Again, when Lungu said “my land,” Brovka frowned and looked at his fingernails. Lungu had played a game of brinkmanship with the Protectorate legal code for a long time. Over the years, Lungu blurred what the original charter made clear. For more than twenty years, the Commissioners, who were in charge of enforcing the laws, let Lungu get away with it.
“Give me charge of Keep 52,” First Lieutenant Tal said. “And I will bring you the head of this freakish bitch.”
“And how would you do that?” Balan shot back.
Perfect, Raluca thought. The first roosters enter the ring. Which one will peck the other to death?
Balan replied, “Whip that keep into shape. Make the civil guard tow the line. With just a small compliment of my best Estate troopers, I’ll have the Breakaway Villages under your rule by spring.”
By spring, Raluca thought and fought back a laugh. Lungu shot a glance her way. For a moment, she thought he might have learned something from the Reachers, like she had, recently. But she couldn’t feel him reaching for her thoughts. No, he must have picked up on body language. She would need to be more careful.
“I won’t need control of Keep 52 to take her out,” Tal countered. “I stand ready to march by tomorrow dawn if commanded. I’ll bring all of my troopers.”
Lungu stopped his pacing cold. He stepped up and stood nose-to-nose with Tal. “You would march your force up a snow-covered Toll Road twenty miles, then cross bandit-ridden backwoods paths another fifteen miles, then attack? Is that what you learned from the training I gave you?”
Tal blinked rapidly, recognizing he’d made an empty brag where a solid, or at least plausible statement was required.
“Dismissed,” Lungu said with a flick of his wrist. That was likely so. Tal could look forward to far fewer contracts in the future. He was dismissed from far more than the room. He’d be lucky to get a border patrol contract.
“What about the rest of you?” Lungu asked.
“My colleague has the right idea,” Raluca said.
“I’m so glad you approve,” Balan snapped.
“We trained together,” Raluca replied. “I know you’re an excellent fighter and an adequate administrator.” She put the emphasis on the compliments for very precise reasons.
Balan had to respond in kind in order to save face. “This means a great deal coming from you,” Balan said stiffly.
She knew what he meant. The other First Lieutenants knew enough to know when they’d been outmatched. Raluca was the only one who wanted it to seem that way. Balan was doomed to fail. She knew that. The failure of others was good for her market value.
Lungu looked them all over again. When nobody else spoke up, he said, “Balan has the contract. The rest of you may offer support services to him if you wish. He will pay for this operation on a per-day expense account, plus whatever taxes and levies he sees fit to impose on any village or business establishment in the Eastern District.”
At that, Chief Commissioner Brovka groaned audibly. Lungu shot an annoyed glance over his shoulder.
“You have your orders,” the Protector said.
The First Lieutenants hurried out of the room. They jostled for position and Raluca pushed back against only a little as she pretended to sink to the bottom of the pecking order. She cast a quick glance behind her. That split-second shot of her eyes was enough to make a complete study of Lungu’s face.
The Protector was focused on Balan with an approving cast to his eyes.
***
Protector Lungu watched his brightest former students jostle their way out of his boardroom. One of them turned out to be an idiot. He scribbled a note to review which contracts Tal was in charge of and begin removing him from critical duties.
As usual, he’d given the assignment to the First Lieutenant who made the strongest case. But this time, the losers seemed to say more to him than the winner. It was more about what wasn’t said.
Lungu trained his top officers to thrive on competition. He believed that was the best way to solve management problems at the top levels of his organization. It had worked for him for nearly thirty years since he took over from his father.
The old man was a pioneer. He was one of the first students of magic in the Bicaz region. He’d traveled far through dangerous lands to sit at the feet of one of the Disciples of Ezekiel, the Founder. He was gone nearly two years. And when he returned, he was able to break bones without touching anyone.
Lungu was twelve when he saw his father do that. He had nothing but awe and admiration for the man, even after he died. When his father’s passing elevated him to Protector, he vowed to improve on his father’s methods. And he did.
But now, in the space of a less than two months, things seemed to be falling apart. He didn’t think the system could be so fragile.
What had happened? Lungu looked back and forth to the faces of his Treasurer, Lands Minister and Chief Commissioner. His entire cabinet was in the room to help him make sense of all this.
“That Raluca seems a bit crafty,” Lungu said to Treasurer Brol.
“My Great Protector,” Treasurer Brol replied with a wry smile, “all your Movers are crafty.”
Lungu shot Brol a sharp glance with a single raised eyebrow. He was one of a handful of men who he allowed to speak to him with anything approaching sarcasm.
“Right you are, Brol. I remember training her myself just after she came of age. She has one of the sharpest minds I’ve come across. Yet today, she remained silent. I can’t help but think she’s up to something. The weakness she displayed today seemed contrived.”
Brol snapped his fingers and pointed to one of the attendants standing in the corner. “Boy! Bring us a pitcher of wine and three glasses.”
“None for me,” Chief Commissioner Brovka said gloomily.
Lands minister Dralca stared at his cup and licked his lips. He said nothing.
Lungu studied the commissioner with a questioning eye. He didn’t trust anyone in a meeting like this who refused to drink. More often than not, it was a sign of protest.
“Drink,” Lungu said in a flat, commanding voice. “I insist. How often do you get to drink the Protector’s personal reserve?”
The attendant brought a large pitcher and filled three glasses with the sharp, potent, sugar beet wine favored in the region. Grapes had not grown in this part of the world since The Madness. Grape wine existed only in legend and archaic technical books that were hand-copied from the salvaged libraries of the New Ancients.
Lungu kept eyes on Brovka until he took a token sip. Brovka stared back. There was fear in his eyes, and something that looked a bit like defiance.
“So, tell me,” Lungu asked his Chief Commissioner. “What have you done to squash this formal complaint from your man Krann at Keep 52?”
“Nothing, Protector,” Brovka replied quickly.
“Explain yourself quickly,” Lungu demanded with arched eyebrows.
Brovka wasted no time. “There is nothing I can do to make this complaint go away. Krann is one of our best Commissioners with a sharp legal mind. He knows the code by heart. He is the fourth generation of his family to be in this profession. His complaint is valid and, according to the Protectorate Charter, it must be heard.”
Lungu ground his molars together and fought to keep his breath even. His heart pounded in his chest. He could feel the magical energy welling up inside him.
“You are my Chief Commissioner,” Lungu said. “I want you to make this complaint go away.”
“Yes,” Brovka replied. Although he was sweating profusely, he met Lungu’s eyes and his voice was clear and strong. “I am honored to serve in this capacity. That is the reason why I can’t go against two centuries of tradition. The Charter existed long before the rise of the Magical Orders. Without adhering to the legal code, I fear what may come of the Protectorate system.”
Lungu’s eyes narrowed. “So, you're telling me that you refuse to dismiss this case?”
“Begging y
our pardon, no, Great Protector. I am telling you that I have not the authority alone to dismiss this case. The Charter is clear. This complaint must be heard by the full body of the Commissioner Council.”
Lungu closed his eyes for a moment. What would his father do? His great-grandfather had been one of the writers of that charter.
The Protector opened his eyes and nailed Brovka to the spot with his glare. “The Charter itself was forged by the might and the mind of the first Protectors. Its very meaning runs through the blood in my veins. If I say the complaint is dismissed, it is dismissed.”
“Are you telling me that you are suspending the Protectorate charter, Protector?” Brovka asked.
“Leave my chambers while you still can,” Lungu roared.
Brovka gathered his report ledgers and scurried from the room. He spilled his wine along the way.
Treasurer Brol picked up his ledgers to keep them from being drenched. When Brovka left through a side door, Brol said, “He ran away like a scalded dog.”
Lands Minister Dralca sat in silence the entire time. He’d already drained his first cup of wine and was well on his way to finishing the second.
Lungu skewered him with a questioning glance. “Are you trying to get drunk?” Lungu asked.
“No, your Excellency,” Dralca said. “I’m trying to drink enough so that I won’t be terrified to tell you that I believe you’re making a mistake.”
The Protector’s eyes flashed white for a second, then turned black. Minister Dralca guzzled what was left in his cup and slammed the cup back down on the table.
“At least I did my duty,” he said, then waited to die.
When Lungu threw back his head and let out a peal of laughter, Dralca nearly collapsed. He turned to his treasurer. “Do you see what your informal speech toward me encourages?” He shook his head. “Do not doubt your Protector. All this fear. It’s unhealthy.”
Lungu poured them all another cup of wine. “Let Krann’s complaint come. Let all the complaints come. One or two Elders complained about supplementary collections, and one Commissioner complained about execution of a bandit girl. This is trifling. The other Elders will be glad to see this complaint go away.”
Dralca took his wine with a trembling hand. “You are a brave one to speak your mind,” Lungu said to him.
“Thank you, Protector,” Dralca replied.
“I’ll indulge you,” Lungu said, leaning back in his chair. “Why don’t you elaborate? Tell me what moves you to directly contradict your Protector.”
After draining the wine completely, Dralca went to fill his cup again. Lungu’s hand shot out and covered the cup.
The Lands Commissioner leaned back from the table and spoke. “Protector, this Astrid woman has the support of more than just the villages in the eastern district. This fall, when Jank and your son began compliance operations, they both took great liberties with the Charter. Jank used his mercenaries to occupy towns. It is even said that Jank’s men were prepared to slaughter the entire village of Bellford to make it seem as if bandits had done it.”
At that last statement, Dralca paused. Lungu showed no reaction. The Protector had heard this rumor, and he wouldn’t put it past his late son. As far as Lungu was concerned, his son was weak. He allowed his greed and rage to get him killed.
Of course, Lungu planned revenge on Astrid for killing his son, Clarence. Damn the rules of open combat. Nobody would argue that it wasn’t a fair fight. Astrid got the better of Clarence, it was clear. But Lungu couldn’t abide any rule that challenged his authority. His son was just another extension of that authority.
And now, he was dead.
Dralca continued. “The Elders still look to the Commissioners to settle disputes. Dismissing the complaint, or making it apparent that the Council was influenced might make the Elders doubt the integrity of the system itself.”
“Are you suggesting,” Lungu said with a sniff, “that I admit fault.”
“No,” Treasurer Brol said, stepping into the conversation to Lungu’s great surprise. “He is saying that the fault lies with the practices of a few bad actors. Namely, Clarence and Jank. If the council is to be influenced, it should be to find Clarence and Jank responsible for any alleged infraction.”
“And they are both dead,” Lungu said, casting appraising glances between his two ministers. “Did you conspire among yourselves to propose this?” the Protector asked.
The Treasurer grew very serious and still. “We did speak about this proposal beforehand,” he said.
Lungu sat and thought for a very long while. He was torn between murderous rage and great respect for these men for speaking their minds. The fact that they risked death to tell him this spoke to a danger Lungu wasn’t aware of. It was simply inconceivable that some foreign woman and a few disgruntled Elders could challenge his authority using his own legal system.
“Clarence was weak. That’s what got him killed,” Lungu finally stated. “Now is the time to show strength. My dead son and his dead business partner have already caused me enough embarrassment. Tell me how allowing some pencil-pushers to question my authority will do anything but make me appear even weaker?”
“It will show,” Dralca said, “that you are strong enough to abide by the Charter, no matter how it might affect you personally. It will demonstrate that your father, and the other creators of the Protectorate Code had the foresight to—”
The cracking of shattered neck vertebrae filled the room. Blood sprayed from the Dralca’s mouth as his head snapped around to the left and ended up facing front again. The body dropped to the floor with a single, violent spasm.
Treasurer Brol shook his head slowly and drank his wine. “That’s your answer, then,” he said. “I’ve seen this one too many times.”
“But it’s never happened to you,” Lungu said with a devious smile.
“Because I’ve known you since I was a boy,” Brol replied. “My father was the treasurer before me. You know you can trust me, so I will tell you this: I believe the man you just executed was right. If you don’t appease these commissioners and correct these appearances, we will be in deep, deep trouble.”
Having spent his rage on the dead Lands Minister, Lungu considered the point carefully. This problem was getting deeper and more challenging than he thought possible.
CHAPTER FIVE
Argan Village, Two Days Later
It took Astrid a full day to recover from channeling so much energy from the Well. She meditated all night and slept a few hours, but the next day, she was simply wiped out. She stared at her feet as she crossed the courtyard to the longhouse.
Astrid pushed her way through the doors and found Charlie leaning his back against the central fireplace. Ice melted from his deerskin coat, comprised of at least six animals. The village had its hands full with the job of clothing the giant. He didn’t seem to mind the cold, too much, but he loved getting warm when he could.
He sang hello to Astrid briefly with the strange and beautiful sounds that weren’t quite words, but also didn’t seem to be any sort of language. But if you listened to Charlie long enough, you could understand him a little.
The sounds he made communicated joy, fear, amusement, but so far, never anger. She’d never met a person so devoid of that emotion.
“Hello, Charlie,” Astrid said, giving him a wave.
He smiled back at her with that standard Charlie grin that split his face in two to display huge, round teeth with gaps between them. He waved back with his massive, four-fingered hand, then scratched under his chin with a log as long as Astrid’s forearm.
Someone brought Charlie a huge mug of hot tea and began chatting with him. People loved talking to the giant, even though the conversations were always one-sided. He sure didn’t mind. At ten feet tall, his head was level with most people when he sat flat on the ground.
Astrid and the Core had rescued him from some mercenaries several months ago. The village of Argan adopted him the very next day. Nobody
knew where he came from. Everyone who saw him exclaimed they had never seen anyone like him.
Nobody cared.
Even the most hardened woods people ended up saying some version of the same thing. Charlie was the nicest person they had ever met. You couldn’t not like him. At least, that was true to anyone who had the privilege of coming to Argan.
How anyone could harm a person like him was beyond anyone who came to the village. That was a testament to the type of folk attracted to the place now. It was also why Astrid and the Core ended up making corpses of all the mercenaries who were torturing Charlie.
After Charlie lifted her mood with song, she went about her daily duties—taking reports from the sentries, inspecting the inner security perimeter, morning fighting drills, and training those who wanted to learn about the Well. But she made little time to discuss with the Core what had happened the night before. She pushed the meeting back until the next day. Now that day had come.
Astrid set the meeting for the late breakfast hour reserved for fighters like her. That was mid-morning. The rest of the village ate just after dawn. Argan was centered around a working farm, so the workday started early and ended late. That was true even in the winter.
This schedule worked out well for the fighters. Astrid found that training, exercise, and meditation worked best on a mostly empty stomach. At most, the soldiers stopped by the longhouse to grab some tea with honey or a bit of sausage to get them moving. Otherwise, Astrid kept everyone, including herself, lean and hungry until it was time to replenish.
The new longhouse made that all possible. They’d built the place in the very last week of fall as the first snows came. The building was born from necessity, but was built with joy. The longhouse quickly became a new hub of public life.
The village doubled in size to two-hundred people in the space of a month. Half-again as many people moved through the village and stayed a night or two on their way to hidden camps in the woods. Many of the transients were former bandits who came in for honest work instead of raiding official shipments on the Toll Road.
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