Draka Chapter 332: Proscription (Patreon)

Sorry about that, I bungled the scheduling. Thanks to Thay on the Discord for alerting me!

It wasn't quite as simple as Commander Rallon’s father having said the wrong thing and getting outlawed for it. Nor did it apply to the whole House. There were details. And while Garal didn't have all of them, what he’d learned from Rib and Pot was enough to get a fair picture of it all.

The elder Terriallon had stood before their senate and accused them of cowardice, corruption, and duplicity in their refusal to commit to helping Karakan—pretty much what we already thought of them. And if that wasn’t enough, he’d then repeated those accusations publicly. The senate, obviously, hadn’t taken his words lightly. Mercies only knew what the politics looked like in Tavannar, but whether it was that he wasn’t particularly well liked to start with or that he had enemies with enough pull to use this against him, the end results were the same. Commander Rallon’s father, along with his wife and children, had been banished from the city, outlawed, and all their property seized. Rallon could never go back, and even if he did, he’d have nothing to go back to.

While the proscription didn’t extend to the entire House, that didn’t mean that the other branches weren’t affected. They were now all on thin ice, both legally and politically. Rebatia and Poterio may be second or third cousins or whatever to Rallon, but they served under him in his mercenary company, a company that by Tavannarian law was no longer his, and that was a huge problem.

“Not that they’ve expressed any desire to go back, mind you,” Garal said, “but if they stay with the company they may get proscribed themselves. And that would likely reflect on their direct families, which… Well, you see the problem. And that’s not even going into the possibility that the senate of Tavannar, which now purports to own the company, appoints their own commander who tries to take over. Two thirds of the company are Tavannarian citizens. If they choose Rallon over some pretender, they could find themselves in legally rough waters.”

But while the situation overall was bleak, there was at least one small gleam of hope in the whole thing.

“According to what Rib’s sister wrote, they all got out. They even took their portable wealth with them. As to where they’ll go, we don’t know for sure, but here seems like a good bet, doesn’t it?”

“Rallon’s here, and Karakan’s proven itself strong enough not to be pushed around,” Tam mused. “So there’s a chance they wouldn’t just get shipped right back across the Sarey.”

“Right.” Then Garal scowled and shook his head. “Damn ugly business. The whole company’s in a black mood. Right in the wake of this Sorrows-begotten war, too.”

Sandstorm, who’d been uncharacteristically quiet, taking in every word said, chose the following thoughtful silence to ask, “Is this senate stealing from the Rallon human?”

“Not exactly,” I replied, “but also not no.” Honestly, I was impressed that she’d gotten that much with all the unfamiliar people and terms being thrown around. “The senate in Tavannar is like the Council here, only… bigger? Do I have that right?”

“All the most prominent Houses are represented,” Herald confirmed. “Is it one hundred and twenty seats now?” When no one seemed sure, she finished with, “More than a hundred, I am sure of that.”

“Oh. So one hundred and twenty together decided to steal Rallon's family’s things? Their territory and their hoard?”

“It sounds like they got some of their money out,” I told her, “but yeah. Pretty much.”

“I can’t imagine the vote was unanimous, but I think they need to have a two-thirds majority to proscribe anyone,” Tam mused. “Rallon’s dad must have picked some really harsh words for them.”

Just then the door opened, and Lalia came limping out, pale and tired and leaning heavily on Mak. Kira walked just behind them, looking worn out and mildly guilty. “I tried to put her up in a room,” Mak said, “but she insisted on coming out.”

“Saw Kitten for all of two minutes before you dragged me off,” Lalia grumbled, sounding no more drunk than she’d already been. They must’ve chosen not to go with the fortified wine for pain relief.

“That doesn’t change the fact that you need to rest that hip as much as you can for a day or two. You know as well as anyone that magical healing isn’t instant.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Lalia, for all her whinging, knew better than to argue. Then she noticed the sombre mood and asked, “Gods and Mercies, what is this? A wake?”

“I told them about the commander,” Garal said guilty.

“Aw, no! We said we wouldn’t talk about that tonight! This is supposed to be a happy meeting!”

“I’m sorry, my love. But they asked about Rib and Pot, and I… I just couldn’t keep from bemoaning the whole sad situation.”

“Whole stupid situation, more like,” Lalia muttered, letting Mak help her sit beside her lover. “Bunch of ancient pricks and cunts who can’t be forced to face their damn shame without throwing a fit. Damned evil, what they’ve done. Now Rib and Pot are barely talking—well, compared to normal—and the commander’s writing letters every spare moment, trying to figure out where his people went. Somebody should burn that whole damn senate to the ground.”

I was glad that Lalia wasn’t among the humans Sandstorm had spent a lot of time with, or I would have had to explain why we couldn’t just fly across the sea and do just that. As it was she perked up slightly at the word burn, but that was it.

“Do you think they are coming here?” Herald asked. “Garal mentioned the possibility.”

“Don’t see where else they’d go. The rest of the League is too damn submissive to do anything Tavannar might not like, and harboring a proscribed city lord would be right up there. It’s here, the east, or Tekeretek—and from what I’ve heard of the commander’s old man, the only way he’d set foot on Tekereteki soil is at the head of an army.”

“And do we think that the Council would take them in?” I asked. “They’re pretty damned annoyed with Tavannar right now, but they’re still Karakan’s strongest ally and their biggest trading partner, right?”

“You are asking why they should risk souring relations further,” Herald guessed.

“Well… yeah.”

“They took Mak, Tam, and our parents in,” she reminded me. “And while they posed less of a problem, they also had much less to offer. I think that there is a good chance. And if not…”

She hesitated, looking from me to Mak to Tam and Val, then to Garal and Lalia and back to me. “Perhaps we could take them,” she suggested. “Rallon has been good to our friends. And with Draka sheltering them, the Council would have an excuse not to act.”

“‘The dragon’s taken them, what do you expect us to do?’ kind of thing?” Tam asked with a soft chuckle. “That might just work.”

“Even if it does, is it the kinda trouble you want to risk?” Ardek asked. “I mean… say Tavannar comes and tries to take them. We’d have to do something about that, wouldn’t we? Couldn’t just let an insult like that stand.”

I thought about it for a moment, but the answer seemed oddly simple. “Rallon gave me a chance,” I said. “He treated me fairly, and like a damn person when I was being hunted like an animal. If they come here, and if the Council’s leery about taking them in, we’ve got places we could put them up. I’m open to it. But I’ll need to talk to Rallon first.”

“You’ll have his undying gratitude if you do,” Garal said. “He won’t be back in the city for a few days, but I can arrange a meeting if you want. For something like this I’m sure he’ll come to you, wherever you wish.”

“You know what, please do. It’s been too long since I met him anyway. And, I mean, he doesn’t have to come here if it’s inconvenient.” I rustled my wings demonstratively. “Not like it’s hard for me to get around.”

Sandstorm immediately objected. “The human should come to you,” my cousin declared. “I can understand you going to the Council. There were many of them, and it would have been very crowded here. But you are a dragon, cousin! One lone human seeking your favor should come to you.”

“He’s not seeking my favor, though,” I objected. “He doesn’t even know that we’re willing to help. I’m going to offer him a favor, because I respect him.”

“Oh.” She pondered that for a while, then countered, “But these humans, Garal and Lalia, they will tell him. And then he will want your favor. So he should come to you.”

“As much as I respect Rallon, she has a point,” Mak said. “Whatever your relationship with him is right now, you going to him would set the tone going forward, especially as others see you. Sure, it would benefit him to be seen as a man to whom dragons come offering favors, but it would do just as much damage to your standing in the eyes of the people. How powerful are you really, they may ask, if you have to go curry favors from a mercenary commander?”

“Yeah,” Herald agreed thoughtfully. “Good point. You met the Council on neutral ground, and it was all of them. That makes you look like equals. Going to Rallon, though…”

I chuffed unhappily. It was bloody politics again! I just wanted to offer to do something to help the man, and hopefully ease the weirdness that had existed between us ever since the number of inhabitants of my head had gone from two to three. I didn’t want to play any power games; I just wanted to meet him wherever was most convenient and say, “Hey, I heard that your family’s in trouble. Real sorry to hear that. I think I can help.”

But I could also see Mak’s point. I needed to be unassailable. I need to be so overwhelmingly powerful in the eyes of not just the public, but the powerbrokers, that no one dared touch me or risk my wrath by harming my people. Anything else just invited someone somewhere to have a go, and the best outcome there was that I’d have a new thrall, and no one would ever know what happened. Otherwise I’d have to make a gristly example, and I’d really prefer not to have to do that. Fear was a familiar, comfortable tool at this point, but I preferred to use it with precision. Terrifying the public wholesale didn’t appeal at all.

I could have argued. Hell, I could have just told them that I was doing it my way, and that would be that. Part of me grumbled that I should do it, for pride’s sake; I’d said that I’d do something, and I couldn’t very well back down because someone told me not to. Even if one of those people was a dragon who could probably take me in a scuffle.

With some effort, I silenced that part. Impulses like that were exactly why I needed to listen to Mak and Herald. “Yeah, alright,” I said. “Garal, Lalia, please tell the commander what we’ve talked about. And that if he wants to meet and talk, he can let us know and we’ll tell him a time and place.”

The rest of the evening was mostly catching up, and Garal and Lalia getting to know Sandstorm. They’d been mostly doing long, grueling patrols in the south, though not a huge amount of fighting; raiders mostly fled back toward the Happaran line once they faced any kind of opposition, and bandits either fled into the hills and mountains, or surrendered.

“Mercies, but sometimes I prayed that we’d catch some bandits,” Lalia said. “Then we’d have to drag them back to the nearest town, or back here, and since they’d usually be on foot we could take it easy on the horses. Poor things; we’d been running them ragged for months by the time things ended.”

“I swear Melon must have lost a hundred pounds, poor girl,” Garal agreed. “She’s still keeping up, but this campaign’s been a bit much for her.”

“Windfall’s as full of piss and vinegar as ever, but I haven’t been happy about his hooves lately,” Lalia agreed. “Not enough downtime, even since Happar surrendered. They both need a couple of weeks on low exercise and extra feed. All the horses do, really.”

“Couldn’t you get new ones?” Mak asked. “Leave Melon and Windfall in the stables?”

“We’ve talked about it,” Garal said, “but good horses are hard to come by right now, and prices are ridiculous. Though that should change soon with the war being over, and especially once trade with Happar opens back up. Say what you want about the Happarans, but they breed damned fine horses.”

What really ate up the evening, though, started with Sandstorm asking about why Garal sounded different than the others. His accent was faint to my ears, but she picked up on it. So he explained that his native language was Barlean, and she of course asked why. Then she found out that he’d lived most of his first sixteen years on ships, and that was that.

Sandstorm, it turned out, was fascinated by ships, and by the sheer volume of questions she had to ask one might’ve thought she was planning to become a shipwright. How do they not sink? What are they made of? Wood? Wood doesn’t look like that. How do they make it look like that? Wood rots in water, she’d seen this; why doesn’t it rot? How does the food onboard not go bad? How do they make the ships move? What if the wind isn’t blowing the right way? And on, and on, and on.

The fact that she’d picked possibly the worst Barlean possible, one who hadn’t crewed a ship for a decade or so, didn’t matter. Nor did the fact that Val and Herald answered as many of her questions as Garal did. Just by having been a sailor, no matter how he felt about that, Garal was instantly one of her new favorite humans.

It was enough to make me think. They say that twice is a coincidence, but he was two for two for dragons liking him now. I wondered if I should introduce him to Mother; she was sure to like him after I told her how kindly he’d always treated me.

As the evening passed Lalia’s color came back, and as it drew to a close she stubbornly insisted on returning to the barracks. She still couldn’t walk, of course—Kira and Mak both forbade it—so Garal was forced to carry her in his arms. By the smug smile she shot us over his shoulder as they left, she didn’t mind one bit.

With the rest of the humans heading inside to their own beds, I took Kira aside. It had been impossible to miss how spent she’d looked, and I wanted to make sure that she’d be okay.

“I used more magic than I’d intended,” she confessed.

“Ah. I thought that might be it,” I said. “Do you need a dose?”

“Yes, but… I think it would be best if I didn’t. I need to get used to it.”

“Right. I’ll trust you on that. But you’re not, I don’t know, punishing yourself or anything like that, are you? If you did more than you’d planned on, I’m sure it was for a good reason.”

She huffed uncertainly. “It wasn’t entirely necessary. I think her hip would have healed just as well if I’d done less after Mak reset it. It would have just taken longer.”

“So Lalia would have been laid up, unable to ride or even walk properly for what? Days longer? Weeks? I’m sure that would’ve gone over well. No, Kira, you did good.”

She smiled softly, her relief at my words relaxing her at least a bit. “Thank you,” she said. “But I still think it’s best if I tough it out.”

“Alright. I trust you. Check in with me again in the morning.”

*

It took three days for Rallon to contact us, but only because it was three days before he returned to the city. A courier brought us word that he’d be happy to meet at a time and place of our choosing, and we sent a reply with the same messenger that we’d love to invite him for dinner that evening. A second visit by the same young man an hour later, and it was done.

As the time drew near I was a little nervous, to be honest. Not about the food, obviously; we had set up tables in the yard, and Reben, the innkeeper, had procured an excellent mix of fresh fishes, including a large crate each for me and Sandstorm of those long, thin, fatty ones I loved so much. No, my anxiety was all about how the meeting itself would go. The last time I met with Rallon had been when he briefed me on the reconnaissance mission that turned into me abducting Kira after killing the mercs she was with. That had been months and months ago, and shortly after I’d scared the crap out of him and his company with some less than savory behaviour. I could only hope that his opinion of me hadn’t soured.

The man I met when he arrived, accompanied by Rib and Pot, looked a little different than my memory of him. He was thinner and a bit less well-groomed. He looked like he hadn’t been sleeping well. The same went for his cousins; neither looked like they were at the peak of health. Stress can do that to a body. But his first words to me were, “Mercies be kind, how you’ve grown, Lady Draka,” and his smile was unguarded and genuine enough that I was instantly at ease. My worries had been unfounded, it seemed. Next he turned to my cousin. “And you, I’ve been informed, are Lady Sandstorm. I am Terriallon Mordo, commander of the Grey Wolves mercenary company, and these are my cousins, Terriallon Rebatia and Terriallon Poterio of Tavannar. A true pleasure to make your acquaintance.”

All three bowed respectfully. The effect was spoiled somewhat by how, immediately after straightening, Rib commented, “Sorrows take me, but you’re as shiny as Lady Embers.”

“I am!” Sandstorm agreed with great satisfaction before Rallon could scold his cousin, and that set the tone for what turned out to be a very pleasant dinner.