Lost Bloodline 2 - Chapter 11

Chapter 11

Moving through the city like they did, Koda was surprised to find very few of the Crooked remaining in town. Those that they did come across were inevitably trying to drag off captives. The fact that the captured townspeople were rather resistant to the Crooked’s attempts to remove them was to be expected. No one wants to go with the monsters, after all.

Especially if the stories Sienna and Arthene were telling me are true, Koda thought before wiping at his forehead with one muddy arm, trying not to spread the grit over more of himself than he had to.

The sun had just begun to peek over the horizon and cast its wary gaze over the town when the clouds had rolled in from the north, bringing with them a drizzle of rain that actually was helping to get the fires under control. A portion of the town on the southern side had gone up. A fire that had started in a small stable had managed to spread to a nearby house and from there to several others.

With the growing glow of the fire to the south, it had got the attention of enough people that someone had sounded the fire alarm, the specific clanging of the town bell rallying anyone who was able to deal with the fire.

The rain helped to slow the fire’s spread, but by the time that the last flames were out and they were confident that it was under control, the sun was above the horizon and hiding behind the clouds now, and around a tenth of the town was either cinders or blackened by the flames.

“This is such a disaster,” Sienna muttered as she wiped at her own face, using the corner of her cloak to prevent spreading the mud and ashes onto her already smudged face.

“Here, let me get that love,” Koda stopped her with a hand before following her idea of using the inside of his cloak where the least amount of grime was accumulated to help her.

The rain coming down overhead had made everything sodden, so he just did his best to wipe the accumulated dust that was sticking to her face away and brush her short mop of red hair back behind the pointed red-black wolf’s ears that protruded from her head.

Sienna hummed happily at his attention, and Koda could hear the quiet swish of her tail under her cloak.

“It’s weird,” Sienna murmured while he scrubbed at a persistent stain on her left cheek.

“What?” Koda asked, leaning in to kiss the edge of one pointed ear, making it twitch and Sienna snort before smacking him lightly on the chest.

“Not having Arthene crowding close to us right now. I got so used to having her basically pretending to be a really friendly tree at my back that, with her gone, it feels strange.”

“She’ll love hearing that you missed her,” Koda said with a tired laugh, laying a kiss on the other ear, getting a twitch from it too. “Make sure you tell her when she gets back. I sometimes wonder if she is more in love with me or with our ‘sweet Sienna,’ ” Koda teased her gently, getting a faint blush from his wolfish lover.

“I don’t think her mind works like that,” Sienna murmured. “Arthene has such a big heart that—”

“I know,” Koda cut her off gently. “I wasn’t meaning it in a negative fashion. Just wanted to tease you some, since she dotes on you just as much as I do. I wouldn’t be surprised if she tows you off to bed for a bit of loving as often as she does for me.”

“Arthene does seem to be far more… in tune with her desires,” Sienna blushed again, glancing over her shoulder to check on the others.

While she and Koda were standing to one side of the road, the hunters from Silverstone were crowded together on the deep porch of a large tavern set on one side of the large square that made up the High Market.

Each of the exhausted hunters had steaming bowls of soup that were being dished up and shared by the tavern owner in thanks for their hard work. A small brazier set on the porch allowed the sodden members of their little group to dry off in turns.

Calandra had wandered off about an hour earlier, saying she needed to report in to find out what the next steps for the town were. The ornery dwarf had looked as ragged as Koda felt, but she continued on with a determined grimace, marching up to the town hall in her mud and blood spattered armor.

“That Arthene is. I can’t fault her though,” Koda wiped the last of the mud from Sienna’s face that he could. She still had smudges, but was in far better condition thanks to the attention. “It’s a simple but fulfilling way to live your life, after all.”

“Fair. And I won’t object if you wish to join her in that attitude, my mate,” Sienna said while pulling Koda down for a kiss using the front of his shirt. “Just try to be a bit more reserved in public than she is?”

“As long as I can be uninhibited with my mates in private,” Koda teased back, nuzzling said mate lightly. The action got another cheerful hum from Sienna, and the swish of her tail picked up speed before she began to return the favor.

Sienna used a combination of her rain-soaked cloak and a spare bit of cloth she pulled from her belt to wipe the mud, blood, and other stains from his face while they shared a quiet moment.

As was becoming all too common for Koda, though, their private moment was interrupted far too quickly by a rather unwelcome source.

“So, you are the mercenaries that Guardswoman Dempsey saw fit to deputize then?”

The stiff voice came from behind Koda and he turned tiredly to meet the pristine frown of a well-dressed man in the lead of a group of four others who were bracketed on each side by nearly a dozen of the City Guard.

“Aye, you could say that,” Koda replied, eying the speaker up before scanning the group at his back.

He recognized Tomlin at the head of the guard escort, and from the sparkling-clean uniforms the others were sporting and the fine clothes of the five who stayed within the guard’s circle, he guessed this had to be the town council for Amberpost. A thought that was confirmed when he spotted the scowling Yanus amongst them.

Movement at the back caught his attention and Koda saw Calandra scowling from one side of the group, her Dane-axe slung over her shoulder and a belligerent tilt to her chin as she stumped along at the rear of their formation.

“I wanted to thank you and your… fellows for the assistance you rendered our town last night.” The richly dressed man in the lead continued, and Koda had to bite back a snarl at the derision in the man’s tone.

For someone who was hiding in his hole like a scared rabbit last night, he’s on a remarkably high horse, Koda thought. He let his gaze play over the others who stood behind the speaker and the guards nearby. All of them looked to be in fine spirits and as if they’d had a good night’s sleep as well as a bath already. Everyone except for Calandra that is.

Turning his attention back to the man in the lead, Koda gave him another quick once over. The man was older, probably in his late forties based on the graying hair and beard, along with the slowly retreating widow’s peaks. He was dressed exceedingly well in finely tailored clothes in a dark burgundy and chocolate brown with gold thread embroideries at the cuffs and collar. He wore a long, open-front jacket of leather with silver buttons on top of it all, and a small, round fur cap. The outfit would have looked good on a younger man, powerful even. But with how his pronounced gut shoved the jacket open and his long beard draped over it like frosting on a cinnamon roll, he looked like a badly done Santa knockoff.

This was the man who shouted from the window last night, then hid again, Koda thought, biting back a wry smirk.

“We are glad to assist. The Crooked are a plague on this land and need to be driven from it for all of our safety,” Koda said at last.

He didn’t need to look to know that Sienna had settled into position on his left and slightly back, her spear held loosely at the ready. A scrape of boots on the porch behind him told Koda that the others were coming to support him.

“Yes, well… that is true. Your assistance saved our people some suffering, and as such I wanted to properly express the gratitude of Amberpost,” the man said, his superior sneer melting into a concerned expression for a moment before he schooled himself.

Digging into one pocket of his leather coat, the man produced a fat pouch about the size of an apple and held it out to Koda with an affected nonchalance.

Koda accepted the pouch, feeling the weight and shape of coins inside. He handed it off to Sienna without hesitation, not looking away from the man in front of him.

“While I am glad to have been of service, I was wondering how it is that a town as large as Amberpost struggled with the Crooked for so long,” Koda said after a moment of awkward staring. He’d had too many supervisors on the construction yard that used awkward silences to try to drag secrets out of their workers for it to bother him, but it clearly made this foppish man nervous.

“It is not your place—” Tomlin began to growl, the guard captain taking half a step forward aggressively, but he stopped when Koda turned his gaze to the man.

“It is my place to ask, as I had to step in to help, since you couldn’t do your job,” Koda said coldly. He watched as Tomlin’s face began to redden, the angry flush on his sallow cheeks turning it a sickly plum color in seconds.

“It is a fair question,” the still-unnamed councilman said. “Unfortunately, the City Guard was stretched thin before. Constraints imposed by poor harvests and insufficient taxes, you see.” The man’s oily smile did not reach his eyes, clearly more comfortable on this ground than he had been earlier.

“So you just happened to be caught at a terrible moment when the town wasn’t ready? Surprising, given that this is a frontier settlement,” Koda drawled, glancing over at the assembled group. Calandra was glaring at the councilman, fury boiling in her olive eyes.

“Yes, it is quite unfortunate, but there was simply nothing we could do. I mean, who expects an army of monsters to show up on their doorstep?”

“Someone who is prepared to look after the people under them,” Koda replied dryly. “Being prepared to defend yourself is necessary out here on the edge of the wilds, isn’t it?”

“Yes, unfortunately. We will have to see about raising the tax—” the oily councilman began to say, and Koda swore he could see the greed floating in the man’s eyes like coins sparkling in a wishing well. But before he could get further along, Calandra’d clearly had enough and spoke up.

“Unfortunately, yes. Because, unfortunately, the Guard is undermanned. Because, unfortunately, there isn’t funding to properly garrison the city guard.” Calandra’s words were spoken in a vehement snarl that made the fat councilman pale.

“The taxes…” he began to protest, but Calandra continued speaking right over top of him.

“Are sufficient enough that the council can afford to continually redecorate the town hall, pay themselves a frankly egregious wage, and all manner of things? But apparently we can’t even afford to train and equip more than the bare minimum of guards to protect the city!”

“Guardswoman!” Tomlin near-shouted, the volume and his glare finally enough to cut Calandra off. The two of them glared at each other ferociously for several long seconds before Tomlin spoke again. “Councilman Ulyss is correct in that we do not have the funds to equip and train more guards. And even if we did have more fighting men and women, they would just be drafted from our forces by the baron, anyway.”

“That’s right!” insisted Ulyss, clearly eager to deflect the blame from what Koda was beginning to suspect was a skimming operation from the town’s coffers. “So we have to make do with what we have, after all.”

Calandra snorted derisively, her glare transferring from her captain to the councilman, making the fat man quail.

“And what are you going to do now that the city is in shambles, part of it is burnt to the ground and we have even less guards to protect it with?” Calandra demanded.

Movement behind the group drew Koda’s attention, and he glanced up to see a small crowd of citizens had formed up and were listening to the argument continue. Many were scowling at the council and more than a few were looking rather murderous in the wake of the information Calandra had so easily bandied about.

“We will have to rebuild!” insisted Ulyss, his nose already rising into the air. “We cannot let Amberpost fall to these savages. It will be tough, but I am sure that our people will be able to band together in these trying times!”

“What about the Crooked?” called one of the onlookers, drawing the councilman’s attention to the spectators and making the man blanch at the number of folks glaring at him. “What if they attack again?”

“We will throw them back!” Tomlin interjected. “This is our home, and we will defend it! Our parents and grandparents tamed this land, and it is ours by right. If we work together, then there is no challenge we cannot overcome.”

For all that the man was limp-wristed last night, he’s not bad at swinging people, Koda thought when he saw nods spread through the group of onlookers.

Calandra, though, was still scowling.

“How?” the dwarf demanded, her free hand planted on her hip. “It’s going to cost money to rebuild, and time. Neither of which we have much of.”

“We will just have to… tighten our belts,” Yanus said, the councilman looking pleased with himself for the suggestion, though the mood of the crowd took a downturn at his words again.

“Be that as it may, we will figure something out,” Tomlin interjected, hurrying to cover the other man’s gaff. “We need to prepare for the enemy to return, begin the process of rebuilding, and bury our dead. Leave tomorrow until then. We need to focus on getting through today.”

Fair, Koda thought without letting his own annoyance show on his face. But it’s easy enough to say, since he still has a job. I wonder how well this town is going to do if Arthene isn’t able to drive the Crooked far enough…

As the crowd began shouting more questions at the council, and the men and women did their best to encourage the citizens, Koda let his mind fall back on his worries for his large mate. As if she could sense his concerns, Sienna stepped up to lean into Koda’s side, her free hand slipping around his waist comfortingly.