Demesne 492 - Face Me

Rian was right. When Rilianne returned, it was with Yhal in tow, although not simply him. Otin and Xiasam were back, and this time Tafit was with them rather than Madsmif. Riz sighed a little. Couldn’t any of the more sensible Horotracts have come along, like Misdels or Frudo? It wasn’t that the two men weren’t reliable, but they could be so strange! Madsmif kept making strange food and pushing them on people, and Tafit would ask people to do things, say he’d explain later, and never explain!

…

Actually, they might fit in very well here…

“Ah, Wizard Rilianne,” Rian greeted once she was close enough. “I’m afraid that I was forced to alter certain terms while you were gone.”

Yhal snorted derisively, earning him an elbow from Xiasam.

Rilianne ignored the two. “And what new terms are these, Lord Rian?”

“Unfortunately, I will no longer be the one you make the argument to,” Rian said. “Believe me, I’d have preferred to do it myself, but I wasn’t given a choice in the matter. Everything else stands, however. So, who will be making the argument?”

Rian wasn’t surprised when Yhal stepped forward. “I will,” he said gruffly, barely concealed contempt in his eyes as he regarded Rian. Riz found the urge to knock that look off his face rising inside her, though she managed to keep her face smooth. Stop looking at her man like that! “Perhaps now you’ll finally stop with this foolishness of trying to take our food away from us.”

“An interesting way of phrasing it,” Rian said. “Well, shall we take this discussion away from the tents, Wizard Rilianne?” He gestured vaguely towards where they could see trees without tents staked beneath them. “We wouldn’t want to cause any unintended damage should things get enthusiastic.”

Without waiting for a reply, he turned and began walking away. Shana stood up and followed him, with Karina trailing behind her, conspicuously keeping herself between Shana and the wizards. Riz smoothly fell into step with them, as did the other women. They’d learned to react to the Great Binder’s quick and seemingly erratic way of walking, since she didn’t ever bother to warn anyone whether she was coming and going. Rilianne and the others could either follow or get left behind.

It wasn’t long before they reached the trees, and Rian immediately made himself comfortable by leaning against one, and incidentally guarding his back as he did. For all that he was more trusting, open and friendly than the Great Binder, he always liked to have his back against something when he could. This also made him look insolent and a little lazy, which was probably why the content in Yhal’s gaze deepened slightly.

“So, just to be certain that there are no miscommunications,” Rian said, “I will repeat the terms I gave Wizard Rilianne so that things will be clear.”

“Of course,” Xiasam said. “Though would you be willing to wait before we begin? We asked some of the others to come here to act as witnesses.”

“Of course, that’s no problem,” Rian said, waving a hand to dismiss the matter. “Is that them over there?”

Riz didn’t turn to look towards the indicated direction, instead keeping her gaze fixed on the midpoint between Shana and Rian so she could watch them both. Karina was looking up into the trees, nudging Shana to get her attention as Xiasam turned to look where Rian had indicated. “Yes, that’s them. I hope you don’t mind?”

“No, not at all,” Rian said, a gracious smile on his face, and how exactly did he make a smile ‘gracious’ instead of just a smile? “I assumed Wizard Rilianne would also be going to get witnesses. It’s just the smart thing to do when all you have is a verbal agreement, after all. Helps keep everyone honest.”

“Except when you change the terms,” Yhal said.

“Better before everyone had agreed to them than after,” Rian said, ignoring the implication he’d been dishonest. “Unfortunately, I was overruled after Wizard Rilianne left, otherwise I would have been perfectly willing to beat your face into the ground until you stopped moving.”

He said it so amicably it took Riz—and everyone but Xiasam and Rilianne, it seemed—a moment to realize what he’d actually said. When she did, Riz gave her man a second look as the words settled in. There was no boasting, threat, or insult, just a statement of fact as bland as if he was commenting on how refreshing the breeze was.

She was torn between being aroused at the confidence and terrified of his own words being turned back at him. While she knew he could fight, and was pretty good at it, by his own admission was better with a sword—or a stick—than with his bare hands. It shouldn’t come to that, but…

“Sadly,” he continued before anyone could reply, “it looks like that’s not going to be the case. Quite unfortunate, I was hoping to finally be able to settle your problem with me, whatever it is.”

Whatever reply Yhal could have made was interrupted as the witnesses finally reached them. While it took a moment with those who’d decided to grow beards, Riz recognized them. There were former officers among them, but there were also sergeants, quartermasters, some of the other wizards, and a few men and women that she knew had gotten married and were part of large families that had probably come with them, or at least a significant portion of it. What they had in common was beyond the fact that they had all been leaders was that all of them were known to be generally well-regarded and honest. Well, for a given value of honest. They knew better than to drop someone else into the latrine unless it was for something nasty, like a rape charge.

Oh, and Mevt was there too. In addition to the witnesses, a bunch of people—men, women and children—had also followed along, because if some people were going somewhere, it was probably something gossip-worthy, and there was probably nothing else to do. All in all, there were at least thirty people watching, with more coming in ones and twos as they saw that something was happening.

“Well, that seems to be enough people,” Rian said, his voice pitched to carry. “Wizard Rilianne, shall I reiterate the terms now?”

“By all means, Lord Rian.”

“All right. As for some reason there has been resistance to the idea that this expedition’s food stores be added to the demesne’s for both ease of storage and to make it harder to steal, we have decided to offer a chance to argue the issue. Originally, I would have met with the expedition’s chosen representative and faced them in a melee.” There was a murmur of bloodthirsty interest at that. Riz wasn’t surprised. Everyone liked to see a good fight. Or even a bad fight. “However, the Dungeon Binder set down her command and forbade me from doing so, and now someone else will be taking my place. Should the representative of the expedition win, I will present their arguments to Binder Lori.”

“That’s not what you said,” Yhal interjected. “You said that if we won you wouldn’t take our food anymore!”

Rian tilted his head. “Oh? Did I say that, Wizard Rilianne?”

Rilianne frowned thoughtfully as everyone turned towards her expectantly. “…No,” she said eventually. “You did not. You said you would present our arguments against it to your Dungeon Binder.”

“Exactly.” Rian’s head tilted the other way. “Don’t worry, I’m sure your arguments are very persuasive and don’t just amount to ‘because we don’t want to’. Though it might be best to present it in writing so there’s no chance of my mistakenly misrepresenting you. If you win, of course.”

“We will,” Yhal said with stern confidence. He was standing tall, looking solid as a rock and implacable as an avalanche. It was a familiar look that Riz had seen often before they’d set out to deal with a bandit camp or go hunting for abominations after a dragon, meant to inspire confidence in the rest of the militia. It was a sharp contrast to Rian’s relaxed, carefree appearance, looking completely unintimidated by the older militiaman.

“Excellent confidence, good for you,” Rian cheered, and the implacable image cracked slightly in confusion at the unanticipated comliment. Yes, her man was very strange. “Well then, as to the terms of the melee, I figured we’d keep it simple. Both sides will be barehanded to keep things as even as possible, and take off everything but their clothes so that neither will be wearing any added padding. That includes boots, to remove any minor advantage to be had from thick soles. And no magic for either side, of course. Victory goes to the one who can either subdue their opponent or get them to surrender. Does that sound fair? I don’t think anyone would be satisfied if we did this any other way. Subdued or surrendered is pretty unequivocal.”

Rilianne elbowed Yhal before he could say anything, reminding him that this was supposed to be her negotiation. His teeth clicked as he closed his mouth. “That is acceptable, Lord Rian. And how large will the melee ground be?”

“I was thinking we just have them walk about a few paces away from everyone so that we don’t hem them in.” He waved vaguely towards the trees further away from the camp. “I mean, there’s plenty of forest. No point in surrounding them, is there?”

“No, I suppose not,” Rilianne said. “Very well. And who shall we be facing?”

There were various expectant looks toward Yllian and the men with him, which annoyed Riz, because she was right there! She was perfectly capable of beating Captain Yhal! Almost certainly! Mostly! Probably! Maybe! Possibly!

They were so busy looking they didn’t really notice Shana stepping forward until she spoke. “You will be facing me,” she said. “This matter is a challenge to my authority and I have decided that it requires my personal attention.”

Everyone who wasn’t familiar with her stared. She barely came up to most of the men’s chests, with arms and legs like sticks, and possibly less than a third of the weight of most men there, at best. Possibly only half, in Rian’s case. Shana wasn’t weak, as her arms and legs were full of strong, lean muscle… but they were a child’s muscles.

The shock on Yhal’s face quickly turned to disgust. “You can’t be seri—”

Rilianne elbowed Yhal again to get him to be quiet. “Lord Rian, is this your idea of a jest?”

“This is not a jest,” Shana said. Standing straight, her head held high, she met all their incredulous gazes. For all that she tried to act like the Great Binder, Binder Lori would never have done that. She hated looking people in the eye unless it was to glare at them. “River’s Fork is my demesne. It is under Binder Lolilyuri’s authority not under force of arms but because of my word. The policies that have been implemented at her command have been done so under my word, which includes the policy of centralizing food stores so they can be properly rationed instead of being hoarded and overconsumed. Your challenge of this policy is a challenge of my authority within my own demesne. This is my answer.”

There was a moment’s silence as all the witnesses—many of whom of had known Koshay and therefore knew Shana in passing—all continued to stare. Only Rilianne wasn’t looking confused or disturbed, and that was because she’d been talking to Shana all morning.

Yhal recovered first, giving Rian a disgusted look. “This is just cowardly.”

Rian shrugged. “I don’t see how. Given how much taller you are compared to her, I’d say it’s quite the opposite.”

“I am not fighting a child because you don’t have the nerve to—”

His words ended in a grunt as Rilianne stopped being nice and just punched him in the side to silence him. While the Deadspeaker still looked composed, her eyes had narrowed into something that was almost but not quite a glare. Most of it was probably for Yhal and his interruptions, but some seemed to be for Rian. “Lord Rian, I—” Rilianne suddenly cut off as she stiffened, and this time her hand came down on the corpse-taker’s sword at her hip.

“Do I have your attention now?” Shana said, and Riz realized she must have done… something. “Lord Rian is not the one you need to be speaking to now, Wizard Rilianne. He has negotiated the terms. You may face me, or you may forfeit and drop the subject. Those are the only available choices. If you truly feel so strongly about this matter, then face me. Otherwise, stop talking about it so we can all get on with our glittering lives.”

Rilianne was staring at her now as well. Some of the married people among the crowd and witnesses who had children were frowning, but it seemed more habit than anything else.

Humming just enough for it to be audible, Rian pushed off from the tree he was leaning against and moved to stand behind Shana. “So make your decision, Yhal,” he said, his smile serene. “Will you face Binder Shanalorre? Or are you going to forfeit?”