DF236 - Mama, He's Crazy (Patreon)

“Soraya, why are we having a formal audience? We meet every day.”

Anton had a schedule now. More accurately, he now knew what a schedule was. Some noble’s daughter had been selected by Suliel to keep track of everything he had to do, find a time for him to do it, and see that the people he needed to do it with were there at the right time.

It wasn’t terrible, but it was disconcerting. Anton was used to having a task in mind and immediately completing it. If he couldn’t, he waited until he could or moved on to another problem. Now, he had so many problems he couldn’t keep track of them all. He would say aloud that he needed to meet someone or arrange for something, and sometime later, he would find himself talking to the person or doing that thing.

Anton would have been completely fine with it, were it not that quite a lot of his schedule involved him sitting on his chair—he refused to call it a throne, and he refused to have Kelsey make a throne for him—and talking to people who came to him. Right now, it was only a minor irritation, but he expected that to grow. Hopefully he would have come up with measures by then.

Soraya looked up at him. It was hard to read Courl faces, but he thought she looked scared. Her droopy ears suggested that she was miserable. Anton knew that she hadn’t been getting along with the newcomers, but he didn’t think it was that bad.

“My Lord,” she said. “I wish to ask you to grant me leave of your service, so that I might flee Kirido.”

Anton looked at his advisors. Elara looked confused; Suliel looked concerned. She’d dealt closely with Soraya before and after the siege. Kelsey looked… not bored, but that special sort of blank that she got when something else she was doing was more interesting than her Avatar.

He spared a glance at the rest of the room. It wasn’t as crowded as it had been for his audience with the pirates, but there were a few curious nobles watching. Anton noted that they looked at Soraya with disapproval, if not outright hostility.

“You’re not bound to my service,” Anton said carefully. “I appreciate the notice if you have to leave, but you don’t need my permission. So you haven’t answered my question.”

“I wanted people—” she glanced at the nearest nobles, “—to know that I had your permission to leave and that I wasn’t deserting my post.”

That made more sense. With all the hostility she received, even though it was muted by the acceptance she had from the locals, it was only natural for her to ensure that her every action was carried out with excessive attention to detail.

“Alright, but then why? If people have been causing you trouble…”

“No! I mean… a little, but that’s not the reason why I need to leave. It’s… I heard that a fleet is coming. From Elitra.”

“That’s what we’ve heard,” Anton confirmed. “It’s the main reason the army hasn’t left already. We don’t want to be invaded from the south while we’re…”

“Liberating,” Elara supplied.

“Right, liberating Bures from the Tiatians.” Anton paused. “There… no concern that you might be a spy for them, I know that more than anyone—”

“Thank you for your confidence, but…” Soraya looked down. “He is coming for me.”

“Al-Kadir? Kelsey did think we hadn’t seen the last of him.” Anton asked.

“Harder to kill than a cockroach,” Kelsey commented.

Soraya nodded despondently, and Anton racked his brain trying to think of how to reassure her.

“Look,” he said. “I’ll admit that Kirido is the first place he looks for you, but do you think it would be the last? If he doesn’t find you here, he’ll keep looking.”

Soraya shrank into herself a little. Suliel gave a little huff and put her hand on Anton’s arm.

“What Anton is trying to say,” she said, “Is that here you have defenders. Friends. Where can you go that will have that?”

“I… I’m a merchant; I can travel…”

“Always on the run? Is that what you want for yourself?” Suliel asked, her voice warm. “You’d have to run all the way to Tiatia to get away from him. Isn’t that almost as bad as letting him win?”

“But what can I do? I’ve seen him fight—no one can stop him. Even Kelsey couldn’t kill him!”

“Hey, now, I never said couldn’t,” Kelsey put in. “There’s ways. Aris has that Deadly Shot now, that has a pretty good chance of offing him.”

“I can’t ask you to fight him for me,” Soraya sobbed. “He’s killed so many people.” She sank to her knees.

It was, Anton had been told, beneath his dignity as a King to comfort a petitioner, but Suliel was already there, slipping out of her seat and rushing to the girl’s side.

“You don’t have to ask,” Suliel said, hugging Soraya and drawing her to her feet. “He is going to fight Al-Kadir no matter what you do. Al-Kadir might be here for you, but he remembers losing to Anton and Kelsey.”

“But he—”

“He lost,” Suliel insisted. “And now he wants to erase that shame. He’ll just lose again, I promise. Anton will beat him.”

“But why?”

“Because as a King, I need to protect all my subjects,” Anton said. “And my Class is still Heroic Liberator. Fighting for your freedom is something I chose to do, back in Elitra. I’m not going to change my mind now.”

Soraya looked at him for a long time, then nodded and let Suliel lead her out of the room.

“That was very noble, My Lord,” Elara said. The ‘My Lord’ signalled that she was talking for the audience. “And heroic too. But you know that you can’t free everyone.”

“I can’t do it alone,” Anton admitted. “I can’t do anything alone. But I have help. And if we manage to fight off the Tiatian Empire, is there anything we can’t do?”

He looked over at his scheduler. “Meryn? Who has the next appointment?”

The girl tore her gaze away from the door Suliel and Soraya had left through and looked down at her notes.

“Uh, that would be—”

She was interrupted by the main doors slamming open. A messenger entered, sweating and out of breath.

“Sire!” he exclaimed. “The Elitran fleet has been sighted!”

Anton sighed and looked back at Meryn.

“I’ll reschedule them, sire,” she said. “And summon the war council?”

“Do that,” Anton agreed.

*

The balloon observation team gave them about eight extra hours before the fleet would see them. That was time enough to get the Lion’s Claw away to send messages to the counties in the West. Anton had suggested refitting it, as Kelsey had done with the Whiskerwind, but Kelsey had been less than impressed with the idea.

“It has holes in the sides,” she’d told him scornfully.

“Yes? It’s a galley; it’s supposed to. They’re for the oars.”

“Ah yes, more of this stick-based technology that you’re so proud of. If I put an engine in, it won’t need oars. So what are the holes going to be for, other than letting in water?”

“Um, you could cover them up?”

“Oh sure! I can either patch them up, which will be a weak spot and leak. Or I could rebuild both entire sides—which I might as well do, because those rowing benches don’t serve any useful purpose. So they’ll have to go. Not to mention that the structure of the ship is designed to be propelled by forces evenly distributed over the length of the hull, not five times the force from the rear! Do you want the ship to snap like a matchstick on its first run? Do you?”

“No! It was just a suggestion.”

“Hmmph! Skeleton Engineers have to do what I tell them to, but when I tell them to do something stupid, they give me this look. I don’t like the look, Anton!”

“Alright, forget I ever said anything. You know I don’t know anything about this stuff, Kelsey.”

And so, the Lion’s Claw left without any modifications. That left eight hours before the enemy would come in sight of land. Not many of Anton’s council thought that the Elitrans would approach at night, so it would be at least another day before the fighting started.

Most of Anton’s council dismissed the idea that the fleet would sail straight for Kirido, a minor port town, as ridiculous. Anton never doubted it would happen. But he didn’t want to stand around for two days waiting.

“This town is overgarrisoned,” he told his council. It consisted of Elara, Suliel and Kelsey, of course. Aris was there, though she wasn’t yet an official member. Anton was in the process of convincing her to take the position of Captain of the Guard.

The Lord Marshal was Duke Ariman and the Lord Envoy was Odran Tressault. That was partly because Anton knew him, and partly because he was one of the few people in the army with experience as a court functionary. Most of the nobles here attended to their lands and had little experience in court.

The role of Chancellor was filled by Suliel. Treasurer and Quartermaster-General were as yet unfilled. Anton wanted to put Soraya into one of those roles, but there were issues. For one, taking on such a role would mean moving to the capital, and Anton thought Soraya would be happier serving as his factor in Kirido once he moved to Bures. That discussion would have to wait until Al-Kadir was dealt with.

Anton had put it on the schedule.

Rounding out the numbers were Count Hartwell and his mage, Magister Killian. Again, Anton would have preferred Tyla as his court mage, but she was reluctant to leave Kirido.

Duke Ariman was the first to respond. “You are correct, Sire. Supplies are holding up well, but soldiers are pitching tents in the parade ground, and every bed is double-booked.”

“We could send a small force to seize that supply depot that—” Hartwell froze up as he tried to process what to say next. Anton guessed that he was about to say ‘the Prince’, but didn’t want to refer to a monster in that way.

“That Kelsey’s informant told us about,” Anton finished for the man.

Duke Ariman hummed in agreement. “It would give us an idea of how trustworthy he—it—is, and grant us a staging ground for when we march on the capital.”

“I could—I should go with them,” Aris said. Everyone turned to look at her.

“You want to lead the detachment?” Duke Ariman asked.

“I don’t know if I need to lead it…” Aris said. “It’s just that I got a feeling from my Class when I escorted Lioran in. I think I’m supposed to go ahead of Anton, like an envoy or something.”

“If you want my job, you are quite welcome to it, Lady Nos,” Odran said quickly. “It’s been easy enough of late, but I expect it to become quite hectic.”

“Absolutely not,” Anton said. “It’s too dangerous.”

“It would get her out of town, though,” Kelsey said slyly. “It’s at least two days’ march to get there.”

“That doesn’t—wait.” Anton’s mind raced. “On second thought, maybe it would be a good idea for Aris to get some command experience.”

“This force is going to see combat, sire,” Duke Ariman said disapprovingly. “It wouldn’t do to have a… rookie in charge.”

“Joint command, then,” Anton said, making a vague gesture. “Give her someone she can shadow and learn from. You can tell the unit she’s there to evaluate them for the Royal Guard.”

“I never said I’d take that job,” Aris protested. “And, hey! You just want me out of town for when the fleet attacks!”

“Absolutely not,” Anton lied gamely. “This is all about finding what your Class needs. Did you want to get to the next Tier without learning what your Class is for?”

“I… suppose not,” Aris admitted.

“Then it’s decided,” Anton declared. “Now, how are we going to deploy the Whiskerwind?”