Oakridge’s city bells rang all the way from the river, up the hillocks, to the wooden barricade around the town. Their delegation, in which Adarin was herding all the usual suspects, alongside a significant honor guard of undead pikemen and musketeers, made it up the muddy hill. It took the necromancers time to adjust for the slope to get all the skeletons up safely. All the while the temple bell pounded without pause.

  “Is their guard usually asleep in a wine cellar or why do they keep ringing the damned bell?” a sergeant grumbled with the weariness only an old soldier could muster. Chuckles rippled through the group.

  Francesco replied in a thoughtful tone next to Adarin. “I think they haven’t seen an army in a long time, and given our track record, I would consider their actions rather prudent.”

  Duchess Viola tensed as Adarin chuckled. “If I knew we were coming, I would lay an ambush instead of ringing a bell.” She pressed her lips shut and her eyes grew wide, as if she had only just realized what she was implying.

  Adarin shook his head. “The two aren’t mutually exclusive. You can try to stealth an ambush in silence, but some of the most effective ambushes I’ve done were in bright daylight. Nobody expects an ambush to happen in public.”

  Murmurs of agreement rose as Oakridge’s wooden palisades came into full view over the last ridge and the sour smell of animal piss and too many humans of a city drifted in the gentle breeze.

  A dozen city guards and three dignitaries awaited them. His manipulators crunched in the soaked gravel of the road and, ten meters from the town’s delegation, he raised up one of them. Their own honor guard stopped, taking up a loose formation of pikes on the outside, musketeers and mages on the inside.

  The three dignitaries of the town bowed and Adarin noticed the dozens—no, hundreds—of faces observing them over the wall in an excited, anticipatory silence.

  “Greetings.” The man’s accent reminded him of the Marholians. “I am Baron Mistlokov, first speaker of the city of Oakridge. Whom do I have the honor of addressing?”

  That accent… it sounds like the Marrholdians I’ve spoken to. Adarin reached out to Duchess Viola over the noospheric link. ‘Would you do the honors?’

  A tense moment of silence followed. ‘Promise that you won’t betray any deal I make; you will honor it in good faith, Adarin. I don’t want a repeat of Timberlanding.’

  Adarin ran a split-second calculation. This town isn’t blockading the river. Worst case, we make no deal and send an army later. He nodded to himself and replied in the aetheric. ‘Certainly, Duchess. I swear I will honor any deal you manage to negotiate in good faith, as long as it is to the benefit of the Republic.’

  She sniffed mentally. ‘Of course it will be to the benefit of the Republic, Special Envoy. I am, after all, a consul.’

  Duchess Viola lowered her head and so began the introductions. After pleasantries were exchanged, Adarin gestured at the duchess and raised the manipulator.

  “Say, Baron, we came across a town destroyed by wyverns today.”

  Murmurs rose from behind the wall and the Baron’s face became a mask of determination, anger, and sadness.

  “Which town?”

  A man next to him growled something unintelligible but full of angry cadence.

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  “Ashfurth.” Adarin pointed to pillars of smoke downriver.

  The Baron pressed his eyes shut and looked to the ground. “There were good people there. I knew the blacksmith. Any survivors? We saw the smoke, but thought…”

  “Yes,” Liora said. “I’m a healer, priestess of Mother Ishna. I saved who I could—”

  But the Baron cut her off. “But the wounds rarely leave anyone alive, do they?”

  Liora shook her head and let out a long breath. “Two dozen survivors. They’re on our ships.”

  The Baron nodded with a grave expression matching the mood of the crowd. “Very well. If they want it, they’ll have a place in Oakridge.”

  Adarin had a sudden idea and reached out to the duchess. She hesitated for a few seconds, then shrugged and agreed.

  She spoke up. “Honored Baron.” She looked around at the fields and the state of some of the guardsmen. Their faces were gaunt. “Am I correct in guessing that your farmers have been terrorized by the wyverns?”

  The Baron nodded. “Ever since their broodlings became capable of hunting.”

  “So, I don’t know how much you know about what has happened in the Crusade, but those lands and the city of Portguard are under the control of the Order of the Invisible Hand. We claim this land in the name of the New Republic of Bone.”

  She got a parchment from a satchel and held it out to the Baron. “Peruse this document at your leisure. However, I propose that we get rid of the wyverns for you, demonstrating our ability to protect you, and Oakridge joins the Republic.”

  Murmurs spread like wildfire on the wall, and the dignitaries—even their guards who had been stoically standing before—exchanged looks. The Baron bit his lower lip and took the scroll. He read the Constitution aloud, each article stirring louder murmurs.

  Adarin inclined his head. “Francesco, what do you think?”

  “Well, it sounds like murmurs of excitement,” he said with a smile, speaking over the spheric link. “No cries of outrage yet. No rotten fruits thrown at us. When dealing with peasants, in my experience, that’s one of the best outcomes possible.”

  The Baron looked around. “I’ll be honest, honored Duchess. Wyverns have been a pest. We’ve lost three dozen good men and women to them. Farmers can only go into the fields under the guard of archers.”

  For the first time, one of the man’s companions spoke up. She spoke with an odd lisp, and Adarin noticed her eyes were bloodshot. “Yes, it would be most joyous to get rid of the scaled pests—yet at the price of our freedom?”

  Silence spread out from the delegation to the townsfolk. Hundreds of eyes fell onto the Duchess, and she looked from side to side and spread her hands wide in an all-encompassing gesture. Her voice rose and she began speaking.

  “You have survived the hardships of the Green Tide. You have survived and resisted occupation. You have suffered the terror of the wyverns. Yet consider the future. The valiant town of Oakridge—might have stood against chaos, but the Republic brings order. All cities, even the once mighty Timberlanding, have submitted to us. As you have heard, our conditions are quite generous. Your Council of Speakers will remain in command of the city.”

  Suddenly there was a commotion at the gate, interrupting her speech.

  “Let me through, I say!” hissed an old man, ragged in clothes and beard, dragging a goat as two guards tried to block him.

  “Let me speak to them, Mayor! Them’s real soldiers, unlike yer boys!”

  The Baron turned around and pressed his eyes shut. “Old Jenkins, this is not the time or place for your eccentricities.” He spoke with a very loud and clear voice.

  The old man turned, cupping his hand behind his ears. “What did you say?” he responded, wearing a shit-eating grin.

  The Baron grimaced. He gestured to the guards. “Restrain him.” But a flicker of compassion ran over his face. “But do not injure him.”

  Adarin studied his companions. A clear sneer was on Francesco’s face. Liora was watching with detached amusement, like someone who had grown up with the eccentricities of village life. The Duchess held a look of pity, and the other mages and musketeers were somewhere between amusement and keeping a stoic mask of duty and professionalism.

  Adarin raised the manipulator again. “I would hear what this man has to say.”

  The Baron turned around. “Sir Adarin… Old Jenkins is…” His tongue moved in his mouth as if searching for words, tasting them, then dismissing them for their bitter taste.

  “A crazy drunkard!” someone screamed from over the wall, and laughter erupted.

  Old Jenkins looked around. “Whaaaat?” he cried out again and pulled on the string of his goat. It bleated in protest.

  “It begins,” Adarin muttered. Can’t we have one normal diplomatic exchange that doesn’t spiral into chaos?