Because nothing could ever go smoothly, we got a last minute warning through Gizmit’s network, who thankfully knew to send important messages straight to North Watch via the tunnels in the spymaster’s absence. Giz herself was just about to head out with Naz on their rumor-sniffing tour of the outlying villages when a frantic goblin rushed out of the tunnel access, yelling for her and waving a sheet of paper overhead.
Gizmit read over the report in a few quick movements of her eyes, then wordlessly handed it to me. I couldn’t speed-read like she did, but it only took me a few seconds to get the gist.
“This is confirmed?” I asked the goblin scout, whom I didn’t know personally.
“I wouldn’t come runnin’ up here yelling for anybody’s attention over rumors, Lord Seiji,” he said, still slightly out of breath. “We got matching reports from the people out watching three of the smaller Clans in question, an’ one from our girl in the village near Caer Yviredh.”
“And not a hint of this before today,” Gizmit murmured. “Hm… The Highlord is making a play of his own.”
“Thanks, good work,” I said to the scout. “Head inside and get something hot into you before you return to your post. Lady Miriami!” The last I added in a raised voice, turning toward the troops mustering in the fortress’s courtyard—specifically, the area to one side where the noblewomen were mounting up on their gwynneks.
At my call, Mimi heeled her bird over to us. “Lord Seiji?”
I handed the intelligence report up to her. “What do you make of this?”
“…clever,” she muttered, frowning at the paper. “It’s a power play, Lord Seiji. Not quite brazenly defying the Archlord, but suborning this gambit to solidify his own base.”
“Uh, are the rest of us mooks allowed to know what’s going on?” Nazralind asked pointedly.
“Yeah, this is about to become everybody’s business,” I said. “It seems the Highlord of Clan Yldyllich has spontaneously invited the seven smaller Clans surrounding his lands to hold Caludon’s games on his estate. So instead of having each of them in different locations all across the island, watched only by Clan Aelthwyn auditors, these eight at least will hold an actual face-to-face competition. Our people aren’t privy to communications between nobles but two of them added notes that they suspect he leaned hard to get this done, either calling in favors or making subtle threats.”
“Yeah, it would take something like that to make Clans change their plans at the last minute,” Nazralind said seriously. “This…this could be really bad, Lord Seiji. If this catches on for the next round, it could become a trend. The whole island will begin coalescing into factions and smaller power blocks.”
“If that happens, the Convocation may step in on the grounds that Caludon is formenting disunity and dissent,” said Aster.
“Whether or not they do, we want the Clans to boycott the games outright,” I said. “They’ll be less inclined to take a stand on principle that costs them money if the alternative is balkanizing and generally being assholes. Fuck… Okay, obviously, we have to focus our attention here. Mimi, I’m reassigning you to my unit for today. Aster, get the rest of the troops reorganized to deploy according to this new information.”
She sighed heavily. “Yeah, sure, I’ll just do the complicated part.” I happened to have Velaven in my field of view at that moment, and for some reason, her characteristic reserve cracked; she shot Aster a disapproving frown before marshaling her expression. Well, I didn’t have time to worry about whatever the hell that was.
“I want the main group forming up on me,” I ordered. “Since the Clans are going to help out by giving us a single target, we’ll take full advantage. I’ve been putting this off too long, anyway. Time to go visit our neighbors.”
----------------------------------------
As they say, no plan survives contact with the enemy. Much as I’d like to think a straightforward, uncomplicated plan is inherently hard to fuck up, my simple plan of “march my forces toward Clan Yldyllich” quickly ran into a solid wall of the Highlord’s next fun little prank at my expense.
“How many?” I asked in response to Biribo’s warning, coming to a halt and raising my hand to signal the same to the forces fanning out behind me.
“Twenty men in full armor in a camp ahead,” my familiar reported. “Doesn’t look like a permanent emplacement but they’ve got fires and tents up, obviously planning to weather out the cold there for at least a little while. Boss, it’s way worse than that. There’s more of ‘em; I sense camps like this running in a line; at least two more south and one north are within the range of my senses. They’re within calling range of each other and they’ve got sentries pacing between the camps. It looks like a defensive line.”
I let out a long breath of controlled frustration. We were never getting through this line unseen, not with the amount of people I’d brought and probably not with much less. I wasn’t planning on outright attacking, and in fact there was little I could do to stop this except try to reason and possibly intimidate the highborn… Intimidation becomes a lot easier if you have forces backing you up, though. Even if we didn’t dare force a martial confrontation, I’d brought experienced bandits and hunters, fully loaded out with our best goblin alchemy, and I’d meant to be prepared for multiple possibilities ranging from stealing the highborn blind to knocking people out and rescuing the game participants. It would depend on the forces assembled, how they were arranged, and other factors that determined what options were available to us that fell short of open war.
Well, here was our answer. The options were “none.”
“Mimi,” I said quietly. “This looks like preparation for an armed attack. Do you know of a reason he would be expecting that?”
Lady Miriami, the sole member of Clan Yldyllich who had defected to Nazralind’s gang and the only highborn presently with my advance force, nudged her gwennek forward to join me.
“He’ll be aware that bandits are active in the area, Lord Seiji. Given your preference for stealth, alchemical traps, and bloodless heists, my father is likely to regard you as weak. I mean, whoever the bandits’ leader is; as far as I know, he should have no reason to connect that with you, personally. This kind of maneuver is simply how he projects strength. If he expects any kind of intervention, this will be his standard response.”
“It’s annoyingly effective,” I muttered. “I need intel. Aster, organize scouts to move up and down the defensive line, figure out how far it goes and if there’s a way around. Send catfolk for this, and emphasize they need to be careful. I don’t want any fights; they’re to prioritize their safety over getting a good look.”
“Are you sure, Lord Seiji?” Aster asked. “Yldyllich Clansguard will attack cats on sight with lethal intent.”
“That’s what they’ll do to anyone,” said Mimi. “We’re on Yldyllich lands; the Clansguard don’t bother asking questions of trespassers.”
“And seeing catfolk won’t make them curious; it’s a lean winter for everybody thanks to the Inferno and the cats live right over there,” I said. “Velaven.”
The dark elf slid smoothly out of the surrounding bodies, bowing. “My lord?”
“Get as close as you can to the site where the games are being held, find out what’s happening and report back.”
“As you command.” She faded from sight right in front of me, which was jarring enough that a couple of the onlookers cursed quietly. I couldn’t blame them; it was my first time seeing that in person, and damn was it spooky. Even her footprints disappeared.
Which left us with nothing to do but stand there in the cold, waiting for intel to come back.
“If this goes south,” I said much more quietly as Aster pulled aside catfolk scouts and relayed orders, “can we take them?”
“Yes,” Mimi answered without hesitation. “I know you have sought to avoid bloodshed, Lord Seiji, but the particular force you’ve put together would tear apart my family’s Clansguard.”
“I have to say that surprises me to hear. The Yldyllich Clansguard are kind of famous.”
“For brutality more than effectiveness,” she said, twisting her upper lip in contempt. “Oh, they are competent, I would not wish you to underestimate them on that score, Lord Seiji. It is more a matter of mismatched combat strategies. Most of their fighting is done here in the forest; rough terrain, with not much room to swing long weapons or keep formations. They carry short swords and bucklers, with a back-up dagger, and wear thick leather armor with akornin plates and cloth padding to stop arrows. They are trained chiefly to fight individually, in proximity with fellow soldiers but not really in formation. The Clansguard does also keep archers with longbows, but those are used to snipe interlopers in the relatively clear space along the toll road we own. Such weapons are not effective in the forest and I would expect them to be pulled back to the Caer’s defenses rather than out here in these camps.”
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
I nodded, gesturing her to proceed and keeping my mouth shut. Mimi was one of my favorites among the noblewomen, due to her overall tendency to keep to herself and the fact that her given name was actually possible to pronounce. I’d had no idea she was this well-versed in military matters; that was decidedly not normal for highborn women. This was a goldmine.
“Their customary opponents are either bandits or catfolk hunters. In training and equipment they are better than most of either group at hand-to-hand fighting; it is ranged combat that tips the scale. That padded armor is designed to absorb arrows fired at short range from small hunting bows, singly or in small numbers. What our people have are military-grade crossbows designed to punch through armor, and we are capable of mass volleys—and our archers are accustomed to using them from cover in the deep forest. We can massacre them before they know what they are up against. If one of these squads comes at us, Lord Seiji, I recommend an isolated shot or two to goad them to pursue while our forces retreat and flank them. A volley from the side or rear should gut unit effectiveness, and one or two more will rout them. The rest would be a matter of picking off stragglers.”
I was not the only person giving the noblewoman a very careful sidelong look. I couldn’t remember ever hearing her speak so much at a time before, and the delivery… She maintained a cold detachment, but underneath that was a simmering anger Mimi had never revealed in my presence, but which I knew must have seethed in the deepest part of her, never entirely going out. I knew what that felt like.
“All that said, everyone keep in mind that these are contingencies we are discussing,” I said, turning to regard the mix of lowborn, cats, wolves, and goblins following me. “You heard her; remember that if a fight happens. But if a fight happens, we have already failed and the consequences later on will be severe. We are trying specifically not to fight. At the first indication of movement in our direction, we retreat. Understand?”
I waited for the nods and murmured agreements before turning back around. Aster rejoined me then, the last of her catfolk scouts being off to do their jobs.
“This may be a dumb thing to point out,” I said much more quietly, stepping closer to Mimi’s saddle; her bird turned its head to look at me, but that was less terrifying than it perhaps ought to have been as we were acquainted with each other by now. “But, I’m sure you must have…complicated feelings about this. I won’t pry, and I’ll trust your judgment concerning what you think I ought to know. Is there anything you would like to get off your chest before we end up possibly facing your family or even just their forces in a real fight?”
Lady Miriami stared into the forest ahead, where out of our sight we knew her family’s armed forces were gathered, just at the edge of Biribo’s range. I watched as she forcibly controlled her expression, the long-buried anger carefully pressed back down under a blanket of smooth noble serenity before she answered.
“My family are terrible people, Lord Seiji. There are complexities and defenses that can be made of the highborn in general, as people occupying a role into which they were born in a system that they did not build. Be aware that when I say Clan Yldyllich are cruel, uncaring people, I mean relative even to that. My father mistreats the lowborn beholden to us because he takes personal satisfaction in seeing people broken before him. He has none of Highlord Caldimer’s pragmatic view that healthy subjects are more productive; his excesses go nowhere near the extremes of Archlord Caludon’s, but he also lacks the excuse of that man’s insanity. He is simply a malicious, power-hungry man who should never have been allowed to hold any sway over other people’s lives.”
She hesitated, then looked down at me from the saddle and nodded once, her expression resolute.
“I won’t say I don’t feel…conflicted. I think anyone would. But I knew I was likely to come to blows with my family in some capacity when I ran off to join Nazralind, and I knew it became a near-certainty when we joined up with you. I did those things partly because of it, not in spite of it. I will sort out my own feelings on my own time, Lord Seiji. When you need to bring force to bear against Clan Yldyllich, I will be right there with you. If you’ll have me.”
I nodded back. That was what I’d needed to hear, and as much as I pride myself on being glib under pressure, in that moment it felt like any similarly sincere expression would have just diminished it.
“Thanks, Mimi. This is where I’d give you a comforting pat on the back, but… All I can reach right now is your thigh. That, uh, that seems a bit more comforting than I had in mind.”
Aster glanced at me and rolled her eyes, but not without a faint smile.
Miriami also smiled. “I have always appreciated your…uniquely effective bedside manner, Lord Seiji.”
“Yeah, that’s me. Conzart in the Mendicant’s Hall.”
Mimi actually choked, barely managing to refrain from bursting out laughing, which would have been ill-advised this close to enemy encampments. Aster, meanwhile, pulled off a move I can only describe as tripping while standing still.
“I finally found a full set of the Conzart books,” I said, not bothering to disguise my self-satisfaction. “Been working through ‘em before bed; it seemed wise to know the classics. For some damn reason, people keep dropping his name around me.”
----------------------------------------
The scout report wasn’t great.
It seemed Highlord Yldyllich had entirely encircled his manor and village with his Clansguard. My scouts—who did their jobs well and brought back their report without once being spotted, preserving our element of surprise—followed the line of camps and message relays connecting them as far to the north and south as they could without exceeding the timetable Aster had given them. Since Clan Yldyllich would have no reason to suspect an attack from the catfolk in particular, it seemed unlikely they would only raise defenses on this side. The entire village was likely encircled.
Also, among the information Velaven brought back was that the Clansguard inside the village itself, and even the manor, was down to a skeleton crew, notably less than she would expect given that Clan Yldyllich was currently hosting seven other Clans at an Archlord-mandated event. They also seemed to consist almost entirely of those archers Miriami had warned about, positioned either on the walls around Caer Yldyllich itself, or on hastily-erected platforms surrounding the festival area in front of the village, where the games were to take place. Based on Mimi’s estimate of their numbers, and her prediction that her father would hide the guard encampments in the surrounding forest rather than position them where they might be seen by his noble guests, it seemed likeliest that that was where all the Clansguard were.
Which made the village itself ripe for the picking… And we were in no position to pick it. We couldn’t get our forces in there without getting through that ring of defenses; there was no goblin tunnel into the village grounds. There used to be, but back in Mimi’s grandfather’s day, the humans had discovered it and the aftermath of that had been so sadistic the goblins had deliberately caved in that entire tunnel branch. All of which was purely academic anyway, as even if we could launch a successful attack, it would start knocking down exactly the dominoes that would lead to our own eventual destruction.
“I was able to ascertain the timetable,” Velaven reported, perfectly calm as usual. “The games are set to begin at midafternoon. The Archlord preferred closer to noon, but the Highlord deliberately set the time at the warmest part of the day. He has also set up large braziers with an apparently quite expensive quantity of asauthec to heat the area. Despite adhering to the letter of Caludon’s instructions, he seems to be making a point to minimize the danger and discomfort to the lowborn participants as much as possible without straying into open defiance.”
“Not out of any concern for them, I assure you,” Mimi stated with conviction. “This is political positioning. My father despises Caludon no more or less than everyone, but he is in a position to potentially take advantage if the Archlord’s latest excess ends up undermining his own authority.”
I drew in a deep breath and let it out in an angry puff of white mist. “Seems I can’t take a step in any direction without helping some asshole achieve his asshole goals… All right. Velaven, given how long you were undercover at Jadrak’s place, and around North Watch before that, I assume you won’t have any problem keeping yourself hidden on the grounds throughout the event?”
“Simplicity itself, Lord Seiji. All I need is direction. What specifically do you wish me to watch for, or do?”
“In this one case, Velaven,” I said, emphasizing the seriousness of the message with my expression, “I am choosing to place my faith in your judgment. Your task is target selection. There are eight Clans represented there; disregard Clan Yldyllich for now, I will deal with them at length in the future. Of the seven smaller, subordinate Clans, I want you to watch and determine who needs to be made an example of. Our goal is to establish it as law that the lowborn will not be abused without consequence: this is to be made clear to both lowborn and high, for opposite reasons. That’s the political message, which goes hand in hand with the very real ethical principle that somebody needs to be punished.”
I deliberately struck a grand pause, to give weight to my closing statement. Whether due to her political education or familiarity with me, Velaven recognized the purpose and held her peace until after I spoke again.
“Pick me a bastard to break, Velaven. I want the worst of the lot.”
The dark elf bowed. “I shall not disappoint you, Lord Seiji.”
“Good. I want you to move as soon as you’ve determined who our designated victim should be. Come back here and report to Aster, then return to the field and keep tabs on our selected target. Once they start moving after the games, do whatever you must to keep Aster informed of their location. Aster, you’ll strike as soon as you have an opening. Keep your own scouts out and make sure you don’t get flanked or ambushed. I want you to assemble a strike team composed entirely of lowborn. Have them in masks and clothes without the Dark Crusade symbol on them anywhere.”
“Sounds good as far as it goes,” said Aster, “but I have several questions. To begin with, where are you planning to be while all this is going on?”
“I will be attending the festivities and enjoying Clan Yldyllich’s hospitality,” I said primly. “Once inside, I will observe the games from as close up as I can, making sure no one dies, and minimizing the suffering as much as possible.”
“Okay,” she said slowly. “And…how does this new strategy fit with our well-established need not to draw too much attention or anger?”
“My thinking is, if the bastards insist on dragging your name through the mud, we make it a name to fear.” I grinned at her. “After all, what does an aristocrat fear more than getting splashed with mud?”
She gave me an Aster Look. I was starting to find them a real source of comfort.
“This won’t be our organization descending on eight aberrant Clans and wiping them out, as we are capable of doing,” I explained more seriously. “That way, we conceal the fact that we are capable of doing that, which will be crucial when they eventually do come after us. This will be the Wolf of Dount doing exactly what the Clans expect her to do: taking revenge on cruel highborn on behalf of their victims. I want them to see a bandit raid, small and more effective than most, but ultimately focused on retribution more than banditry.”
“It’s a thin subterfuge, Lord Seiji,” Mimi said doubtfully. “Aster’s association with you is well known; your control over Dount’s bandits is also more than merely suspected by our most determined enemies.”
“It doesn’t need to be airtight. This is about misdirection, not concealment. And on that subject, Lady Miriami. How do you feel about embarrassing your family in front of all their friends?”
A smile as cold as the air around us spread across her face. “A wolf does need her pack, after all.”
“Attagirl. You two, make sure you’re seen and recognized, ravaging a convoy of highborn assholes as they return home after a long day of being abominable monsters. If at all possible, do it on Yldyllich lands, and be sure to leave enough credible witnesses alive to spread the reputation of the Wolf and damage that of Clan Yldyllich.”
Aster held out her fist to the side and Mimi thumped hers against it. I’d taught them that.
“That just leaves me with one follow-up question, I guess,” said Aster. “How exactly are you going to…attend the festivities?”
“How else?” I spread my arms, smiling magnanimously. “I’m going to walk right up to the front door and ask politely. And maybe break some shit if I am dissatisfied with the degree of courtesy with which I am received, until it improves. As the man said, you can get more of what you want with a kind word and a gun than you can with just a kind word.”
“And…what is a gun?”
“A gun is much less impressive than setting people on fire with my brain. Move out, everybody, we’ve got a fancy party to ruin.”