Chương 16: Mercenaries for Karma

"Aye. Bandits trying to hit me as I left the squalid thorp on the road north, six of them in number, and then four more come to check up on their comrades when the first six didn't come back with my muster-coin!" she declared with great cheerfulness, glancing at the name of Easleton wood-burned into a sign over the gate..

"I followed their leader back to their den, burned his arse to death, and killed the shadow-fiend he treated with for power, too!" As they were about to say something, she reached out to some leather straps hanging out of the saddle-bags on Clopper, pulled them out, and thrust them into the man's chest.

"Cultists of Shoul, the Dark Moon, taking ritual sacrifices for their altar and feeding them to a shadow-beast for scraps of power." There were a dozen of the crude symbols, only one done in metal, the rest in crude wood with painted dark moons on them. The guards there shuffled uneasily as they craned to see the collection of symbols. A lot of symbols...

"There, there was word that you ambushed and killed the kin of some of the families from Torb's Stop, there. They were offering a reward for your capture, Miss Tiya," the older man finally got out as he stared at all those tokens in his hands.

"Aye? Kin, now, of cultists of Shoul?" Her smile didn't change, but her poise did, as her hand drifted down near to her Axe.

"Be you kin of these brigands who tried to murder me on the trail, and in my sleep, and have like been doing so to travelers for years?" She leaned forward just slightly.

"If I slaughter the lot of you, will I find these symbols upon you?" Her teeth were very white. Theirs were stained with tobacco and yellowed by lack of care.

"Of course not! Everyone knows the Dark Moon is a demon god, fallen from this world!" the leader puffed out unwillingly. -They are all Purple, - Deuce /hissed, meaning not to be trusted.

"Well, then, my first question stands. Where to find a room and stable for the night?"

"The Carven Cups is the place you want," he said a mite too quickly, and her eyes narrowed.

"Good food, the beds are lice-free, and they'll not steal your horse in the night." Shiv you for it? More than likely, she assumed.

"I'll look for it," she said, a promise she was likely to keep so that she went nowhere near it. -Ask around for the Mayor's office. Pretend you're a hired merc and act like you are reporting when you do. - That sounded like a good idea, and she was much better at looking intimidating than in being personable. She led Clopper past the men, who looked unwilling to let her pass, but just watched her go by, not wishing to test her axe.

"Entry, entry is a silver for man or beast!" one of them belatedly called after her. She waved at the symbols the sergeant was holding onto.

"I'm sure those are worth at least that much, yes?" she said, strolling away with grace and power… and more importantly, her feet weren't leaving tracks in the mud and dirt of the streets at all. Clopper was astute enough to leave some smelly gifts for them as they walked away, too.

A few scowling requests of random passersby was indeed enough to get her directed to the home of the Mayor of this town, unsurprisingly the tallest and grandest building there, actually a whole three stories tall! Well, if you included the roof space. It was also clearly divided into living and official capacity sides.

Tiya reined Clopper outside at the post there, Deuce whispering to him to make sure nobody tried to go through her saddlebags, and the war-trained gelding just nickered in anticipation of someone trying. A tall warrior-woman coming into the outer office attracted attention, especially with her bearing an axe openly. The tall and beefy guardsman there on boring guard duty was much cleaner and actually wearing plate, of all things, truly a pain to stand in all day.

He frowned on seeing her, hand rising to the sword at his waist.

"No weapons in the house of the Lord Mayor!" he uttered immediately upon seeing her. Tiya's only response to that was to smile.

"I've come two hundred miles because someone called for my axe to deal with your ghoul problem. Do you think I'm going to part with it now?" she asked him cheerfully. His lips thinned, but he was thinking carefully about tangling with her, better armor or nothing.

"G-ghoul problem?" the secretary copying down something there repeated quickly, looking up sharply.

"We don't have a ghoul problem!" he immediately denied forcefully, leaping to his feet and staring at her with disturbing beige eyes.

"Easleton is a proud city who protects its citizens! There are no ghouls here!" he denied again. If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it's taken without permission from the author. Report it. Tiya slowly turned her eyes on him, and just let the silence build for a moment. The small man's projected confidence quickly became a bit uncertain, judging by the beads of sweat upon his brow.

"Your graveyard has been de-Consecrated for at least four years, little man. There's no game tracks coming through its fences, meaning the rabbits and the rats know better than to enter the place. Nary a bird to be seen on the stones, so much so the bird shit has all washed off everything, even the corner posts. Not unusual to see the grass not cut, but that's mostly to disguise the fact that older graves are all sunk down some… because the ghouls dug them out from below to get at the corpses there."

She flicked out a gold coin.

"Two hundred miles I've come here, and now a fine-smelling powder boy is telling me there's naught of what I was called for. Do you think me a fool? Perhaps you'd like to make a bet with me?" Her smile was wide and wicked.

"If there's no ghouls, no spirits haunting your graveyard there, your guard here won't have a problem spending the night there. Ten gold to him if he makes it." She reached down and tapped it on his desk, their eyes on it, and on her.

"Ten gold to me when you don't even find his bones, but you do hear his screams about midnight or so." She turned her eyes on the guard, who swallowed, and then looked at his superior there.

"I would be perfectly happy to stay there a night!" the small man grinned back at her.

"No, little man." Tap, tap, tap.

"Him. Not you." Tap, tap, tap.

"And we both know why, don't we?" This time his face went pasty white in fear.

"What, just what are you accusing me of?" he squeaked out.

"That I should be speaking to the Lord Mayor about your ghoul problem, and you don't want me to. That makes me… suspicious." She put her hand to her Axe.

"Had to kill a half-score cultists of Shoul on the road here, pretending to be brigands. Ghouls are a convenient way to dispose of unwanted bodies, even magic won't track down someone eaten down to the bones and their marrow gone. Keeps them fed a good long time, too." She straightened up as the little man swallowed.

"Go fetch the Lord Mayor. I'm here to take care of your ghoul problem, and I want my contract." Very unwillingly, the small man in fine, puffy courtier's attire, although more than a little wine-spotted and a bit threadbare in places, slipped through the door leading out of the larger office. -He's practicing necromancy, it stains his whole Casting Aura, - Deuce /informed her. -Nine will get you ten that the Lord Mayor is either his teacher or a fellow student.

- There was the muffled sound of voices talking, and then the secretary was back, looking relieved that the responsibility was shunted off of him now.

"The Lord Mayor will see you now," he said, looking at her and the babe on her back with a mixture of anger and confusion.

"Please control your child!" he added out of spite. Deuce pretended to doze, keeping his eyes shut. Silver eyes tended to be taken poorly by a great many beings, he'd told her. The wood paneling in the short hallway opened up into a sun room that had been converted into a large and spacious office, big enough to actually hold a dozen people. Currently only one woman occupied the room, one with an unamused expression on her face when Tiya strode in as if she owned the place.

She looked away for a moment before returning to meet Tiya's gaze more sharply. -She was looking at your Aura, and the Astral Ward completely stiffed her. She's a Witch, and fairly strong, probably an Eight, - Deuce /said from behind her.

"I am Lord Mayor Tellistra Donquito," the woman declared, drawing herself up in a fine robe of black velvet. She wasn't a beauty, more of a stern handsomeness to her, with short black hair and pale skin, to be expected of someone who mostly worked indoors. The fact she was an Eight meant any male Mayor would have been completely dominated by her.

"Ah, a Witch of Ruilvei," Tiya nodded breezily, immediately making the woman tense as she approached and held out her hand.

"Tiya of Frokkinlund, once of the Imperial Legions. Saw more than a few of your sisters with them," she said without a shred of care for the delicacy of that knowledge.

"Took over this town of thieves, did you? Did you post the ghoul job up the trade road?" she asked lightly. The woman's dark eyes narrowed as she reconsidered how to approach this problem, even as she took Tiya's hand carefully and shook it once perfunctorily.

"No, I posted no such notice, and I am suspicious of the intentions of someone who would." She paused, looking Tiya up and down, and most especially, the magic that was utterly preventing her from finding out anything about her.

"I see you are not unfamiliar with magic," she acknowledged grudgingly as she reclaimed her hand, Tiya keeping the handshake formal and not domineering.

"The elves look for you in more ways than one in their forests." Tiya's eyes narrowed.

"I know you have a ghoul problem. You witches don't treat with ghouls without good cause, you've enough problems with the dead, and you're strong enough to clean them out, even that little frog of an apprentice you've got out front. Why aren't you doing so?" It was plain that Mayor Donquito was quite off-balanced at the bluntness of a northerner acting as if her status was nothing special or secretive.

"They are being led by a ghoul lord, a former wizard who comes from before the current age," she admitted uneasily, waiting for a reaction from Tiya, who was fabulously unconcerned with that fact.

"He keeps the ghouls from attacking the people of the town, and they are useful for disposing of undesirables. A direct conflict with him would be… problematic, especially as he controls the wraiths of the ancestors of some of the most prominent families of this town."

"Preventing you from doing the same," Tiya replied at Deuce's wry comment, making the woman flush.

"No worries. Personal contract. How much per ghoul, and how much for the ghoul lord?" The Mayor hesitated again.

"I will pay twenty gold for each dead ghoul, and a thousand gold for their Lord."

"Fifty and five thousand," Tiya just snorted, making her stiffen.

"If he's dangerous enough that you can't dispose of him, then a thousand gold is a fool's pay."

"Five thousand… but then I want his spellbook!" the witch snarled immediately.

"You can be the first to buy it at normal market value of one hundred gold per Valence," Tiya replied dryly as Deuce coached her.

"There's always a market for those things, especially with spells from the older days."