Chapter 139 - Pieces In Play

  Clay was watching me carefully. I got the impression he was seeing some of the same things I was, and we were going to need to have some long conversations, afterward. But not here. The last thing we wanted to do was call the guy with a thousand well-armed troops a liar to his face, at least not without an outstanding reason.

  “You said this was the third time it’s come after you?” I asked.

  Peter nodded. “Yes. Always like this—fast, fierce. She comes in low and hard, directly attacking the castle itself. She tries to burn or smash the walls, but she never gets far. We drive her off every time. So far, at least, the ballistae have been sufficient to chase her away.

  “Three times,” I repeated, noting he was still calling the dragon ‘her’ without any better explanation than it having felt right. “That’s not random, Peter. It’s testing your defenses. It’s learning.”

  He frowned slightly, but didn’t argue.

  “What’s it after?” I asked, my voice light but pointed. “This place? You? Your Domain stone?”

  If we could figure out why it was attacking him, maybe we could curb the assaults. Just as important, if I knew why it was attacking Peter’s domain, perhaps I could prevent the same sort of attacks on mine. Unlike him, we didn’t have a huge stone castle with ballistae to protect us. Maybe we should, but that was going to take more time to build than I had to commit to the project at the moment.

  Peter shrugged. “Your guess is as good as mine. We’ve speculated—it could be territorial. Or maybe it’s just angry. Hungry. Maybe it sees us as a threat.”

  Maybe. But it didn’t ring true. The dragon had looked straight at him. It had known him. And when he held up that whatever it was, the dragon had immediately balked and retreated. Why?

  Without knowing what the object was, there was no way for me to tell, and I couldn’t call him out on it unless I was willing to call him out on the lies to his face, which I was not. But I tried one more time to give him a shot at telling me the truth.

  “And today?” I asked. “Why did it leave when it did? We weren’t hitting it hard enough for it to worry much, so I doubt it was our damage that scared it away.”

  He gave another shrug. “Couldn’t say. We hurt it, I suppose. Wore it down. If it’s here because it’s hungry, then maybe it decided there would be easier prey elsewhere. Just have to make sure we’re not as easy to kill as the next guy, I would guess!”

  “Hmm.” I made the sound noncommittally, as if I was already half-accepting his answer. But I wasn’t.

  He was definitely lying; that was all over his body language. How I knew that, I wasn’t wholly sure. Maybe it was a side effect of my high Intellect? Or some facet of my Charisma? A combination of the two? It was something I’d need to explore more, later, but although I didn’t know what he was hiding yet, I felt sure he was hiding something. The timing had been too perfect, the stare between him and the dragon too long. And that pendant—whatever it had been—was conveniently out of sight now. I hadn’t seen where he’d tucked it, but I’d definitely seen him raise it.

  Still, this wasn’t the moment to call him on it. Diplomacy first. Suspicion later.

  “Well,” I said, folding the cloth and offering it back to him, “whatever the reason, I’m glad it’s gone. But I think we can agree we haven’t seen the last of it.”

  “Likely not,” Peter replied, with the kind of grim weight that might have been sincerity—or just good acting.

  Farnsworth stepped in beside me. “We’ll want to talk about joint defenses. If that thing comes back, we might need to coordinate. So far we’d only seen the dragon flying high overhead; it’s never attacked any of our Domains, so it was low on our threat radar compared to problems like the orcs. I think we need to re-evaluate that position now. Mutual defense pacts would be beneficial for all of us.”

  “Yes. Yes, that’s a good idea,” Peter said, still nodding. His words were right, but his eyes said that his thoughts were elsewhere.

  There were more questions I wanted to ask—pressing ones. But if Peter Eddings was playing a long game, I wasn’t going to force him into a corner just yet. Better to walk the road carefully.

  I turned back toward the stairs. “Shall we return to the meeting, then? I think we were just getting to the interesting part.”

  Peter smiled. “Of course. This way.”

  We descended the stairs in silence. The wind had died down, but the scent of smoke still blew in through the tower windows as we descended. It was a grim reminder of how close the dragon’s flames had come to reaching us. Farnsworth and I followed Peter back down, our boots echoing against the stone as we passed through the narrow corridors back toward the great hall.

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  By the time we returned, Peter’s servants had already reset the meeting table, setting fresh pitchers of water and plates of fruit where the breakfast plates had been. I took my seat again, folding my hands in front of me on the polished surface.

  Peter lowered himself into his chair and rested his forearms on the edge of the table with the practiced ease of a man about to launch into a rehearsed speech. I wasn’t sure what he’d done for a living back before the Event, but it was clear to me he was used to ordering people around and having people hang on his every word. He had the feel of a man who was used to power and control, and now the Event had given him even more of those things.

  Which could be very good or very bad. I’d been leaning one way back before the dragon attack. Now I wasn’t so sure.

  “Well,” Peter said, his smile returning with only the faintest hitch. “Now that we've dealt with our guest, perhaps we can resume where we left off.”

  “Of course,” I replied. “Let’s talk about the future.”

  He inclined his head, then gestured loosely with one hand. “You came here seeking peaceful relations, perhaps more. I find that idea compelling, especially under the obviously dangerous circumstances! That dragon is bad enough, but you’ve brought me tales of a massive army of orc just north of your borders, too. These risks are too great to manage solo. We’ve been isolated too long. The world is changing quickly, and it’s clear that cooperation is the best way forward.”

  “I completely agree,” I said. “My people are already allied with two other Domains to the north. We share intelligence, coordinate defense, and maintain an open crystal exchange between our territories. I’d like to extend the same offer to KingsHaven.”

  Peter raised an eyebrow, clearly intrigued. “A crystal exchange, you say?”

  “Yes. Non-combatants and crafters earn crystals through service to the Domain, and combat-oriented people do so by fighting monsters. They can then trade what they’ve earned for what they need—food, protection, magic. This was actually Colonel Turner’s brainchild—from the Air Guard base,” I explained. “We’re setting up our own version, though, as is Carver’s Domain. With the old dollar being worthless for anything beyond toilet paper, we needed some sort of currency, and for the time being at least, we’re using crystals.”

  Peter tapped a finger thoughtfully against the table. “Interesting. And this works?”

  “Very well, so far,” I said. “Tier growth has increased for everyone involved.”

  “I should let you know then—we’ve already begun minting coins,” Peter said. “Gold and silver. It was easy enough to get a good supply of each by raiding the right stores soon after the Event, and the relative rarity makes them a reliable coinage. I’m calling the gold ones ‘sovereigns’ and the silver coins ‘pennies,’ at least for the time being.”

  “You’re not worried about counterfeiting?” Farnsworth asked.

  Peter shook his head. “Not at all. It’s the metal that makes them valuable, and since we’re minting them in uniform sizes, it’s easy enough to test the weight of the coin. Density is still a thing, after all.”

  “Archimedes lives,” I said, smiling a little.

  “Indeed,” Peter replied, flashing me a smile.

  “That’s interesting,” I told him. “I was considering something similar for more day to day spending. Can I get samples of your coins? It seems like it would make sense for us to all use coins of uniform size, even if we’re not stamping them the exact same way. Easier to convert currency if the gold and silver weight of each coin is the same.”

  “I will make that happen for you!” Peter replied. He gestured for a servant to approach and asked for a small bag of coins to be brought as samples. The servant rushed off, and Peter returned his attention to us. “Now, what else should we be discussing?”

  Farnsworth leaned in slightly. “The alliance domains also share scouting reports and hostile creature sightings. Helps prevent ambushes. The mutual defense pact is new, but when one of us is threatened, the others will send help.”

  Peter nodded, his expression unreadable. “A proper alliance, then.”

  “That’s the idea,” I said. “We’d welcome you into it, if you’re interested.”

  He was quiet for a long moment, then folded his hands together. “On the surface, I see no reason not to be. Mutual defense, trade, information sharing…all of that makes sense. But I’ll need to speak with my advisors before I commit to anything permanent. KingsHaven is large—much larger than most Domains, I’d wager. Any treaty we sign impacts thousands of lives. I won’t rush that.”

  I inclined my head, hiding my mild disappointment behind a diplomatic smile. “Understandable. I’d ask only that you seriously consider it. We’re stronger together, Peter.”

  “I do believe that,” he said. “But I also believe in caution. Still, a provisional agreement might be possible. We can set up an open channel for dialogue and regular communication. A test run, if you will. I’d like to meet the other alliance leaders before committing, so perhaps we can arrange a gathering?”

  “That would be an excellent start,” I said. “And once you’ve had time to confer with your people, we can move forward from there.”

  He smiled again, but there was something different in his eyes now. His gaze was calculating, each look measuring me and my words. I felt more than a little out of my depth, in spite of my boosted Intellect. Peter had experience at negotiating tables that enhanced stats just weren’t enough to replace. The man was playing this like chess, not poker. He wasn’t bluffing—he was positioning pieces to best serve his agenda, whatever that was.

  And I wasn’t entirely sure which side of the board I was sitting on, or what his plans might be.

  “Then let’s call this the first of many good meetings,” Peter said, lifting his glass in a silent toast.

  I raised mine in return. “To cooperation.”

  For however long it lasted, anyway. I was getting seriously bad vibes from all of this. Between his earlier lies of omission and then his sudden reluctance to set up any sort of agreement in writing, it didn’t feel right. It wasn’t weird that he would want to meet the other leaders before agreeing to join our alliance—that part was fine. But something about how he acted wasn’t sitting right.

  The meeting broke soon after, and Farnsworth and I were shown to a set of rooms where we could rest and refresh ourselves. We walked the halls in silence, neither of us trusting that the walls didn’t have ears in this place.