Compared to the Urquna mountain pass in the north, the Anticasa pass through the Sallqata mountain range east of Cashan seemed almost quaint. This far south, the elevation was low enough that even this close to the peaks, Corco could still see trees.

The northern pass was a journey through hell, fraught with danger of narrow, iced up roads, rickety bridges and thin, frozen air. However, here the road was wide and straight, at least by mountain pass standards. Even so, if some traders or armies thought the trip was easy, they would be sorely mistaken.

While this path was far less of a physical challenge than the northern one, they would still have to climb up around a thousand meters of elevation, before giving up almost the same height again on their way down to Cashan. Even more, while the pass' highest point was lower than the one to Arguna, this one was also located much farther south. Even now when spring had reached most of Medala, the snow of winter hadn't melted on the Anticasa pass yet. And while the sparse conifer trees created a nice atmosphere for the traveling merchants, the fortresses of House Villca did not. All along the pass, the noble house had used its centuries of local control to build a dozen small fortresses into the mountain sides.

Not only would they protect against bandits and enemy armies from the east, they would also serve as the bane of any god-fearing trader: toll stations. From his room's window, high up inside one of the forward forts, Corco could see another fortress across his own position, a beautiful mix of stone and wood, built right into the steep cliff side besides the pass. Further east, he could see another one in the distance, close enough to communicate with its fellow fortifications through the use of flames or flags.

With his eyes focused on the eastern fortress in the distance, the king spotted a small convoy halfway on its way to them. Although he already knew which group would be traveling from eastern Medala through the pass during times of war, it still wouldn't hurt to check on them.

However, before he could bring his telescope to his eyes, a low growl made his hands halt in their tracks. Still bombarded by the threatening noise, he turned around to see himself confronted by the slavering maw of a wild dog, almost half his height and almost twice his anger. The beast's back bristled as its dark yellow eyes stared him down, its ferocity only held back by its owner at its side.

“Ahaha, no worries, King. Argau just wants to play,” said Pahuac Tertiu Villca, third-born legitimate son of the late Lord Villca. Despite his chipper attitude, the large man's red-gloved hands clutched his dog's collar, while his smile looked a bit cramped. After a moment of struggle, Pahuac shouted “Argau, down!” and the dog left Corco with another vicious growl, before it lay on the ground with a discontented yelp. By this time, the king's eyes had narrowed into slits and his hand had already reached for his pistol. This wasn't the kind of greeting he had expected from his host.

“Very sorry, King Corco. He's usually not that excited.” The Lord moved to the table where food and drink had been prepared for his guest. He grabbed a chicken leg and threw it to his dog.

“Good boy,” he praised the dog for not mauling his guest, before his excuses continued. “Must be all the new people around.”

“Are you talking about me, or about all of your new soldiers?” Again, Corco looked out of the window, this time into the hill fort's front courtyard, where a large number of Cashan's warriors stood in formation to await their guests in a demonstration of power.

“It should be a bit of both. We never had this many people here before, so that gets him riled up. But I do not believe it will be a problem for long. His nose will get used to all the new smells in no time. In fact, I think we should go hunting together. Argau always likes the people he hunts with.”

The king didn't reply to Pahuac's suggestion and struck out the final 'with' in his head. Not only had he no interest whatsoever in hunting parties with wild dogs, he also had more important questions to ask.

“You understand what your brothers are doing, right?”

“I wonder what King might be talking about?”

When Corco turned back around, Pahuac Villca was sprawled across a lounge chair and poured himself some wine. Even though the war for power between the Villca brothers wasn't something Corco should get involved in, Pahuac had always seemed like the most honest and most open among them. The way he seemed to be getting cheated rubbed Corco the wrong way, so he decided to at least make Pahuac aware of his situation. In all likelihood, it was too late for the young lord to change anything, but at least Corco would feel better about the ordeal.

“While you're sitting here, your brothers are taking all of your father's lands from you. I understand that you guys have a deal, you and Uchu were supposed to rule together. Still, as soon as you managed to get past your differences, he's sent you here to defend the borders. You don't think that's weird? Why can't they send some general, why isn't Uchu going himself? Isn't he also a proud bandit chief or whatever? In the end, they were just trying to get you out of Cashan, so they can win over the advisors and administrators who are willing to follow them and clean out those who wanted to support you instead. That way, they hold all the political power in the city. Once they're done with the city, you'll be built on stilts even if you come back, with power in name only.”

At first Uchu looked surprised at the king's revelation, before he burst into uproarious laughter, spilling his wine in the process.

“Ah, and I was wondering what you were trying to do. Turns out, our king is just a pretty decent guy,” he said through his wide grin.

“I'm serious, you should have been more careful. I wouldn't say anything, but I know all about younger brothers trying to cheat their own blood out of their inheritance. If you leave someone else in charge here, you can still go back right now and fix your mistakes.”

“What, you think I didn't realize that they were plotting something? One is a bandit and the other a rat, plotting is all they do.” Pahuac's grin turned into a sneer. “Even if I stayed in Cashan, there would have been nothing for me to do. I realized when I spent some time with those bastards during the war: They're both sly like wolves. I could never keep up with them on politics. But this is fine too. King Corco, do you have any idea how many soldiers are in that yard outside, and spread out over all my forts? I am in charge of not only the most important mountain pass of House Villca, I also command two out of every three Villca warriors. No matter what kinds of games my brothers decide to play, I can just go home and salt them to death if they annoy me.”

“But you're still without any real power here. You can't influence the politics at home at all,” Corco insisted.

“So what? I don't want to rule anything, I'm fine so long as there's war and glory to be had. Handling treasuries and foreign relations sounds like a pain. So me and my brothers have an arrangement. I'm in charge of the army, Uchu is in charge of the administration stuff and Guachimine gets to take care of the details with the finance and diplomacy nonsense. We never really talked about it like that, but I'm sure the others are thinking the same as me. All of us should be pretty happy with the agreement.”

“If you say so, then I'll just stay out of it in the future.” Although Corco looked content on the surface, in truth he didn't believe that such a precarious arrangement would last for long, just like the Triumvirate he himself was a part of. However, for now he was happy enough that Pahuac knew what he was doing, and that the southern kingdom would remain stable for at least the near future.

After their initial talk, the two men spoke much less formally, until one of Corco's guards entered the room with a greeting, to inform him that his invited guest had arrived. With his mood greatly improved, Corco stepped outside, eager to start his negotiations. Unlike Pahuac, he always looked forward to finance and diplomacy nonsense.

When Corco arrived in the room, Devaerter was already there and waiting for him. Of course, the king wasn't surprised by his old acquaintance's presence in the least. After all, Corco was the one who had offered a deal to the Arcavians. To facilitate negotiations, he had also asked them to send a representative into the pass. Since the Arcavian nobles would never come themselves, they were sure to send a merchant, someone they would consider replaceable, yet competent. As a man with no firm connection to either of the two Arcavian kingdoms, Devaerter was exactly who the Arcavian nobles wanted.

“Official Kolbrandt Devaerter greets King Corcopaca.” Even though he had arrived before Corco, Devaerter was still standing by the door and hadn't even tried to move towards the table and chairs in the center of the room. As soon as the king arrived, he also bowed and showed the level of deference one should expect of a common servant addressing a lord of Medala. Still, Corco didn't like the servility. He rarely did, even less so when it was this fake.

“Oh come off it, will you?” he huffed and sat down in front of his collection of goods without any fuss. “We both know you're not an actual 'official'. To be an official, you'd have to be a warrior first, or a knight I guess. Either way, both positions are well out of reach for you. I won't make you a warrior and the Arcavians won't ever make you a knight. And we both know you don't have any actual respect for me either, otherwise you wouldn't be here. So cut the crap and sit down. I wanna get this done”

The merchant seemed unperturbed by Corco's direct attitude. As soon as he had been offered a seat, he took his place opposite the king, with the table between them. At the same time, Corco's aides also took their places by the king's side and two of them took out quill and ink to protocol the meeting.

“I would not have come had I known that I would meet with King Corcopaca. I would not expect a mighty king to be involved something as trivial as trade, Sire,” Devaerter said with a bitter smile. Corco wouldn't expect him to react any differently. After his run-in with Atau, the merchant was probably hoping to avoid any more confrontations with his former allies.

“Other rulers don't take charge of trade deals, but that's just because they lack the necessary skill to conduct them,” Corco replied in Bornish. It was a language he hadn't used in over a year, but he didn't feel rusty at all. Rather, a strange sense of melancholy overcame him, something he hadn't expected to feel for his involuntary home of seven years. Still, he pressed down his feeling and put his old merchant's mask back on.

“Who here would claim to be more skilled in trade negotiations than me, the master of the Fastgrade Trading Company? And on the topic of trade, you've been waiting in the room for a good while now. Have you had the chance to take a look at our new product line already?” Corco smiled his business smile as he looked at the row of products his men had prepared atop the table.

“Indeed, King Corcopaca's guards allowed me to sample them,” Devaerter confirmed. “They appear to be genuine articles of Chutwa. The spices, silk, tea, Chutwa glaze and dye are all decent enough for trade, though they do not appear to be of the highest quality. Further, Chutwa is not known for its dyes, so selling them will prove a challenge.”

Despite Corco's claims to the contrary, most of these products were not from Chutwa at all. Apart from the silk, which they couldn't produce themselves yet, the tea was mostly imported from Medala's northern kingdom, the spices were from the Verduic islands, and the porcelain and dye were Saniya's own products. Of course this wasn't something Devaerter needed to know. It was astounding just how much an object's value could increase through nothing but a little rebranding. While Devaerter seemed eager to haggle down the price, Corco understood his absolute position of strength.

“You're kidding, right? How could you say that they're not high quality?” Corco began to argue. “In the first place, how would you know what's a quality Chutwa products and what isn't? I've seen what goes for 'quality silk' in Arcavia, and there's no comparison between that and the stuff we have here. After making its way across the entire world, the silk and tea you get are the scraps of the scraps. In fact, have you ever actually been to Chutwa? Well, I have, and I've been trading with them for a while now, directly. Among the two of us, you're hardly the expert, are you? And come to think of it, what do you mean, 'selling the dye is a challenge'? It's purple fucking dye! If you can't sell it, then there's something wrong with you, not with my products.”

For a while, Devaerter remained silent while he played with a porcelain cup in his hands.

He must really be frustrated now.

At this point, the merchant must have realized just how weak his position in these negotiations really was. While Corco knew everything about both demand and prices back in Arcavia, Devaerter knew almost nothing about Corco's side, and even less about the distant Chutwa. Worse, with the current state of the war in the north and Corco's grasp on Sinchay, the southern king had a virtual monopoly on trade with the distant west. Thus, predictably, Devaerter switched tactics.

“I still believe that it would be more beneficial if King Corcopaca would just allow our own Arcavian convoys to cross his lands. After all, I have heard that merchant activities are considered very poor form for the local nobility. Something so base should be left to commoners like us. Further, acting as a middleman like this must be a great drain on the southern kingdom's sparse manpower and I am sure King Corcopaca is very busy these days. Would all the necessary administrators not be better served in different positions, stabilizing the country?”

“Yeah, we're really struggling with all these business opportunities, so we better leave them to you, huh?” Corco laughed. “Plus, did you forget that most of my administrators were originally merchants too? They live for this stuff. You're not a dumbass, so you should understand my perspective. If I let your traders cross through my country, all I get in return are some measly tariffs, nothing else. Even better, your merchants are gonna work as spies and tell your masters all about our defenses. I'd rather not have Herak know where my bedroom is on my castle. No thank you, that guy's got an unhealthy obsession. So why would I ever allow you access if there's only disadvantages?” Corco shrugged in confusion, before he continued.

“However, if I play middleman, I get to eat the bulk of the profits, and I get to keep your people out of my lands too. Everyone wins. Well, I win, mostly. But you get to kinda sorta profit too, and isn't that what all of this is about? It's about sharing. Now you might not like that, but tough luck. This is my country, and incidentally also my fortress and my mountain pass. You're not gonna force your way through here. If you have a different opinion, you're free to try.”

Again, silence rose between the two men. All throughout the talks, Devaerter's shoulders had lowered more and more in dejection, while Corco was still as composed as he had been during his entry.

“If you don't think you can force your wishes, we can strike a deal instead,” the king continued after a short while. “You buy these products from me, and I offer you a price that lets you keep a decent chunk of profits on the resale, like old times. You know my word's worth something, so you know I'm trustworthy. Let's just cut the bullshit and iron out the details of the deal so I can go back home. I really don't have time to spare. 'Cause in one aspect, you're right: I'm busy with a lot of things. So you better not waste my time.”