Laryn nodded as Kenna explained what had happened that night. Standing in the light of the fire, turning slowly to face the people she addressed, Laryn saw the nobility in her. Truly, Kenna had been born to lead.

  She explained how Harrat was searching for her; how she’d once been married to him.

  “That night, when I was on the beach, I came face to face with Devlin. I knew he recognized me. I knew that he’d go straight back to Harrat. That man will stop at nothing to destroy me, now. I didn’t want to do it but I had to stop him. I stabbed him, and left him for dead. And I was afraid that I would fall under the condemnation of the law, so I fled.

  “Laryn saw me running. He saw the dead body. He saw the bridge collapse as I crossed it, and he saved me from the river. In the end my actions didn’t even matter. Harrat’s men saw us fleeing through the woods, and he knows where I am.”

  A few murmurs ran through the crowd.

  “That sounds like self defense to me,” Thallon said.

  Laryn silenced them. “Kenna didn’t kill a subject of the kingdom. She misunderstood the law. But she did disobey a direct order and will be punished for that.”

  “That’s not right,” Gall said, stepping forward. “You ordered me to make sure that scout was secured and I failed to do that. Kenna never would have been in this situation were it not for my failing.”

  Laryn shook his head. “This isn’t about you, Gall.”

  “Yes it is,” the grizzled warrior said. “Its every bit as much about me as it is about her.” He pointed to Kenna.

  “Did you let Devlin free?”

  “No. I thought I made his prison secure enough…”

  “You tried to obey my orders,” Laryn said. “She did not.”

  “She did the best she could, given the circumstances. If you’re going to punish her, I demand to be punished as well.”

  Laryn pursed his lips. He didn’t like this.

  “And if I order you to sit back down and leave things be?”

  “Then I’ll disobey you, and you’ll be forced to punish me.”

  Laryn turned in a circle, examining the faces of the people of his kingdom. “Fine. You will be punished alongside Kenna. Let this be a lesson to all of us. The goblins,” he pointed across the river toward their camp, “are now subjects of Vallor. The rules apply equally to them and us.”

  A few mutters of discontent rolled through the crowd.

  “The punishment for this disobedience will be twelve stripes,” Laryn declared. He held out a hand and Gaten gave him a slender green rod, cut from a tree earlier. Laryn had considered who would be best to administer the punishment, and then determined that it wouldn’t be right to place that burden on someone else.

  He was the [Ruler]. This was his duty.

  Using the whip, he struck Kenna first. She wept as long red welts appeared across her back, but she did not cry out. She retreated into the darkness as Laryn turned to Gall. The fighter grunted, and Laryn’s blows cut small lacerations into his back.

  When he rose, he turned a sour look on Laryn. But he did not speak.

  Laryn retired to his shelter that night with an uneasy feeling in his stomach.

  The next few days passed in a whirlwind of preparations. The remaining bodies were sifted, producing 1163 essence for the core. This brought the average influence of the kingdom up to 1.8, which helped with the work being done.

  More importantly, Laryn assigned the goblins to move out and begin working some of the nearby gold mines that had been abandoned. He also had the creatures building structures; walls, towers, trenches, and other fortifications, on the north shore of the Ebil river.

  The mines had been largely abandoned over the last few years as aggressive void and reductions in goblin numbers made their maintenance untenable. But there was gold there, and Laryn was determined to have it out, much to Thallon’s delight.

  The task also gave the goblin horde something to do and focus on, and within a few short days, gold was flowing into the kingdom.

  As Korwin pointed out, the gold was pointless without someone to trade with, but Laryn was happy with the first steps toward civilization.

  Progress was made with the construction of the many buildings on the island, but most of their efforts were focused on defensive positions.

  A higher, sturdier bridge was constructed, crossing the Ebil to the southern holdings of Vallor. This was an essential project, since most of the food for Vallor grew there.

  Laryn called a council meeting.

  Each of his [Councilors] gathered; Thallon, Hela, Kenna, Korwin, and Gall. Thallon’s leg was healing well, and he was in high spirits that he’d be walking around freely in a short time. Hela was grumbling about goblins not following her orders for properly healing their wounds to Kenna. Kenna smiled and nodded vaguely to the comments.

  Laryn knew she was relieved that the southern bridge was now functional, since she was primarily in charge of their food supplies.

  Calling the meeting to order, Laryn couldn’t help but beam. What had been a rag-tag group of criminals and refugees had developed into something much more. They’d faced the challenge of Void and Harrat, and come out on top.

  “Harrat isn’t down with us,” Laryn said. “He successfully cleared the void from the pass, and now scouts have established that he’s preparing to make a move. Probably soon. He seems to have deactivated a few of his kingdom cores, which means he intends to set up a new kingdom nearby, to leverage the benefits of influence.”

  “He’ll never stop, not now that he knows I’m here,” Kenna said.

  “He still outnumbers us, despite our reinforcements. Current estimates are one and a half banners of fighting men, and hundreds more of support. That’s two to one against us, even with the goblins.”

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  “And they hardly count for half a man,” Gall said darkly.

  “Come now,” Laryn chided. “We are all working toward the same goal here. No need for…”

  “Is this a kingdom of men or of goblins?” Hela moaned.

  At that moment a horn sounded. Laryn looked outside, and saw Zaremba’s palanquin coming across the bridge, heading his way.

  “Adi,” he said, “When I told you to gather the council…”

  “I notified all of them,” she said. “Zaremba is a [Councilor].”

  “I didn’t really mean for her to be… oh well, I suppose she can join us. We’ll be discussing things that impact her.”

  The goblins carrying the palanquin knelt, setting the vehicle down, then bowed, pressing foreheads to the sand. Zaremba emerged and stepped down onto the back of one of her bearers. The creature shivered with pleasure.

  “Welcome,” Laryn said. “We were just waiting for you before getting started.

  The room was awkwardly quiet as Zaremba entered. Everyone stood, since there was little room for furniture, and Thatch hadn’t made many chairs yet.

  Zaremba stood erect, all 130 centimeters of her, and she gazed into the eyes of the much taller humans standing around.

  “This is the council,” Laryn said, and quickly introduced each of the members to the goblin princess.

  “We need more food,” Zaremba said. “We are unable to find enough in the wilderness to feed so many goblins right now.”

  “This is what I was afraid of,” Kenna said. “There are too many mouths to feed. The prisoners alone eat—”

  Laryn cut her off. “Zaremba, part of our agreement was that your goblins would work to support the kingdom; providing resources, and helping gather materials for sifting.”

  “And we have been gathering gold.”

  “But not all of that gold is being brought back to Vallor. Many of your goblins are hoarding gold for themselves.”

  “You accuse us of stealing?”

  “No. Merely of a natural impulse to collect gold. I’m certain of it. But I’ve been thinking about the best way to manage this larger kingdom of ours; and I think it’s time that we begin implementing a trade plan, within our own borders.”

  Korwin nodded. This was something she’d been discussing with him.

  “Your proposal?” Zaremba said.

  “Under the management of Korwin, I’d like to establish trade between the north and the south. We have food, you have gold.”

  Zaremba scratched her head. Her silky hair bounced as pushed her fingers through it.

  “Food for gold. You cannot eat gold. But we deserve to be fed, in exchange for our labors for the kingdom.”

  “Nobody deserves anything,” Korwin said. “You work or you starve.”

  “We are working and starving,” Zaremba snapped.

  “You agreed to certain terms of supporting the kingdom when you became a subject,” Laryn said. “Korwin is right. We’ve already given you a lot; food, medical care, even land. It’s not because you deserve it, but because we appreciate what was done to help us fight against Harrat.”

  Zaremba glowered.

  “Korwin will negotiate a price with you for bulk food stuffs. You can distribute that among your people as you see fit. For special foods or ingredients, we’ll set up a system where goblins can make personal purchases with personal funds.”

  The councilors around the room nodded in agreement.

  “And Thallon, this is a good time for you to start working on that coinage project.”

  The big man smiled and offered a thumbs up. “It’s about time,” he said.

  “We can start using gold coins as a medium for exchange and valuation of labor,” Laryn said. “And that means that we will need to implement taxation as well, but the details of that can be worked out over time. For now, as long as we’re satisfied with the food arrangement, we need to talk about dealing with Harrat.”

  Laryn went around the room. Each of his councilors agreed to the arrangement, though Zaremba did not seem thrilled about it.

  “What about the prisoners?” Gall asked. “Are they going to pay for their food too?”

  “Sixty three men is a lot of mouths to feed,” Kenna said.

  “They’ll have to work for their keep,” Laryn said. “Maybe we can trade them back to Harrat somehow?”

  “How many of them can stand?” Thallon asked.

  “About half of them are seriously injured,” Hela said. “Anyone who was only minorly injured retreated with Harrat. The rest are able bodied.”

  “Then they’ll have to earn the keep of the injured ones,” Laryn said.

  “Are you proposing adding them to the kingdom?” Kenna asked.

  Laryn thought about that for a moment. “I wasn’t. But could that be a solution?”

  “They’d have to agree to it,” Adi said.

  “Could we coerce them? Withhold food unless they agreed? How does that work, if they’re already subjects of another kingdom?”

  “Depends on the arrangement they have with the other kingdom,” Adi said. “And I guess you could coerce them…”

  “I’ll keep that in my pocket for later,” Laryn said. “But they’ll have to work. They’ll be easier to guard if they’re busy, too. We’ll feed the injured ones, but if they’re capable, the rule applies. If you don’t work, you don’t eat.”

  Muttered agreements.

  “Lets talk about how we’re going to expand our defenses. We need to block off entrance to the kingdom on the north bank at these three points.” Laryn pointed down at the map, indicating the northwest gap, the passage along the river bank to the east, and the swamps at the foot of the cliffs to the west.

  “I think the swamp will prevent any rapid passage of soldiers, but I want a watch tower there, and I was thinking that we could dig a moat along here. This project might be a good one for the prisoners. A real gate at the northwest gap will be effective, and ramps to help us access the tops of the ridges, using them as natural barriers.

  “We’re most vulnerable to the south. If Harrat crosses the river and comes at us from Annar, we can drop the bridge and be largely secure on the island, but that is where a lot of our food comes from.”

  “We can make a good run at storing food on the island,” Kenna said.

  “We’ll want to do as much of that as possible.” Laryn scratched his head. “We still need a better way to defend ourselves. Everyone consider possibilities. For now, I want to make sure we’re regularly running scouts far to the east along the river, to detect any sign that they might be trying to cut around and attack from the south.”

  “In the mean time,” Laryn said, “Kenna and I are going to recover the spell module.”

  “You can’t leave again,” Adi exclaimed.

  “It won’t be for long. Nobody else can do it. Thallon might be able to carry the module, if his leg wasn’t broken. I have the strength buffs required, so I’m going to recover the module.”

  “You could send a few men,” Gall said. “You don’t have to carry the whole thing yourself.”

  “The more people we send, the more likely you Harrat’s scouts get involved. Then we’ll be worrying about sending even more men to defend the porters, and once we get to that point we may as well send all the goblins too. No, it’s better if it’s smaller. The two of us can move quietly and quickly. We won’t attract attention.”

  Zaremba and Adi both folded their arms, oddly imitating each other’s body language. Thallon and Gall both shrugged.

  “How far is it?” Gall asked Kenna.

  “Near Jardensvale.”

  “So you won’t be gone long. If you run into trouble?”

  “I can handle any trouble,” Laryn said. “But it wouldn’t be a bad idea to have a force ready to back us up in case of an emergency.”

  “Let’s plan on it, then,” Gall said. “I’ll organize that.”

  “Top priority is preparing our defenses,” Laryn said. “If we do a good job we can probably hold against Harrat’s force.”

  “Let’s crack on with it then,” Thallon said, deep voice suggesting an end to the dragging meeting.

  “My mages?” Zaremba said.

  “You’ll get them,” Laryn said. “But part of the deal was you had to provide supplies for sifting to help claim the rings we’re going to need. That part is on you.”

  With that, Laryn left his small shelter, leaving his councilors inside. He needed to get ahold of Kenna’s spell module as soon as possible.