Once we were boots down in Verton, I ran a quick check on my quest givers. Truso didn’t have any new jobs for me, but hinted strongly that I was close to building enough trust to hire his mounted scouts. Which is a bit like Amazon teasing you with free same day shipping if you just buy more stuff. Exactly like that, in fact. I was earning trust by hiring troops and bringing them back alive. Key word being hire, not alive.

I still hired troops from him, of course. I’m jaded, not crazy. The mayor was a little bit more interesting.

“Good job bringing in the first village. Thirty nine more to go.”

“That’s a lot of villages.”

“Fewer than you think.” The Mayor snorted, clearly despising my laziness. “You don’t have to persuade each of them individually. You just have to make a safe passage.”

“Pardon? I am quite sure you said I had to find ways to get every village to leave.” I pinky promise my voice didn’t have a murderous edge to it. Not one of my pinkies, obviously. But someone’s. One of Truso’s, maybe.

“That was before. Hosk has been running around scaring the hell out of people. Whole villages are bringing in the harvest early. Green wheat. In just a few weeks, we could have had a full harvest. Now it’s green wheat, not even dried before it’s threshed. Fruit left to rot on the branch and vine. There will be a famine this winter, if we can’t bring in more food. Assuming we live until winter.”

“We will. I will crush Hosk, and the monsters behind them.” I didn’t mention the minor details like already being dead. That just depresses people.

“I pray it is so.” We were silent for a reverent moment.

The silence turned awkward.

“So! About those safe passages?”

“Our villages are connected by many roads and crossroads. Once you clear a route between Verton and a village and the villagers evacuate successfully, we can post troops in the villages. This will secure that stretch of road. So as long as you can successfully link a village to a cleared stretch of road, they will move out. Of course, various settlements will need your help as the raiders will be testing our defenses. But so long as you are agile and responsive, the villagers will make it to Verton safely, with as much food and supplies as they can carry.”

I looked at the mayor. He was a hard, narrow faced man. He could definitely kick my no-longer-well-padded posterior clean off the wall. Nonetheless, I had an overwhelming urge to rush the bum.

“So. Let me just… get this straight. Verton has enough troops to garrison each village.”

“No, are you stupid?”

The urge to kill intensified.

“Explain further.”

“No.”

Ahah ahahaha. Death.

“If I may, my Lord?” Othai’s restraining hand fell gently on my shoulder. “Garrisoning troops in each village and protecting it well enough to allow continued farming is not going to be possible without thousands of troops. And even then, there would be losses. On the other hand, stationing smaller numbers of troops who can signal for help if raiders are spotted, defend themselves, and periodically patrol the roads, is quite a different thing.”

“Ah. That does make sense. Except- where are the troops coming from?”

“The contract between Verton and Genuda does stipulate minimum garrison levels, my Lord. It’s also why Truso has so few troops available for hire.”

“Okay. Okay, that’s… that’s a thing that is. Sure. I had a whole… defensive strategy in mind, meeting Hosk out in the field and slaughtering them like the running dog lackeys of Ko’Ras that they are, but this is fine too. Feeling a little bit railroaded. Just a smidge. But it’s fine.”

Deep breaths. Deep, deep breaths. Woosha.

I walked off to Mr. Bacciato. As I went, I muttered to Othai- “Of course, this plan empties out Verton. Maybe not all its defenders, and you could argue that it is a sort of defense in depth.”

“One could argue that, yes, my Lord.”

“On the other hand, given that we already know traitors and collaborators are working with Hosk and Ko’Ras, that seems like a silly argument.”

Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.

“Does it, my Lord?” Othai’s voice strained for normalcy.

“I’d say so.”

“I couldn’t possibly comment, my Lord.”

“You say plenty. Ah, my good friend Mr. Bacciato! How are you?”

“Troubling time, my friend, troubling times. But men of vision and courage can meet those times and thrive. They can leave a legacy. Don’t you think?”

“I do. I absolutely do think that.” I nodded firmly. Anything to move the dialog along before I rushed back and beat the mayor to death with one of my little slipper shoes.

All these hats, and not one of these swine can turn up with pants. I’m stranded out here in tights like I was on my way to hot yoga.

“Of course, people without vision threaten all of us. They endanger our good work.” He shook his head with much sadness.

“Many such cases, yes.”

“I wonder… no.”

“Please, Mr. Bacciato. My friend. Say more.”

“It is just that, these small minded people might wish to help themselves to things that are not theirs. I understand that all our villages will be evacuated and garrisoned. Garrisoned by people… not of this land.”

Not ninety seconds had passed since I left the mayor. No one was particularly close by, aside from my Awakened. Did Mr. Bacciato employ lip readers?

“Seems likely.”

“In the rush to evacuate, many things must be left behind. Some are too large or too heavy to carry. My friends and I are not worried about those things. But some things are quite small and valuable. So valuable, they might simply be confiscated as part of inspections at the city gates. Things that a garrison soldier might discover, given enough time.”

“Ah. You need me to pick some things up?”

“Just so. You would be well rewarded for your efforts, of course. You have Pastet’s map? I will mark the locations for you. If you haven't spoken to Pastet today, I would. He has been asking for you quite urgently.”

“I’ll do that.”

“Good, good. Incidentally, if you check in the farmhouse with the blue door in this village and look under the stones in the fireplace, you may find something of use to you.” His finger tapped the map. “Consider it a sign of my continuing faith in our friendship.”

I thanked him profusely, neither of us believing the other’s humbug, and went to see Pastet. Pastet made no effort to pretend we were friends, instantly elevating his credibility. Which was no doubt his intent. Instantly lowering his credibility. But then, that snake eats its own tail real, real quick.

“What can I do for you?” I asked, reasonably politely.

“Reopen trade.” He didn’t smile.

“You know that isn’t remotely within my power. Not even close.”

“It is in part. I know what the Mayor is scheming. At least in part. His plan to control the roads between villages is not inherently foolish, however those resources could be better directed.”

“I one hundred percent agree. And yet.” I shrugged.

Pastet grimaced in agreement. “Persuading his Honor hasn’t been particularly successful for me either. No, this needs to be done in three steps. Step one is clearing this road to at least this point.” He tapped the map. The village he was tapping happened to be on the river, below where the great chain sealed it off and just outside the range of the cannons on the wall.

“I think I see where this is going.”

“That part is quite obvious, yes. The second part is very nearly as obvious. As far as I can divine it, the Mayor’s military strategy is to encourage the raiders to divide their forces. They will each want to loot as much as they can, so they will spread out. This would allow us to defeat each small force in detail.”

“If we know where they all are, which we might manage, and if we can manage local numerical superiority which I doubt, and put our people in better tactical positions which would be really up to whoever was in command in the field.” I shook my head. “Hammer and anvil. Make a strong point in the village, and while the garrison holds out, send in more troops to take the bandits in the rear. Literally and metaphorically.”

“Exactly.”

“Not to be a Negative Nancy here, but-”

“Indeed.” Pastet nodded, his lips pressed into a thin line.

“You have an alternative suggestion.”

“Yes. One which would directly infuriate the Mayor, and likely Truso as well.”

Ahah. Here it comes. “Go on.”

“We know they are going to be coming up the river, and soon. We have the flares ready, so they can’t take us by surprise. But any troops that we send to fight the ones on the river could be flanked by the ones already here, and nothing prevents the raiders disembarking further down river and pinning a force against the river.”

“They would have to be taken out by an ambushing force as they got off the boats. Which, given that they could see the flares too, would be difficult. They would know they had been spotted. But we can’t really give up the flares, because it will take us longer to move our troops on land than they can move on the water. At least, that’s what I’m assuming.” I thought out loud. Pastet nodded along with me.

“Correct, but you are missing a piece. That village landing is the second best place to disembark between the coast and the docks below Verton. Anywhere else, and they would essentially have to anchor their boats on a shallow stretch and wade ashore. A slow, and surprisingly dangerous, prospect. Our river has solid banks. Not the steepest you have ever seen, but floods rarely rise over them.”

“Ah. So they could land anywhere, but it would take them a while and they would be very worried about being chopped up in the water.”

“Exactly. But the paranoia keeps swirling. They have to know we would defend that village if we defended any of them.”

I closed my eyes, trying to think it through. This wasn’t so bad from my perspective. I had Radz. This was going to be… not a cakewalk, but dropping mortars on people in boats is a really, really fast way to no longer have people or boats to deal with. Combined with even minimal pikes and crossbow support and it would be a completely one-sided slaughter.

On the one hand, that did sound like a gacha type “strategic battle.” On the other hand, it didn’t sound like this particular game.

“Changing the subject for a moment, did you make those flags I wanted?”

“Yes, we have everything finished. No idea why you want them, but we have them.”

“Ah. One moment please.” I made a quick trip back to Mr. Bacciato and purchased the ‘precious family heirloom’ someone found in their attic, and gratefully accepted his reminder not to use it in the city because of all the thieves and dishonest people who might try to steal it from me. Then straight back to Pastet. I wasn’t about to delegate that errand. I’d need each and every order by the end of all this.

“Alright, I’ll do it.”

“You… will?”

“Yep. Assuming the fee is right, of course. We are talking about potentially infuriating the two most powerful men in the city here. What can you offer me?”

“Aside from your life and the life of everyone… I have to consider my member’s interests, sir, and you would not be the first contractor I had negotiated with for matters of blood.”

He didn’t look remotely ashamed, no matter how severely I looked at him. Truly an experienced merchant.

“So do I.”

“Five Thousand Rune bones-”

I turned on my heel and started walking out the door.

“Twenty Frozen Diamonds,”

I turned right back around again and gave him my full attention.

“And this.” He held up a scroll with half a dozen seals hanging off of it. “A charter from the Merchant Guild. It permits the establishment of a Guild Hall, incorporation into our trade network, the right to sell your goods in our shops, and once you have sufficiently developed trade in your holdings, it grants you the right to establish an auction house.”

“So do you need their heads as proof of kill, or will you just have your people reporting on the battle’s outcome or what?”