It was not Aleh or Orion who picked up the mace. Instead, there was a short, muscular man dressed in the same way as all the other guards. He picked up the mace and propped it over his shoulder. A horn hung from his belt, along with keys, a pad of paper, and a pencil. “Al-leh, leh, you lost,” he stuttered. “That’s surprising.”
“Captain!” The other guards around the area greeted.
Orion wasn’t sure if the fight was over, but she let the ice daggers melt away. “Since she let go of her weapon, I’ll count that as her loss.”
The Vice Captain was still on the ground. “Let go? You hit my hands to make me-”
“Sorry for-for the trouble. I’m Captain Nage.” The Captain smiled. “I bet she asked you to fight.”
“She did,” Orion confirmed. She could see that Bas was being handed coins in the shade of the archway. She would get her fair share of whatever money was won from betting on her later. “We put up my friend’s belt and her belt for whoever won.”
The Captain pulled the Vice Captain up onto her feet. “Give-give them the belt.”
“Yeah, I’ll take it.” Orion shrugged.
The Vice Captain bared her teeth. Her pants were covered in dirt. She was still willing to keep fighting over this. It wasn’t about glory or a fun fight anymore. “I don’t want to. It’s really still the Captain’s. I’ll give you something else or we can keep going.”
Bas walked up to them. His eyes were darting between the three, analyzing. He turned to the Vice Captain. “Give us money to buy it back.”
“What?”
“It’s something you care about.”
Orion found it impressive that Bas didn’t finish that by saying something about how impulsive the Vice Captain was in betting something she cared about losing. Then, she thought about how she had bet someone else’s stuff as well and decided not to say anything. She could feel Bas’ glare on her, like he had sensed she was going to say something stupid.
The Vice Captain agreed to buy the belt back.
The Captain was back to smiling.
And then more people arrived to the training plaza. The guards didn’t do any sort of gesture for their Captain, but they did for these three ladies.
Orion knew from the expensive fabric alone that these three were nobles. She put a hand in Sirius’ coat and waited.
Bas was making a disgusted face again.
The oldest lady—she looked to be in her thirties—was thin and tall. She had bags under her eyes she had tried to conceal with makeup. She was holding the hand of the youngest, who was a chubby limbed toddler. The last was a stocky woman, broad shouldered and freckled. These must be Baroness Margaret the First, Lady Margaret the Second, and Lady Margaret the Third of the Chihua. These were the nobles that people were running from. Orion had burned down a town for people to run away safely. It was strange, since she didn’t feel threatened at all by these nobles—that made sense though, since Orion wasn’t living in their territory and paying taxes.
“Your Highness Bas, mercenary,” the oldest said. She had recognized them quickly. She was likely the one who went to court to represent the family since she held the title. It was possible she had been at the royal court that day. “How goes the hunt?”
Bas waved a hand to dismiss any sort of long greetings and acknowledgement of his position. “Margaret, little Margaret, Marge parge. We’re doing fine.”
“Fish head.”
The insults were childish.
Even more childish, Bas and Margaret the Second made faces at each other
Orion sensed a history. “What’s the story?”
The oldest sister sighed. “These two grew up together. My younger sister, Margaret Priscilla, was chosen to be a royal playmate.”
“She wouldn’t share snacks.”
“He wouldn’t share toys.”
Came the two rapid fire accusations.
“They would get into fights and would even hide each other’s things,” Margaret the First concluded. “Show them around, Priscilla.” She did not wait for her sister to object before walking over to talk to the Captain and Vice Captain.
There was a standoff immediately. Two competing glares.
Orion wasn’t sure what to do in this situation. It was somewhat exciting. She stood there and pet Sirius.
“Let’s go then,” Margaret ‘Priscilla’ the Second said.
The tour was composed of brief explanations of where things were in the castle and some small, local amusements. There was the main defensive tower near the gates with vertical slits for arrows. Some paintings and heirlooms were in a room to show them off.
At one point, Orion had fallen behind because of Sirius. The creature was staring at a bone encased in glass. Orion wasn’t sure if Sirius knew something about the bone or if she was really holding back a desire to gnaw on a bone like a dog. They were in one of the main parlor rooms for receiving guests.
Sirius still wasn’t moving.
Orion checked around the corner to see if they had completely lost the other two. She didn’t fully trust that Bas or her were safe here.
She heard them speaking and immediately turned around, hiding behind the corner. She didn’t see anyone coming down the hallway from her side.
The two nobles were speaking in hushed tones.
“I understand there are debts and that it fell on your shoulder suddenly.”
“It’s on Margaret’s shoulders. That is why she feels like she had to raise taxes like she has.”
“What if there’s a surprise inspection.”
“The King never does those anymore. He doesn’t leave the capital. He doesn’t even care to set limitations on inflation and taxes most years.”
There was a pause for a few moments. Bas agreed, “That’s true.”
“This is just temporary. We don’t want to destroy our relationship with the people too much.
“Do the people believe it’s really temporary? There have been many noble families that increase taxes on imports, properties, harvests and everyone else. They claimed it was just temporary and never changed it back.”
“But if we have too much debt the banks won’t lend to us. It doesn’t matter that we’re nobles. We would take a loan every winter and then pay it back during harvest. One bad harvest and our house is ruined.”
“I understand, but I think there were other options.”
“What options?”
“A private loan. I could have lent you money for Winter or set up something with the Royal Bank of Malamut that allows you more time to pay.”
There was a long silence. Margaret did not say anything.
“Please let me know if things don’t work out.”
Orion startled as Sirius shoved her head into her hands. Her companion whined. “Sad that you can’t get to the bones?” She said loudly. “It’s fine. We can probably get one from the kitchens later.”
Sirius went around the corner, sniffing at the ground.
Orion followed. It seemed that her time for eavesdropping was over.
Sirius did the same thing to Bas, asking for sympathy and treats since Orion didn’t give her anything.
The Chihua family convinced them to stay for the night and put their horses in the fortress stables. Dinner was incredibly awkward for Orion. She knew that Bas was also thinking about how they had burned down a town, but he was better at hiding it. She wondered how often Bas would do things like this in the capitol.
Bas, Orion, and Sirius left early the next morning. They had gotten some food from the kitchen whose fires had just been started for the day. Sirius was appeased with a bone from one of the cows slaughtered for the fortress’ meals.
They saw one other person leaving from the fortress as they rode away. The forager was heading in the other direction, towards the burned town and further beyond to a cheaper territory.
They rendezvoused with Tam and Hazel three days later. They all camped together under a tree with bright, green leaves that stood out against the rest of the forest—it was some kind of evergreen.
The party traded stories. Hazel and Tam had raised more undead. Orion and Bas got a decent meal and fight out of being brought in to be questioned. Sirius had a new bone.
The next thing out of Orion’s mouth was, “I still can’t believe Tam was the one who first thought of arson. Kind of a fucking legend.”
“We didn’t set fire to homes while they were occupied. It’s not arson,” Tam replied. Her pauldron reflected in the campfire’s light.
Hazel raised his eyebrows and looked at Bas, then Tam.
“Yes. I only know that because Bas kept making plans to destroy things. I wanted to know what he would be charged with.”
Orion shook her head and pushed another log into the fire. “That makes what we did less fun so I’m going to ignore that.”
A/N
We’re back in time for Christmas! I finally finished this mini-arc I wanted to add and you get all 5k of it today (chapters 21, 22, 23). The rest of the novel is written and edited already so there will be no stopping in the posting of the last few chapters.