust of wind blew up the edge of the wagon cover and the women taking shelter within let out a cry of surprise. Fidget growled beneath her breath, clinging more tightly to rain.

“Bad idea,” Fidget muttered, “Bad idea! Should’ve never come...”

“It’s alright,” Rain said softly, before lifting her head and shouting to the others, “You’re scaring her!”

“Scaring her?!” a woman shouted, “She’s scaring us! That goblin is hurting you!”

Rain looked down, and saw the tears in her sleeves, and thin red lines on her arm as droplets of blood began to form along them. Fidget lifted her head and saw them too, before she quickly let go of Rain and gave her a harsh shove, pushing her back.

“Fidget!” Rain yelped as she fell onto her backside on the dirt. She reached out toward the goblin backing away from her, but only barely caught the edge of Fidget’s ‘cloak’ as it whipped off of her, tossed by the growing wind.

“Stay back!” Fidget hissed, as the wind began to swirl around her, tossing up flecks of dried dirt along with small twigs and pebbles. Standing at the eye of a small but powerful storm, nearly a tornado forming around the goblin, Fidget’s fingers curled, twitching as she brought her claws to bare, and she warned Rain, “Stay back, or Fidget will hurt you too...”