Executor Aelia Etrani quickly discovered that the Hellfrost Legion’s mandate to protect the prison town from voidspawn ran into an unfortunate snag: only a suicidal fool would willingly march out into the wastes day after day to fight monsters whose very blood held a curse. Even in Hellfrost, suicidal fools were in short supply. Aven was, after all, only one man.

  A second snag: the newly appointed head warden had principles. Unlike Yvris and Erdrak, Esharah found the idea of forcing prisoners to risk life and limb for the empire’s gain distasteful. While Aelia’s objections to the practice stemmed from practicality as much as morality (malnourished, rebellious criminals were perhaps not always the best folk to entrust the safety of the empire), she agreed.

  Virtuous heroes of the empire might have fought the voidspawn of their own will. Virtue was also of limited supply in Hellfrost.

  Thus Aelia’s scheme. If neither force nor virtue would compel rational minds to fight the voidspawn, that left profit. Bounties on dangerous beasts were a long-held tradition for dealing with wolves or other dangerous beasts on the imperial frontier. A difficulty: voidspawn were never hunted individually, only as a group. Splitting bounties across dozens would be a complicated task. Further, the majority of the voidspawn, the dog-sized insectoids that some bestiaries called “half-spawn” or pupae, held little direct value individually. A direct bounty system might encourage the teams to ignore those threats and focus solely on the larger.

  The solution followed, reforming the legions into a shared-profit cooperative where each soldier owned shares in accordance with their position, while Hellfrost itself held a portion of shares as well. Any soldier not earning their share was for the legion’s leadership (i.e. Aven Arvanius) to identify. Daily wages were set by the expected profits (using a conservative baseline), with bonuses paid for exceeding the anticipated amount.

  Only after a half-hour of joyfully detailing the minutiae of the plan to the assembled leaders did Etrani realize that most of them were giving blank looks.

  “We kill more voidspawn, we get paid more,” Aven simplified the message to his sergeants.

  The shrugs and nods of the prisoners-turned-soldiers made it clear that the concept made sense, though the enthusiasm was decidedly less than Aelia had hoped for.

  Now, after the first month of the plan, the accounting was finally done, and the enthusiasm was much more vocal. As it turned out, the soldiers required the coin actually in their hands for the numbers to be real. Why others lacked the imagination to understand that ledgers were just as real escaped Aelia’s grasp, but she resolved to adjust her expectations for the future.

  She stood outside the hall as the coins were paid, listening to the shouts.

  “Heard from Akra that the quarry profit shares brought even bigger bonuses,” Aven noted.

  The tone was difficult to cipher. Was it envy? Vicarious joy? A veiled statement that there was an imbalance between the two cooperatives? Esharah came to the rescue, flashing an impression of Aven’s emotions to Etrani. Ah, approval. Aven approved of the success. Aelia returned gratitude through the connection Esharah had formed. A mindspeaker was truly a valuable resource, valuable to Aelia as an interpreter in a land where everyone spoke a different language. From the paralyzing number of possibilities fickle human emotions could take, Esharah could pinpoint the truth and let her know.

  “Yields are at 250% of Yvris’ idiotic quotas,” Aelia said. Alas, neither the man nor the dezar present quite shared an appreciation for what a miracle that number was. “...that is a lot.”

  Aven and Esharah cheered and raised their glasses, each taking a swig. Aelia abstained. She was still trying to understand why people enjoyed poisoning their bodies and minds while risking inebriation. Somehow, others seemed to take removal of inhibitions as a positive. Aelia had spent twenty-five years carefully calibrating her inhibitions to minimize humiliation; removing them seemed madness.

  “And the grain harvest?” Esharah asked. Another trait of working with a mindspeaker and empath — Esharah could pinpoint the sources of Aelia’s anxiety with a deadeye’s precision.

  “It will be...close,” Aelia resisted the urge to run the numbers for the fourteenth time. She’d lost enough sleep over the calculations. Letting the numbers rule her waking thoughts risked giving them too much power. “In scenarios where the frost strikes early, stricter rationing may be required.”

  Added to Yvris’ many sins, Aelia had discovered the granary storage lower than it should have been. Records from merchants in Northstar confirmed her fears that Yvris had been selling off Hellfrost’s stored grain. Not enough to guarantee starvation, but enough to make it a tangible risk.

  “What about the collections from the outlying villages?” Aven asked.

  “Ongoing,” Aelia answered. Another bit of uncertainty. The records of past years were too incomplete to create a reasonable estimation. Of the four villages that fed into Hellfrost, they’d received the appropriate tax payments from three. The last, Frostwood, a hunting-and-fishing village to the southwest forests, was more of an unknown. “The...resistance has slowed things.” Not rebellion, thank the paragons. Merely stubbornness. Yvris’ collectors had squeezed out more than the law demanded from the outlying farmers. As a response, they’d begun hiding some stores. Prompting the collectors to squeeze harder to reach the actual imperial quotas, setting off the cycle again. Convincing the farmers that Hellfrost intended to take exactly what the law demanded, neither more nor less, was a difficult task. As the most distant of Hellfrost’s direct tributaries, Frostwood remained the most difficult, especially since fishing and hunting yields necessarily were more difficult to track than grain yields.

  Aelia set that concern aside for now. They would receive word in time to make preparations, either for famine or excess, for the winter.

  Another round of cheers went up inside the hall as a group finished collecting their shares.

  “I think the taverns will be busy tonight,” Esharah grinned, taking another gulp of wine.

  “Not to mention the bathhouse,” Aven matched the grin.

  Neither seemed to notice Aelia’s sniff of distaste. Some honored cultural activities of the empire did not, in Aelia’s opinion, merit approval.

  “Then you’ll be making a visit yourself?” Aelia quashed her disapproval and asked the captain.

  Aven grinned and leaned back in his chair, “Of course. A good long visit. Duty calls.”

  * * *

  “...and the work’s twice as long as before,” Maddox complained, sinking lower into the bath.

  “It must be hard for you,” Merita’s sympathetic voice was almost as heavenly as her kneading hands. “Oh dear, I can feel a knot right here.”

  The special attention to that knot sent a groan of delight through him. The woman could work magic. A blessing, because it seemed that the universe conspired to make Maddox’s life a misery. ‘Course fate couldn’t be happy just removing Zadrine’s meanness from his life. Had to replace her with a taskmaster that would make the demons of the void wail in sympathy. Yvris might’ve been a loon, Zadrine might’ve been a sadist, but at least Maddox could count on them to look the other way occasionally. Etrani was as unyielding as iron. The slightest slip in the quality or quantity of Maddox’s work, and the whip was flying. Metaphorically. The whip being extra work duties and those squinty glares, as if the godsdamned scribbler couldn’t figure out why everyone wasn’t as blighted perfect in their work as she was. And with Esharah in charge of the prison now, Maddox couldn’t even hide in his own head.

  This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.

  Least Merita was sympathetic as always. Maddox was fuzzy on gods, but that woman at least was an angel.

  Then there was the new lass Madame Verina had just brought in, Charli. Just of age, she was. Fresh from some farming family and so shy. A sweet little flower. Not giving out massages like Merita yet, of course, but in a few years...well, damn, Maddox wasn’t a patient man.

  Maddox was dreaming up some way to get that flower to open up for him early, when Aven walked in. Maddox bit back a groan. That was it, then. Any hopes Maddox had of getting more attention were gone. All the damn bath attendants seemed enamored with the bastard. Gods knew why. Sure, Maddox himself was an ugly-as-sin pig, but was a cursed, black-veined prick really any more handsome?

  Immediately, a pair of the ladies rushed over to greet the captain. Maddox was surprised they didn’t drop their skirts as well, given the way they fawned over him. Lara was the oldest of the attendants, north of thirty and too saggy for Maddox’s taste. Aven still greeted her like she was the loveliest songstress in the Empire. Flattering prick. Even Madame Verina was all over him, leading him personally to that back room with the private bath.

  Cursed bastard must’ve sold his soul thrice over to the void to get those perks.

  “What’s a man gotta do to get the captain’s privileges, eh?” Maddox asked.

  Merita laughed softly, “He pays an auram per visit, love.”

  Maddox nearly choked on the cheap wine that accompanied a massage in the baths. A godsdamned gold auram. That’d be a full month’s rent for Maddox. He’d need to save up for weeks to meet that for a single visit.

  “What do you even do for him for that much?” Maddox asked, imagining the possibilities that real gold could buy.

  “Save up, and maybe you see for yourself,” Merita’s voice was sweet as honey.

  Save up. Right. Just needed to miss out on ale for a few weeks. And quit going to the bathhouse in the meantime, since they always seemed to leave his coinpurse even lighter than he intended. And take the smaller portions of dinner at the tavern to save a copper a day. And get the damned executor to stop docking wages for “inefficiency”.

  Bah. Better to simply curse the damned captain’s good fortune.

  Charli came out of the private room, giggling. The bastard was probably even charming the new girl while she got him ready for his private bath. Maddox watched the girl longingly as she left the bathhouse. Always off to fetch something for special customers. Oils, special soaps, or more imaginative implements.

  A moment later, she was back. Carrying what looked like a pair of knitting needles and a couple balls of yarn.

  Maddox gaped, “What on earth is the bastard having them do in there?”

  Merita gave his shoulders a squeeze and whispered conspiratorially in his ear, “You’ve got an imagination, love. Put it to use.”

  Maddox might be slow, but his imagination did work. And that mystery sent the wheels of imagination turning faster and harder than they had in a long time.

  * * *

  What did a bathhouse attendant do in a private bath with a special customer that involved knitting needles and yarn?

  The answer, of course, was knit.

  “What’s your project this time?” Aven asked from where he lounged, fully clothed, on a low couch.

  “New scarf for the nephew,” Lara replied, deftly looping yarn around one needle.

  In a town like Hellfrost, where entertainment was not exactly in abundant supply, the bathhouse was always busy when pay came through. As such, the attendants appreciated a well-earned break. Especially when it happened to come with extra pay. Aven got benefits as well, though certainly not in the form most of Hellfrost assumed.

  There was a currency more valuable than gold for leaders of a fragile order: information. The problem, Etrani had bemoaned when discussing the issue, was that so few were willing to disclose that information to the proper authorities. Yvris’ regime left behind too much distrust. The soldiers and guards had seen too much of his corruption and cruelty, the prisoners had been abused for so long they couldn’t trust their new leaders. Esharah could only do so much, especially given her reticence to delve too deep into others’ minds unsolicited.

  Aven had cracked the solution. Who would even a secretive, wary man spill his secrets to? A lovely woman who feigned interest.

  The ladies of the Waterlily House held more of Hellfrost’s secrets than any spymaster could ever hope to glean. And true to Aven’s hopes, Madame Verina was nothing if not a woman of business. In weekly visits, Aven brought his payment and his ear, listening as the attendants relaxed and recounted all the secrets spilled in their hallowed halls.

  “The executor’s plans have at least bought the quarries’ approval, if not their loyalty,” Madame Verina noted. She herself had forgone the knitting needles in favor of some fine lacework.

  “They’ve stopped calling her ‘the scribbler’ for the most part, at least,” Lara said.

  Another benefit of good relations with the ladies of the Waterlily: they had a deft control of narrative within Hellfrost. A positive word here, a praise there, and the whole town could be influenced in a positive direction. Where Etrani was concerned with truth, Aven and Esharah had to play their parts in making sure the story reflected the truth they desired.

  “And the mood among the legionaries?” Aven asked. Soldiers were better paid than common laborers and farmers, for the most part. Plus, the majority of soldiers in Hellfrost were men. Unattached men. A perfect pool of clientele for the bathhouse.

  Madame Verina glanced to her newest girl, Charli, “What have you heard, love?”

  Aven was careful to not meet Charli’s eye. Poor girl. Skittish around men still. Not ready in the slightest for the delicate balance of social skills that let the bathhouse ladies toe the line between teasing, flirtation, flattery, and professionalism. Convincing men that they were given exactly what they wanted, while denying their worst impulses. A delicate skill. The girl was drawn to the coin, Aven could only assume. For a girl whose father lost his leg, desperate measures had to be taken.

  “Erm, pa still complains,” the girl answered, fidgeting as she spun wool in the corner. “Still thinks we’re run by criminals and barbarians.” Her face paled. “Oh! Not that I think you’re a criminal or a barbarian, Captain. You seem like a gentleman, I swear!”

  “No offense taken,” Aven said. “Your pa has every right to his opinion.” Breton and Frostclaw barely tolerated Aven’s presence, and he’d fought directly alongside them in the voidspawn incursion. For a former soldier who’d lost his leg in service of the empire, Aven’s captaincy no doubt was an insult.

  The rest of the women had their reports as well. Mixes of complaints and approval, the usual. A few more concrete areas for improvement, a complaint about the bridge covering the river south of Hellfrost. No formal complaint yet, but Etrani adored infrastructure issues. Infrastructure was something to fix, a tangible problem with a tangible solution. Far easier to handle than public opinion.

  “Oh, Griffren was complaining that the hunters from Frostwood didn’t make it to last market day, so his tannery’s low on business,” Lara brought up.

  “Executor Etrani mentioned some trouble with the taxes coming in there,” Aven mused. “We’ll make sure nothing’s happened.” No more rumors seemed to be forthcoming from the ladies, so Aven spoke up himself when all the useful conversation died down. “There is a rather ridiculous rumor about myself that I’ve heard. One that might have originated within these very walls.”

  The ladies of the Waterlily took on expressions of perfect innocence, only twinkling in their eyes betraying the mischief they’d conspired.

  “And I’m sure it’s quite a rumor,” Madame Verina smiled.

  “It is,” Aven folded his arms and looked at them with mock sternness. “Ten inches? Really?”

  The ladies didn’t even bother trying to hide their laughter.

  “We’ve had to tell folks some story about why we enjoy your company so,” Lara said. “All the other lads are so curious.”

  Aven sighed and shook his head. Not that the rumors were unflattering, really. Some were quite the opposite. But he had to hear one more rumor that he was a “wild beast” or other bizarre rumors about his stamina and size...

  “You know, such rumors could frighten women away,” Aven complained. “Or worse, lead to some poor woman being terribly disappointed someday.”

  Something about that comment seemed to spark an even greater interest.

  “Oh, and is there a particular lady you’re worried about disappointing?” Madame Verina leaned in, looking like a cat ready to pounce on a hapless mouse.

  Oh, hells. Aven should have known better than to bring up such possibilities among women that he dealt with chiefly because of their propensity for collecting gossip.

  “A man must have some secrets,” Aven was annoyed to find that even a body made of void could still manage to blush.

  “Surely you know how safe your secrets are with us,” Lara put on an expression of perfect innocence.

  “Now, now, of course we would never press a man to give up secrets unwillingly,” Madame Verina said. She winked at Aven, “But remember that if you choose not to write your story, others will write it for you.”

  “Fine, fine,” Aven waved his hand. “But if I hear anyone in town using the term ‘voidprick’, I’ll know who started it.”

  From the laughter and gleam in the ladies’ eyes, Aven really should have known better than to give them ideas.

  * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

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