It took a couple of days to arrange everything.

  The surviving ogres both lacked the path to manage the vast farm that Cronk had constructed and the desire to shoulder that burden. They were not, however, blind to the value of the holding. They understood that the ranch could be sold to an investor or the bank for a fine sum. They knew it could be rented for a huge stipend. They entered negotiations with Tiller tentatively. It was Monk who seemed to drive them and urge them to compromise with the hoo-man.

  There seemed to be an undercurrent of “old ways” impacting them. They had gone to war, after all. When the dust had settled it had been the hoo-mans who stood as victors. They understood and seemed to make some allowance for the fact that it was they, Monk and the females, who had turned the course of that war in the hoo-mans’ favor. Nevertheless, there was a strange apologetic quality to the ogres in those early days. It was almost as though they felt like they carried the guilt for the aggression, not the alleged murderers of their kin.

  At the end of the day, they intrinsically seemed to believe that to the victor went the spoils. That alone did not get Tiller the ranch, but it certainly bought him a discount.

  Ten females and Monk survived. Monk seemed to have no practical value to the operation whatsoever, save that he was favorable to Tiller and company for some reason. The females all seemed to be on paths relating to the downstream production of the farm. Not one of them had a ranching path. Among the ten were two milkers, three craftspeople with alignments toward food, another three aligned toward leather products, a butcher, and the biggest female, Olga, was fascinated and focused on soap manufacturing.

  The negotiations see-sawed. The ogres wanted to maximize what they got from the arrangement. There were discussions that would have seen Tiller almost hired on as a contractor, maintaining the grass production while the ogres maintained ownership of the farm and the products. They could process and sell the products themselves and probably gain the best profit. That would have required them to figure out a solution to the lack of ranchers or others with beast-tending skills. It would have required them to deal with marketing and selling their products. It would have put upon them the need to find a way to finance the operations of the ranch, and pay Tiller, until they found a solution to their other problems.

  Tiller could see the incredible proposition before him. With the composter ramping up, his tillage farm would soon expand rapidly. Gaining the ranch would multiply the scale of his holdings. It would be complicated to manage and defend the two farms while they were so distant. He did envision a future where composter-produced soil filled all the space between them, uniting the farms as a single holding. That was the scale of the operation he would need to generate the awesome sums the three humans needed to pay the shopkeeper to get home.

  They finally reached an agreement on Day 29 of their time in this bizarre world.

  Tiller met Cutter and Reader after he concluded negotiations. They had been waiting outside one of the longhouses on the ranch that had survived the fires.

  Cutter arched an eyebrow. “Well?”

  Tiller exhaled slowly. “It’s done. We’ve shook and signed on it.”

  Reader shifted uneasily. “Should there be an, I don’t know, an outside party? Like a lawyer or an official or something to bear witness to that?”

  “You know, I have a really strong feeling that won’t be needed. I don’t even know how we’d go about that. In any case, Monk seems to have a really well-developed honor system. It looks like he’s pulling the strings with the other ones, and he won’t go back on the deal. To be honest, I don’t think they’ll have any reason to go back on it. Not with those terms.”

  Cutter snickered. “They fleeced you?”

  If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.

  “Not exactly. But they’ll be so well compensated that they should never have a reason to go back on the arrangement.”

  “So you got fleeced.”

  “First of all, big guy, that would be we got fleeced if that’s what happened. Second of all, no, most definitely no. We’re getting a massive production machine to add to our enterprise. The problem is that it’s not producing right now. I can just about keep the grass growing, but until I level up my band it’s going to be a struggle. What’s worse is that I don’t have the ability to manage the animals. Without a rancher or some kind of animal-tending path present, the animals just aren’t going to produce much. It means that, for now, we’re paying them for nothing.”

  Reader said, “And how much are we paying them exactly? For that matter, how the hell are we even paying them at all?”

  Tiller grimaced. His lips spread in a neat thin line. “We made a lot of coin from the spoils of the battle. Between the spare sigils we sold off and the gear we looted from the bodies, we have a bit of a nest egg. The soil we generated from the bodies—”

  Cutter cut in. “Weird how they didn’t mind us chucking them into the composter…”

  Tiller only nodded and went on, “With that extra soil the production on my side of the business will go up about 50%.”

  “I get the feeling that’s still not a sustainable arrangement,” Reader said, inspecting Tiller’s face with worried eyes.

  “Yeah… no… it’s not. We can keep them paid for two weeks, tops. Then we’re flat out.”

  “Holy shit, Tiller! That’s a fucking awful deal!” Cutter was stunned.

  Tiller said, “We need to be aggressive. We need to grow and grow. If we’re not expanding constantly then we’re never going to make the money we need.”

  Cutter turned on Reader. “I told you we shouldn’t have let him manage the negotiations.”

  Reader stammered, “He’s the business guy. He’s the one who understands what he can manage in terms of production and farming and all of that. We don’t know square one.”

  “Hah! I might be here for swinging weapons about the place, but I can do enough math to know that this stinks!”

  Tiller’s face flushed slightly. “Slow up. We just need a solution. We couldn’t let this slip through our fingers. If we get someone or some way to manage the animals then we will be absolutely rolling in it. We’ll have enough money to really start doubling down and growing. We’ll multiply our current revenue by… shit, four, five? More maybe… and that’s after we pay the ogres. This is the kind of opportunity you can’t let slip past you.”

  “Yeah, except it’s the kind of opportunity that could see us defaulting and getting sued or murdered or some shit.”

  Tiller flicked a finger toward him. “We’ve got an iron-banded fighter now. Do we still need to worry about getting murdered by a bunch of crafters?”

  “That’s not the point. If we default then the deal will be off, we’ll have paid them all our cash, and have nothing to show for it.”

  “That’s why we need to solve the problems.”

  “And how the fuck are we going to do that? Those are some pretty big problems! You’re really rolling the dice with this bullshit!”

  Tiller held up his arm and rotated it to show the green bar on his band. “You’re not the only one who’s leveling. I’m almost there. One more big achievement and I’ll be iron as well. Then my farming will bump up and I’ll be better at managing the grass. Apart from that we just need to hire on an animal tender of some kind to get the cattle growing and milking more.”

  “Huh… so that’s like the level we’re on? The current arc?”

  Reader laughed at that, with genuine if suppressed mirth. “It does kinda feel like that, doesn’t it…”

  Tiller started to speak, but a glance from Cutter silenced him. The big man gestured with a nod and Tiller turned his head to see Monk approaching.

  The shaman was carrying what looked like a leather-bound rectangle. The moderately sized ogre had a pleased expression on his face. In the days since the battle had ended Monk had increasingly warmed to the humans. Tiller wasn’t sure that he could really account for the intimacy that Monk had extended, but it had been useful.

  “Hoo-mans! The deal is done! We are partners now and forever! It’s a good day! A fortuitous day! I feel fortune smiling on us! We walk the path of destiny.”

  Cutter quipped, “We walk the path of destitution…”

  Monk flashed a confused glance. “What?”

  Tiller stepped between them. “Don’t mind him. He’s hormonal. What’s up, Monk?”

  Monk cocked his head, casting Tiller a strange side-eyed glance. “Our futures are tied now, yes? Your success is our success. You have, in a way, taken the mantle of the father. It is your duty to see the clan thrives. If you succeed we all prosper. Yes?”

  “Well… yeah, of course…”

  “Then it is in the best interest of our new tribe that you have this. It belongs to the ranch, to the tribe, and as the new leader, you are entitled to this.”

  Monk held up the leather-bound rectangle. It might have been called a book, but it was too thin. It was like a presentation book, or a thin binder.

  Cutter stepped around Tiller and eyed the item. “And what the hell is that?”

  Monk smiled warmly, a little too widely, and said, “The solution.”