Chương 92: [Gate Taxes and Goblin Trails]

The solar was a furnace. By mid-afternoon, the stone walls had soaked up the heat of the frontier sun and held it. The heavy drapes were pulled shut, but they only served to trap the scent of stale incense and sweat. Baron Krell stood before his mirror, breathing hard. The crimson silk waistcoat had been tailored in the Core by someone who had never seen his actual proportions, and it was losing the fight against his frame.

Krell wiped a thick layer of perspiration from his neck with a damp handkerchief and gave the fabric a final, desperate yank. A button held, the thread white with tension. He grunted, satisfied with the reflection, and turned away. By the door, one of his hired men leaned against the frame. A thick, pale scar split his lip and ran toward his eye. He carried a cudgel and a knife and watched the room with the bored, patient stillness of someone who had done this a thousand times.

Krell ignored him and sank into his chair. It groaned under his weight.

"The ice, Silas."

"It is coming, my lord." Silas stood near the window, hands clasped behind his back, looking cool and dry and entirely unbothered by the heat.

"The servants are on their way up." Krell reached for a pastry from the dish on his desk and shoved half of it into his mouth.

"The new spice merchant. The one with all those foreign goods. Three weeks in my city and he is already out-earning half my established houses on market street. Where is he getting his stock?"

"The Core most likely. Or a contact at the southern docks."

"Does not matter." Krell swallowed and pointed a greasy finger at his advisor.

"He is operating in my city and he is not paying for the privilege. I want thirty percent of his gross. Call it a gate tax. Tonight."

"And if he objects?"

"He is welcome to leave. On foot." Krell settled back, his face flushed.

"His wagons and his wares stay here as civil property. Abandoned goods; someone has to take responsibility." Silas tilted his head.

"And if he makes trouble?" Krell glanced at the scarred man by the door. The scarred man looked at nothing in particular.

"That is what I pay the boys for," Krell said. A servant hurried in, set a bowl of ice on the side table without looking up, and left. Krell pressed a cold cloth to the back of his neck and sighed.

"Fitch," he said. The pleasantness in his voice was gone.

"That bastard has been quiet lately."

"He has, my lord."

"Too quiet." Krell's eyes moved to the window.

"He has found another way to move shipments through. I know it. Nothing I can put my finger on, but I can feel it in the ledgers, gaps where there should not be gaps. He is bleeding me and doing it where I cannot see." His jaw tightened.

"Every coin that moves through this city without touching my books is a coin he is taking from me directly."

"It would appear so," Silas said.

"I want eyes on his warehouses. Every face going in or out that is not a regular. Do it quietly." Krell turned the cold cloth over in his hands.

"He thinks because he has a backer in the Core he can afford to be patient. So have I. The difference is I am not willing to sit here and watch him pick my pockets while we play at being civilized."

"Caution would still be advisable, my lord. Until we know more about his arrangement." Krell grunted. He knew Silas was right, which made it worse. Two men and two backers and neither willing to move first. The city sitting between them like a coin nobody could pick up. Silas waited a moment, then said, almost as an afterthought, "There is one other matter. Fitch's wife. She has been visiting a property on the east side late at night. Regularly, over the past few weeks.

The property belongs to a wool merchant with no family or business connection to the Fitch household." Krell paused, the cold cloth halfway to his face. The slow smile that followed started at the corners of his mouth and took its time spreading. He reached for another pastry, settled back into his chair, and looked genuinely pleased for the first time all day.

"Well," he said.

"That is very interesting." Silas watched him. Said nothing. Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.

The hill was high enough for the wind to reach them. That was the only good thing about it. The leader crouched at the treeline near the crest. The others pressed in behind him. Five were left. He did not think about the ones who were gone. Thinking was for the living. He focused on the dark, the wind, and the movement in the valley below. Still. The pack went silent. The lower wilds spread out beneath them. It was a carpet of black and deep green that moved in ways the wind could not explain.

Something with far too many legs picked its way through the canopy to the east. A scent drifted up. It was sweet and thick. It was the smell of the rot-flowers that waited for anything small enough to land on their petals. The leader knew these things. The wilds were always trying to kill you. That was just the way of the world. This was different. He had smelled this two nights ago. He had heard it before he smelled it. He had felt it before he heard it. Down. They dropped flat as the ground began to shudder.

It started as a pressure in the chest. Then the trees below began to jerk. Trunks disappeared. The sound of wood snapping carried up the hill. It sounded like something enormous was walking through the forest as easily as a goblin walked through tall grass. He watched the shape cross the valley. It was a heavy, grey mass that pushed through the treeline like a boulder rolling through brush. He saw the top of a hunched, muscled back and the swing of an arm as thick as an oak trunk. It did not look up.

It did not look anywhere. It just moved. It was heading east. In the distance, past a low ridge, a thin line of smoke rose against the grey sky. He had seen it earlier. It was someone else's fire. Someone else's home. The shape moved toward the smoke. He watched. The trees at the ridgeline began to snap. The sound reached them a breath after the movement. Then, carried on the wind from far away, came the shrieks. They were high and short. They were cut off fast. The others behind him made small, whimpering sounds.

He did not turn. He watched the trees shaking where the smoke was. Move. He pointed away from the smoke. He led them down the other side of the hill, toward the south where the trees were thicker. He did not know what was to the south. It did not matter. It was away from that thing.

The pub was still bright despite the dark outside. Ronan, Bram, Diane, and Carl had filtered out over the last few hours, leaving in pairs until only a few locals remained at the bar. Mars, Nessa, and Growlie were the last ones left at their table, having stayed long after the others had headed back to their homes. Victoria pushed her chair back and said she would get them something warm to drink before the next encounter, which Lauren had been ominously quiet about for the last ten minutes.

Growlie shifted in her lap as she stood, regarded the empty space with brief displeasure, and relocated himself to the middle of the table to keep an eye on everyone. The moment she was out of earshot, Mars leaned back and looked at the ceiling with a wryly amused expression.

"This is your fault," Nessa said.

"How is this my fault?"

"You asked her what she was doing later."

"That's called making conversation," Mars argued, though he looked less like a romantic casanova and more like a man who had been outplayed.

"Well, it didn't work out like you hoped, did it?" Nessa countered with a smirk. She picked up her character sheet and looked at it. Her fighter was named Vessa, a choice she had spent ten minutes insisting was not just her name with a 'V'.

"I only asked what DnD was."

"And now it's midnight, we're up in five hours, and you've named your character after yourself."

"I have not."

"Vessa."

"It's a completely different name." Mars grinned and looked at Growlie, who was cleaning a claw.

"What do you think, Growlie? Different name?" Growlie blinked slowly and went back to his grooming.

"Traitor," Mars muttered.

"Absolute traitor. You spent the whole evening in her lap."

"You sound jealous," Nessa teased. Victoria returned with four mugs, reclaiming her seat. Growlie immediately abandoned the table and stepped directly onto her character sheet, turned once, and sat down. Victoria looked at him with fond exasperation.

"Right," Lauren said, pulling her notes toward her with a mischievous glint in her eyes.

"You've made it to the door. It's heavy oak, iron-banded, and from the other side, you can hear something moving. Mars, your Rogue goes first. What are you doing?" Mars picked up his dice, trying to regain some of his smooth composure.

"I want to listen at the door. Get a sense of what is in there."

"Roll Perception." He rolled. The die skipped off his sheet and landed against his mug.

"One," he said, his face falling. Lauren smiled.

"You press your ear to the door. You hear nothing but the sound of your own heartbeat. You also notice the door where you placed your ear is slightly sticky and you would rather not think about why." Nessa snorted.

"Nessa... Vessa is right behind him," Lauren continued.

"What does she do?"

"She pushes him out of the way and opens the door," Nessa said immediately.

"Roll Strength." Nessa dropped the twenty-sided die. It landed on twenty. She beamed.

"The door doesn't just open," Lauren narrated.

"It comes off its hinges. It flies across the room like a battering ram and the cave troll inside gets hit directly in the face by a flying door." Nessa sat up straight, her mask of indifference slipping as she looked at the table.

"Does it go down?"

"It's stunned. Roll to attack while it is dazed." Nessa grabbed the die before Lauren had finished. She rolled a seventeen, then a seven for damage.

"Vessa," Lauren said, "steps through the doorway she just created and lands a hit that would make seasoned warriors wince." Nessa looked at the dice, then at her sheet with a wide smile. Then she caught herself and set the paper down carefully, trying to look bored.

"Good roll."

"We all saw the smile, Nes. You're not fooling anyone," Mars said, pointing a finger at her.

"You're seeing things." Lauren looked at the clock on the wall and then at the two of them.

"Should we call it there? It's getting late and you are both up before dawn." Mars looked at the troll in the notes, then at Victoria, then back at Lauren.

"Just a little more," he said.

"We cannot leave it like that." Lauren looked at them for a moment, then pulled her notes back.

"Fine," she said.

"But if you are knackered at training, that is on you."