I realized my mistake immediately upon spotting his shoulder epaulets. Not Lieutenant. Captain Berkenem.
If he’d gone up in rank, he appeared to have gone down in every other way. A new scar decorated his cheek. His armor had more dings and dents than ever, and he wasn’t wearing his left gauntlet. I suspected the wardrobe choice was not intentional. He had a nasty gash from a wound across his cheek that hadn’t quite finished healing.
His eyes were harder, but they softened upon seeing me. He took a moment to nod before approaching the wounded man and the ailing healer.
“Is all well?”
“Thanks to you,” Mularet said. “Thank you.”
“My pleasure. It eases my heart to find this town still thriving. I have seen other towns on my path here that have not fared nearly so well,” he said.
“You saw Mitoras then?” Mularet said as I approached. The man nodded to me. “Storyteller here can tell you about that.”
I grimaced. Shit. What exactly did it mean now that Lieuten–er, Captain Berkenem was here? If he found out I’d been drafted and then returned, would I be duty-bound to follow him back to the frontlines?
I didn’t know, but there was no way of keeping that a secret now.
“I did not come by way of Mitoras. I cut through the woods. There is no direct path through them to the eastern front. What befell them!?” he asked.
“Same thing that would’ve happened to us, if not for your General,” Mularet exclaimed. “The advance warning was all we needed to show them who owns this land!”
Berkenem frowned.
‘Oh shit!’ I thought.
If Mularet kept talking, there was a chance that Berkenem would be alerted to the fake message Mom had made! I couldn’t let that happen.
“We repelled an attack,” I said. “It was… a big one. The hunters say we killed four hundred trolls and nearly a thousand goblins.”
Privately, I refused to believe that number. We only had two or three hundred fighters. Dad couldn’t have killed that many of them, could he? I was inclined to believe that the hunters had inflated the number, but I couldn’t refute them. I’d only seen the beginning of that fight.
I’d struggled with three goblins. Just three. Could we really have killed more than a thousand?
Dad could use his talent a lot. It tired him out, and he usually spent nearly a week sleeping after the harvest ended, hibernating like a turtle. In the heat of battle, with thirty percent more effective skills, and a talent that could instantly mutilate sixty-four square feet…
If they were clumped together tightly enough, he might have killed thousands, and they had attacked in one big group.
I felt a little ill, wishing I hadn’t done the math. Thus far, the Carbon War Scythe was by far the most terrifying thing I’d made. Reid’s bow was impressive, and who knew what Mom’s spellbook might lead to, given enough time, but the scythe was the weapon that gave me nightmares.
On the other hand, without it, we’d almost certainly be dead.
“Then I am doubly sorry. Our failures compound by the day,” Berkenem said, genuine regret on his features. “I am glad, though. It seems I might yet accomplish my task.”
I grimaced.
“And what task is that? Because if you’re here to demand food, Maulander beat you to it,” Mularet spat.
“Food? I… Maulander? The… general? Why would he be here?” the man asked, taken aback.
Shit. I didn’t want him asking about the forged warning, but I didn’t want him to know about Maulander either!
“He was here for food and recruits. He took… most of our food, and many of our young fighters,” Mularet said. “Though he was kind enough to only pull from those old enough to have talents.”
“Then I am fortunate indeed!” Berkenem said, turning back to me. “I am lucky you were too young for the draft. My task is the pepper paste.”
I blinked. “Wait… really? Now?”
He nodded. “The general was impressed. He was so impressed that he sent a squad with wagons in the hopes of returning it to him. Our army needs every edge it can get.”
“Yes. Perhaps you could tell us about that. How goes the front?” came a new voice.
I blinked. I hadn’t noticed the Mayor enter the bar. I’d been too focused on Berkenem and what he might want. The man’s bulky frame acted as a windbreak for the cold draft, and the Mayor had slipped in unnoticed.
How did he always seem to know when something interesting was happening?
Berkenem looked around, realizing that he was drawing a crowd.
“Excuse me, Mayor Dobretin. I believe my task lies with Mera and her mother. I will be happy to return to the bar this evening and discuss it further, but for the moment, I must begin securing the pepper paste. It is a long journey back to the front.”
Dobretin, ever calm, nodded obligingly. “Don’t let me keep you. But please don’t run off without letting us know everything you can. We thank you for your service,” he said, bowing his head politely.
The soldier smiled before turning back to the bar.
“Mister Pub, do you have enough space for a dozen men? We would ask care for our mounts overnight as well, and space to store wagons as well. We can offer several silver.”
Lupkep looked around the front room and grimaced before shaking his head.
“Gods be good, I’d love your custom, but I can’t put out the refugees for it. If you aren’t bleeding out or on the mend, we don’t have vacancy for the foreseeable future. We’ve got space for your mounts, though, and I’m sure we can find some comfortable beds for the evening. Mera there might know best where to put you,” he said, pointing to me.
I blinked. I did?
Well. When I thought about it, I did have a few ideas. Wolkor and Ameria Orchard had packed up and fled to stay with relatives in Dolundant, leaving only Fraek in a house fit for four or five. There was also Ikara, whose son Benethan had recently returned with Maulander’s army. She was always very supportive of the military and would likely be happy to host a soldier in Ben’s room.
More thoughts came to mind as I realized my own house could support a soldier, or even two for the evening. The Patenteer’s had left with Hadra, going to Denarla after all.
“Uh… yes. I do think I can find your men a few places to bed down for the night,” I replied.
Berkenem turned back to me. “Well. You’re quite the helpful lass, aren’t you?”
“I do my best!” I said. “Light’s fading fast, and I’m not up to walking very quickly. Shall we go?”
He nodded, and I hopped off the stool. I winced, feeling the pain in my foot. I quickly picked up the staff and the pain left, but I probably needed to stay off it for most of the day tomorrow.
Before I left, I turned to the tired healer and Reid’s Dad. “Tom… do you think you could host a soldier in Reid’s room tonight?”
Korlotom coughed a laugh. “Aye. Tell Irena before bringing them, though. She’s as likely to put an arrow through a soldier as she is to host one without your word. She’s not happy about the draft. Neither am I, come to think of it,” he breathed.
Perhaps it would be best not to have any of Berkenem’s soldiers stay with the Hunters, after all. I actually liked this one, and I didn’t want them to get a bad impression.
Then again, if he was about to demand all of the pepper paste ‘for the good of the kingdom,’ I might just have Mom throw a fireball at him.
I’d make my judgment based on what he had to say.
I left the bar, followed by the eyes of everyone there, certain the gossip would begin the moment I closed the door. Berkenem followed behind me, his armor clinking. It no longer sounded clean. Parts of the metal had been warped, and they made a painful scraping noise when he walked.
“So, the General sent you back for the paste, even in the middle of a war? I wouldn’t think he’d be able to spare you,” I said.
“If we get to the point where a dozen soldiers are enough to make a difference in this war, then things are dire indeed.”
“And… we’re not to that point?”
“We certainly weren’t when I left. General Neogon has won most of the engagements he has entered, but he faces the entire might of Eschal, and he is less than a quarter of Tacurian forces. We are outnumbered. Not outmatched.”
“That’s… that’s good. A relief,” I breathed.
With the way Maulander’s brigade fell apart from simple poison, I had feared the worst, but I was hesitant to tell him that.
“You were injured in Mitoras?” he asked.
Shit.
Well, it wasn’t as if half the town didn’t already know I’d been drafted and returned. There was no sense in hiding it.
“I… got my talent the day after you visited us the first time,” I said. “That night was my eighteenth nameday.”
He blinked. “Gods. What an awful omen. Congratulations, of course, but… I suppose this means you were drafted?”
“I… yes. Some odd circumstances led to me being back here,” I said. I didn’t elaborate.
“They must have been,” he replied.
Fuck. Would he take me with him now? Recruit me? I could almost feel him weighing his options. I seemed perfectly healthy after all. I’d been drafted, and now I was back in my hometown? Was I a deserter?
Did he have a responsibility to bring me back if I was?
An awkward silence took over the walk. He broke first.
“Gods… a draft. There hasn’t been one since before the rift. Is Maulander so desperate?” he asked.
“He seemed to be. Still, his men did not seem as… tested as you appear to have been,” I told him.
Berkenem smirked. “I look like I got in a fight with a Winged One, and you’re not wrong to think it. I did. Nearly lost my damn arm, too.”
I laughed. Dammit. Had it been this man instead of Maulander who’d come to collect our hard-grown harvest, I thought we might’ve handed it over gladly and trusted it would be put to good use.
“That sounds like a story,” I replied.
He chuckled.
“It is, but it’s not important, right now,” he said.
He reached down into a belt pouch and pulled out a surprisingly heavy leather sack. It clinked merrily as he tossed it into the air and caught it in his ungauntleted fist.
“Here,” he said before tossing it to me.
I caught it, barely. The thing was heavy. I opened the cinch and my eyes widened as I saw what was inside.
Gold.
“H-holy heavens,” I gasped.
“How much of the pepper paste have you made?” he asked.
Mom charged him eighty copper per handful of the stuff. We had barrels of it now, and in the days since I’d left with the army, I was sure Mom had continued making it.
“There’s… a lot. Not as much as we might’ve had if not for Maulander, but there were twelve more barrels before I left. Mom… probably made even more.”
The man brightened. “Twelve barrels!?”
I nodded.
Berkenem reached down into his pouch again and tossed me a second bag.
“I did say I thought there would be new nobles in this area when we last spoke. Let us see these barrels. I would not want to underpay you.”
“Y-yes, okay!” I said through choked breath.
I’d been blown away by holding a single gold piece just over a month ago. Now I was holding what had to be a hundred of them.
'Mom! Help me!' I thought frantically, hoping to the gods that she was at the pepper pits.