The Paladin of the Holy Kingdom, Part III: Act 3, Chapter 7

The Paladin of the Holy Kingdom, Part III: Act 3, Chapter 7

Chapter 7

The shouts of men drilling in the mustering yard woke Liam several times over the course of the day. He walked out, cranky-eyed, from his tent in the evening. It didn’t help that he had spent the whole morning carting food to Raquel’s shop.

“Good morning, dear,” Nat rose from her seat at the workshop table with a smile.

“Morning, Nat.”

“I got you your food,” Nat went over to uncover a plate. “It went cold, though. I’m sorry.”

“No, that’s fine,” Liam shuffled over to the dining table. “It’s my fault for sleeping in...thanks for grabbing breakfast for me.”

Nat’s smile returned. She sat down across from him as he ate. Liam tried to be quick about it to make up for lost time, but it was awkward with a person sitting a metre away just watching him chew.

“So...how was today?”

“Busy,” Nat said. “Lots of people from A and B Company asked me to make sure their stuff was fixed up nice. And the men training today...does that mean the rumours are true?”

“Which rumours?”

“That an army of Rogues attacked B Company last night and they made a big pile of corpses in an alley. Everyone in the market was talking about it.”

How the...

He knew rumours could grow out of hand, but he didn’t expect them to get that bad within the span of a few hours.

“It was just six guys that fought a patrol,” Liam told her. “Well, only two of them fought. One was killed.”

“Did you fight, as well?”

“Sort of. I took care of two guys just before the fight started. They never knew I was there.”

Nat’s big brown eyes sparkled at his words. He wasn’t sure he wanted to know what she was thinking.

“I should get more of your equipment made,” she said. “That will help you do more, right?”

“You fixed up the bracers already?”

“Yup! It was easier than I expected. By the way, dear...”

“Hm?”

“Where did you get that ring from?”

He raised his left hand from the table.

“This one? It’s from Raquel.”

Nat’s smile turned to ice. Liam frowned at her reaction.

“It has a Darkvision enchantment,” he said. “Erm, Darkvision lets you see without light, so it’s invaluable for my work.”

The girl’s smile only grew more dire. She was just talking about how more equipment would help him, so he wasn’t sure what the problem was.

“Since the bracers are ready,” he continued, “I should go and see her again.”

“May I come with you?”

“Sure,” Liam replied. “Even if there was a fight last night, it’s not dangerous or anything in the city. Actually, it’d help me out a ton. Literally.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. The best way to pay for her enchantments is with food. A lot of food. If you could hire a couple of labourers and organise the deliveries, it’d save me the trouble. I spent all morning pushing a cart back and forth from the camp market to her place.”

Nat gasped and stood up.

“Y-You can’t do that!” She told him.

“I can’t?”

“You need to think of your position! Someone of your status shouldn’t be doing menial labour.”

“I-Is that so?”

“It is,” Nat nodded firmly. “The workshop’s built up enough inventory to open a stall in the camp market. I’ll hire some staff and they can do that stuff for you.”

Liam glanced at the workshop. The part of the big table facing the lane was full of Nat’s goods, but he didn’t realise that she was doing so well that she could hire employees.

“I’d appreciate that,” he said. “This evening’s briefing will probably be longer than usual, so I’m going to head over early. I’ll meet you outside of Rimun Gate.”

“Got it!”

Nat's not-ice smile returned and she departed for the market with a spring in her step. Liam dropped his dishes off at the kitchen before joining the men gathered around the mustering yard. Those within it practised under the stern eye of Sir Luis.

“If they’re here,” Liam said, “then where do we go?”

“Here, as far as I know,” Marim said. “You missed the drills this morning.”

“I don’t think they’d do me much good,” Liam replied. “At least if it’s this.”

Marim and his men straightened as the shadow of Sir Luis fell upon them.

“Hoh...” the towering Knight said, “so you think you’re too good for my drills?”

“I think they’re useful for the street patrols, sir,” Liam replied, “but I won’t get many chances to fight shoulder-to-shoulder with them.”

As far as he could tell, they were infantry drills modified from ones meant to fight Demihumans. Pairs of men with shields focused on defence while three or four others attacked their target with spears from the flanks.

“Actually,” Liam said, “isn’t this overkill against Human opponents, sir?”

“If you somehow forgot,” Marim said, “I got a dagger in the gut last night with a whole squad behind me.”

“Yeah, but that was almost an accident. You came around the corner and ran right into their ambush. Unless you’re in a defensive formation all the time, that’s going to always happen in that situation. Since we’re talking about fighting Rogues...”

He pointed to one of the wide lanes going through the tents.

“If you want a more practical exercise for the men, sir, you can use those lanes as a street.”

“Explain,” Sir Luis said.

“You know more than me about a straight fight, sir,” Liam said, “so these exercises the men are doing right now are probably fine if you’re openly facing off against someone in the streets. But the sneaks from the other houses won’t give our men a fair fight. Rogues of that calibre get one good hit; they build all of their tactics based on landing that hit and getting away so they can strike again later. Even if they botch the attempt, they’ll try to get away because sticking around is a guaranteed loss.”

“So you want us to patrol these lanes and defend against attacks from Rogues...but we don’t have any Rogues to practise against.”

“But you do have candidates for thief-takers, right?”

Sir Luis wasn’t the only one who gave him a strange look. Liam wondered if they would ever make the connection.

"Our thief-takers have to learn how Rogues operate if we want them to be effective, sir. For now, you can try it with just me on the attacking team.”

“Jimena,” Sir Luis looked over his shoulder, “humour him.”

“Can I lead the patrol?” Sir Jimena asked.

“If you want, sir,” Liam answered with a shrug.

“Luis...”

“Don’t embarrass yourself, Jimena.”

Sir Jimena turned away with a shake of his head, picking out twelve other men for his patrol squad.

“What now?”

“Nat’s done fixing these up,” he said. “Can you enchant them now?”

“Did she get her certification from the Leatherworker Guild?”

Nat pulled a crisp roll of paper from a belt pouch.

“Here’s one for the workshop,” she said.

“The workshop?” Raquel arched an eyebrow, “Hmm...I guess that would be the best way to do it.”

“That’s what my uncle said. What’s important is that the work meets guild standards.”

“And the rest is politics,” Raquel nodded. “They won’t question the work of a woman if it’s the ‘workshop’ making it. The Guild will also be happy about someone on the Nobles’ side recognising the Guild’s authority in the city. At the same time, they don’t want the Nobles sticking their noses in guild business, so they’ll look the other way about your workshop not attending guild meetings.”

“If the camp wants anything,” Nat added, “Uncle said to just have them tell me and I can tell him.”

“Shrewd guy.”

Liam imagined the seizure that an Elder Lich in the Sorcerous Kingdom would have after hearing all of that. Or maybe they would just Fireball the Leatherworker Guild.

“Do enchanters have a guild in Hoburns?” Liam asked.

“It’s the same split you’d see in other cities, I think,” Raquel answered. “We’re all under the Merchant Guild and the Magician Guild for their respective aspects of our operations. Then, if there are enough specialists around, you’d get ones like the Pharmacist Guild or the Artificer Guild. Jaldabaoth’s invasion basically destroyed everything from the Magician Guild down, though.”

“So you just answer to the Merchant Guild now?”

“They’re the only thing that’s left, which is a real shame. All of the magical knowledge of the Magician Guild and its affiliates was lost in the war. I hear the Temples got ransacked, too. Our country’s always been at the bottom when it comes to magical integration, but now we’re setting new standards for how far down the bottom is.”

“I guess you fought in the war, too...wait a second, were you always a mage?”

“Yup, I apprenticed under my mother as a kid.”

“But I’ve never heard of any mages serving in the Royal Army,” Liam said.

No one in House Restelo’s companies seemed to know much about magic and they certainly never gave a thought to magic casters in their training or tactical planning. There wasn’t a single magic caster in the entire labour camp, either, and that included divine casters. The houses had no countermeasures against magic, which made mages with divination magic even more problematic than Rogues.

“Oh, they’re there,” Raquel told him. “Unless you’re a Noble or with the Temples, you get a spear and bow – or crossbow – plopped in your hands and you’re put through the same drills as everyone else.”

“So even if you tell them that you’re a magic caster...”

“They won’t have any of it,” the mage shrugged. “Once, I popped a few Magic Arrows into a Demihuman and my platoon sergeant yelled at me for not ‘sticking ‘em proper’. Well, I guess I didn’t do too badly with a spear...or maybe it was because I enchanted all of my own equipment and used all of my mana on defensive spells when the Sergeant wasn’t looking.”

This place is hopeless.

It was as if the Holy Kingdom itself was antithetical to the tenets of his faith. They had a weird moral and cultural imperative to be dysfunctional and then panicked whenever that dysfunctionality put them in a compromising situation. How they had managed to survive for so long was a complete mystery.

“I need to get to work soon,” Liam said, “what do you recommend for the bracers?”

“That depends on what you plan to put on everything else and how quickly you’re going to do it. If you’d like a starting point, I’d appreciate it if you take some of these accessories off of my hands.”

“You mean like the Ring of Minor Protection from the other day?”

“Yeah. If you plan on doing any fighting, you’ll need it anyway.”

“Alright, that makes sense. What next?”

“It’s pretty simple,” Raquel told him. “Enchantments aren’t like layers of fabric that you can add to a gambeson to give it more protection. All you have to do is make sure you have one of everything that you want and pick a piece of equipment to put it on. Let’s see, next are necklaces...”

Raquel pulled out the jewellery case from the previous day, opening it and pointing a finger at the contents as she spoke.

“This one makes you immune to disease; this one makes you immune to poison. This shell one is from the Merfolk and lets you swim as fast as you can run. Oh, it lets you breathe underwater, as well. This one is...oh, I did have one.”

The mage plucked a driftwood amulet from its mount, dangling it in front of Liam.

“Here’s my recommendation: a Minor Amulet of Natural Armour. These things are great: if you have one equipped, you can drop a box on your bare foot and it’d be like you were wearing a sturdy pair of boots.”

“Will it change my skin?”

“Nope. Your skin will be as tough as an Ogre’s hide without changing even a little bit. Isn’t magic great?”

“But I’ll be wearing leather armour.”

“That’s covered by a different enchantment, which you won’t be getting.”

Liam equipped the ring and necklace resting on the counter. Nat poked his arm experimentally. It didn’t feel any different.

“With that,” Raquel grinned, “someone in leather armour has as much protection as they would in chainmail. Except it’s leather. Er, wait...”

“I get it,” Liam said. “What about the next piece of armour to enchant? Nat’s ready to work on something new.”

Raquel leaned over the counter, poking her head over the edge.

“Those.”

Liam looked down.

“My boots?”

“Yup! They may take the longest because it’s another one of those enchantments that need a Druid. I have a Merfolk buddy that lives about two kilometres out from Canta that can do it. Boots of Striding and Springing will make you run faster and jump farther. I figure you’d want that as a thief-taker.”

“I do,” Liam nodded. “Is there anything else that you’d need to visit your friend for?”

“Not that I can think of,” Raquel said. “I need to restock on a few things from there, so it’s more like an excuse for me to go.”

“Then we’ll pick up from here once you get back. Nat’s getting a stand and some staff for her business, so she’ll be handling deliveries from now on.”

“Got it. Should I give that list of reagents to her, as well?”

“She’s in a better position to find what you want, so yeah. Nat, can you make it back on your own?”

“Sure,” Nat replied. “I wanted to chat with Raquel about a few things, anyway.”

“Alright, thanks again for your help, Raquel.”

“Mhm.”

With that, he rushed out of the shop. Then, he nearly impaled himself on several spears.

“Oh, it’s Liam.”

Ricardo, one of B Company’s patrol sergeants, gestured for his men to stand at ease.

“We saw the door to the witch’s place open,” he said, “so we weren’t sure what sort of monster would pop out.”

“Nat’s in there as well,” Liam said. “I’d stab you if you stabbed her.”

“...is it safe to bring your wife here?”

“Her family lives right there,” Liam pointed across the street.

The patrol sergeant looked over his shoulder at the Abarca Workshop’s sign hanging over the door of their storefront.

“So they do. But what were you two doing in the witch’s place?”

“This isn’t a witch’s place. She’s just a Wizard. I was ordering some enchantments.”

“...enchantments?”

“As in...magic items?” Liam said, “With things going the way that they are, It’d be wise to invest in some extra protection.”

“Maybe if it was from the Temples, but this is a bit...”

Ricardo’s men shared uncertain looks among themselves. Liam sighed. It was a good thing that nearly everyone in Hoburns was just as fearful and superstitious as his allies were.