“I cannot bring myself to speak aloud the extent of your idiocy, but I could be swayed to carve it into your skin.”
Tironal, the leader of the Ardent Guild, sat in a chair too small for him, his jaw stiff and hands clenched so tightly around the finely carved armrests that his knuckles were white and their wood creaked beneath his palms.
Charles winced beneath the guild leader’s withering gaze. If he could have sunk into the floor, Tironal strongly suspected that he would have done so long ago. That might have spared the both of them a fair amount of trouble.
“It’s unfair to blame the boy for everything,” Vorfen said. The bearded warrior stood beside Charles was the only reason Tironal hadn’t hung the boy by his thumbs in the center of the guildhall, but even Vorfen’s influence would only go so far.
“If I blamed him for everything then he’d have been blacklisted himself and booted out onto the street that he came from,” Tironal snapped. “I blame him only for the abject failure that was his plan. A plan, I remind you, that you fully backed.”
“It should have worked,” Charles stammered. “Reya had a key to a dungeon. She stole it from a thieves’ guild, and I know it was a pretty good one. That’s got to be what her guild has been using to grow so quickly.”
“I’m sure it is,” Tironal said. He forced his hand to unclench before he accidentally broke the chair. “Unfortunately, it is in their hands, not ours. I agreed to allow a blacklist because it was targeted at a man that had assaulted one of our members. Blacklisting one incompetent, murderous merchant is no issue. Blacklisting a street rat to get a dungeon key from her is no issue either. But why is it, Vorfen, that you told me their guild was worthless?”
“They stumbled into a lucky break,” Vorfen said. “We can’t possibly have predicted—”
“Your damned job is to predict!” Tironal roared, flying from his chair. “I pay you a hundred Energy Crystals a year to research our opponents and seek out opportunity. Your job is not to create risk. It is to avoid it!”
“The risk was minor,” Vorfen insisted, his features paling slightly. “A smith should not have been capable of this. I know for a fact this smith was nothing special. He had a few mildly above average sales, but multiple different informants tested his products and told me they were far from special. The smith was even spotted buying material from his competitor. He had no supply lines. Nothing. Someone must have gotten wind of our movements and tried to use this as a way to weaken our strength.”
Tironal pressed his fingers to his palms and lowered himself back into his chair. Flying into a rage was unbecoming of a guild leader. “Despite your best efforts, our strength has not been weakened. Our face, however, has. We look like idiot bullies. Rumors already spread through the town that we attempt to crush out minor guilds before they can take root.”
Charles coughed into a fist and Tironal’s eyes narrowed.
“Do you have something to say?”
“I mean no disrespect,” Charles said hurriedly. “But…”
He trailed off, evidently unable to find any way to say his words without actually causing disrespect. Tironal blew out a short breath.
“We do crush out competition. Yes. Every guild does,” Tironal ground out. “That is not the issue. The issue is twofold. First, we had no reason established in the public view to need to crush them. And second, the public is talking about it. Both of these things should have been your responsibility, Vorfen. You and Charles told me you had both of those under control.”
“I swear to you that we did,” Vorfen said. His hands clenched at his sides and he shook his head. “I don’t understand what happened. Everything in my network confirmed that nobody cared about their guild. They confirmed the merchant was disliked and the street rat had more enemies than anyone else in the city. The smith was unknown. There should have been no issue.”
“Should have been.” Tironal chewed the inside of his cheeks. “Perhaps I should have gotten a more competent spymaster. A failure this colossal is unacceptable, and it was for a reward that isn’t even worth the effort.”
“Then—”
“I pray that you are not about to suggest that we back out,” Tironal said, his eyes going as sharp as knives. “Because that would be admitting defeat. Defeat to a guild that isn’t even official yet. It would spell the end of our guild. The Dawnseekers would be at our throats the very same night they heard of such weakness. We would completely lose our foothold here.”
“It is possible the Dawnseekers are funding this guild,” Vorfen offered.
“Possible?” Tironal’s eye twitched and he nearly leapt out of his chair for the second time. “Are they or are they not? It is your job to know this! You tell me! And while you’re at it, tell me how this apparently worthless guild managed to steal the first clear of our dungeon while getting our own damned adventurers singing their praises in the process?”
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Vorfen and Charles both flinched at the vitriol in Tironal’s voice. The guild leader drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly, forcing the anger down.
“We’ll fix it,” Vorfen promised.
Tironal sank into his chair and shook his head.
“It should already be fixed,” Tironal said wearily. “I sent an order to purchase the land of their guild out from under them. Once we have it, I will gift it back to them in exchange for being part of their council. That will give us enough control and let us save at least a little face.”
Vorfen winced. Tironal’s eyes narrowed.
“That… may not happen,” Vorfen said slowly. “The purchase order was blocked.”
“What?” Tironal shot up in his chair. “Why am I just hearing this?”
“I thought it was the reason you called me here in the first place.” A droplet of sweat rolled down the side of Vorfen’s face and vanished into his beard. “I got word this morning that we’d placed an order on the land the Menagerie’s guild is on, but it had been rejected.”
“We were outbid?” Tironal demanded. “How?”
“I haven’t determined that yet, but I am looking into it. I was shocked myself. It means someone else must have put in an order at nearly the same time, and with a budget larger than ours.”
“I know what it means,” Tironal said. What little calm he’d managed to gather for himself started to evaporate. Had someone managed to predict their move? Sure, the Menagerie might have — but there was absolutely no way they had the capital to spare.
Even with all the sales they’d made recently, they couldn’t have made more than ten or twenty thousand gold. That was nowhere near enough to compete with his purchase order.
Is it possible they actually have a benefactor working with them? If they do, then Vorfen isn’t just doing poorly. He’s completely and utterly failing at his task.
Vorfen cleared his throat hurriedly. “I assure you that Charles and I are on the task, guild leader. The purchase order was blocked, but the Menagerie are still on very shaky ground. We can still crush them without overplaying our own hand.”
“If we crush them at this point, all we look like is petty, arrogant fools,” Tironal said. “Did you understand nothing of what I just told you?”
“Then we’ll give them an offer to join us that they can’t refuse,” Vorfen amended. “The information we’ve been getting seems… off. I don’t know why, but I can assure you that I’ll find out. Once I determine the issue, dealing with the Menagerie will be simple. Your plan still may be viable.”
“How so?”
“The Menagerie are not an official guild yet. They put in the request, but it hasn’t been approved. It’s impossible for them to own land, which means they’ve likely worked with someone else. If we can find them, we can buy the land before it goes to the Menagerie.”
Tironal tapped his fingers on his armrests. It was far from ideal, but it was better than just sitting back and doing nothing. The other major merchant guilds in the area would be watching them now. Vorfen had already put far too much resource into handling the small guild for him to let up and admit defeat.
I never should have let it get this far. I was distracted, so the blame rests largely on my own shoulders. It is still a shock that Vorfen was this incompetent. He has never been so addled. First with recruiting a random street rat, now this.
Vorfen caught the look on Tironal’s face and swallowed. “I know my performance has been less than adequate. I will re-evaluate my information networks in the city. It is possible someone from one of the other guilds has been interfering. It will not continue to happen.”
“Ensure it doesn’t, or both you and your apprentice will join the Menagerie on being blacklisted,” Tironal said. He flicked his hand to dismiss them and the two hurried out of his room, closing the door behind them in the process.
Tironal just massaged the bridge of his nose and sighed. Taking financial control of Milten with the Iron Hounds gone should have been such an easy task that he’d let his subordinates run wild with freedom. It was clear that either Charles or Vorfen had something personal against the Menagerie, and they’d used the opportunity to push farther than they should have. That was a mistake he had no plans of repeating.
Unfortunately, now he had no choice. If they were to maintain their strength, the small guild had to be either brought under their wing or crushed quietly.
***
A guard pushed himself away from the wall. He adjusted the ill-fitting suit of armor on his chest and strode confidently down the hall, his helm’s visor lowered to cover his face.
A guildsman with a golden sword embossed upon a red patch at the center of his armor nodded to him as he passed. “Shift over? I don’t envy you. I heard that Tironal has been right furious these last few days.”
“More than,” the guard said through a laugh. His voice was nasally and congested. “And it’s the poor saps in his room you should feel bad about.”
The guildsman shook his head. “All this work for such a small guild seems like a huge waste, but I guess Tironal knows what he’s doing. He hasn’t led us wrong yet. Why in the Nine Underlands do you sound like that, though?”
“I caught something nasty. It’s been a rough fight.”
“Yeah, you sound like shit.”
“Look like it too.” The guard tapped his visor and sniffled. “Nose lights up like a star when I get sick. I’m saving myself from a reputation.”
“No kidding. Who are you? I can’t tell. Joseph? Bradlen?”
The sick guard let out a snort. “Did you miss the reputation part? I’m going to go crash and hope this shit is done sooner rather than later.”
They both laughed and nodded to each other, heading in opposite directions down the hall. The sick man wound his way out of the guildhouse, nodding to the guards at its entrance before heading out onto the streets.
Once he’d put a fair bit of distance between himself and the guild, he ducked into an alleyway. The man reached up to his helm and pulled it off, coughing into a fist as he pulled the balled up wet papers from his nostrils and wiped his face with the back of a sleeve.
“I almost feel bad for that idiot spymaster, but he should really vet his sources better,” Rodrick muttered as he combed his matted hair back out, unable to keep a small grin from his lips. There was a certain thrill that came with strolling right through enemy territory that he’d never properly gotten over. “I hope Lillia made something good for lunch. I’m starving.”