Next day, I eschewed training with my men and headed for the slave, excuse me, serf market. According to what I had heard, the selection should be larger, since all the Lords were in the city. I had eighty-three marks in my purse thanks to my crackdown on the freemen and the little transaction with Lord Terud the night before.

I had caught Theo as the evening wore on, and heard a bit about the layout of the Bastion. It was situated in the mountains as I already knew. However, I learned that it was a couple of hundred metres above the road it guarded, flush up against an almost vertical side of the mountain. The only way in and out of the castle was the main gate which connected with the main road by a steep mountain path, barely wide enough for two wagons to pass each other. Of course, the elves had other means of getting up there. Like flying, which meant the training would have to focus more on archery.

It gave me concern that we would be boxed in more or less. I did not appreciate not having another way out. Originally I had thought about getting more horses, but since we would be cooped up that would be a waste. Instead, I would need something else.

I went on a small buying spree to bolster the ranks of my mancers. I managed to snatch up a couple of aquamancers, another healer and some more stone mages. If we were going to the mountains, someone who could manipulate stone would be a blessing.

Next, I arranged for a wagonload of low-quality iron and charcoal to be shipped to my Hold, because we would be needing a lot of arrows. Of course, Melissa and Alister were the ones who got the contract for that. I had also bought ten casks of strong ale for the dwarves. Now I just had to hope that I had enough apples for ten wagonloads. All of which ended up nearly emptying my coin purse again, leaving me less than five marks.

On the way home I was chatting with Alister who had elected to drive the wagon. “Alister, I hope you don’t mind me prying. You guys have a lot of wagons and seem to be working most of them all the time. Yet your house is rather run-down, how come?”

“Our granddaughter was found to have magic, a curomancer,” Alister said with a frown. “All children are tested for magic within their first cycle. If they’re female the Church takes them, brings them to a school far away, and you never see them again. Unless you pay a fee.”

“Seriously, they’re demanding money to let your granddaughter grow up near you?” I asked with a matching frown. That was just sick. I had not thought about what happened to the girls of freemen born with magic. I had known they ended up being serf as well but had not looked into the circumstances surrounding it.

“No, they still sent her far away. The fee is a holding fee. Two marks per moon to reserve the right to first buy her when training is done. If you default on the payment even once, you’re out of luck,” Alister growled.

“Then when she matures, they add on an extra fee of eight marks per moon if we want to ensure she’s not used for breeding before her training is up.”

“Let me get this straight, not only are they getting coin every moon just to allow you the first right of buying back your granddaughter, but they’re also getting paid extra to not turn her into a broodmare?” I asked incredulously. This was truly sickening.

“Yes,” Melissa said, tears flowing down her cheeks. A thought struck me as I remembered the nightmare I had some time ago.

With a bit of dread in my voice, I asked, “What about a Lord’s daughter?”

It was Linus who answered me, “It’s the same, Milord. All females with magic are treated the same, no matter their father’s status.”

“Fuck,” I muttered, my semi-good mood completely ruined for the rest of the trip. An uneventful trip to my Hold for once. No bandit attacks, no priestly assassins, no almost dying. It should have been a pleasant trip, but instead, I could not help but think about the nightmare.

As we rode up the Hall, it was clear to see that there had been some excitement while I had been gone. Someone had tried to torch the mill. A couple of its wings were gone and the top of the windmill was blackened.

We were met by Hrothgar and a single platoon carrying bows and spears. Hrothgar stepped forward. “Milord, it’s good that you’ve returned.”

“I see there’s been trouble. Report,” I demanded. I wanted to get to the hall immediately and know if Lily and my unborn child were okay. However, I forced myself to move in the direction slowly, so Hrothgar could make his report.

“The harpies attacked three days ago, we managed to drive them off,” he said as he followed alongside my horse.

“Casualties, damage?” I asked, trying to sound calm.

“We lost eighteen non-combat serfs, the miller’s wife, and twenty-two troopers. No senior squad leaders,” he said. “We managed to kill fifteen of theirs.”

“Only fifteen?” I asked with a frown. I knew that my troops were untrained, but we should still outnumber them eight to one or so.

Hrothgar gulped. “They attacked at night, we were distracted by the many fires.”

“Did we lose any livestock?” I wanted to know.

“Maybe some chickens, I don’t know,” he answered with a shrug.

“Find out when we get back. Besides the mill, what was damaged?”

“A single empty house belonging to one of the freemen that left, and five empty serf huts burned to the ground,” was the answer I got. “We managed to save the barns that were lit on fire, as well as the Church’s storehouse, though some of the stored items there were damaged.”

I nodded. It could have been worse, I was still not happy about losing so many people. Especially not non-combatants. When Hugo heard the part about the Church’s storehouse, he was not happy. “Lord Karth, I’ll make an inventory of what was lost, and you’ll have to replace that.”

“No, I don’t,” I countered. “The reason I pay the taxes in goods and coin as soon as I harvest or sell is that according to the law that they’re the Church’s problem as soon as I’ve gotten a receipt for it. Meaning my men could have let all of it burn down, and I would still have paid my taxes and tithe because it’s no longer my property.”

“You’re willing to antagonize the King when he doesn’t get his taxes?” Hugo asked.

I answered with a laugh, “I follow the law to the letter. He has to change them if he doesn’t like that. Not my fault that you’ve not moved the goods.”

There was no way in hell I was going to replace what was lost. The Hold could barely feed itself as it was, especially not with the many soldiers that I had acquired.

“Milord, normally the Lord only pays taxes and tithe towards the end of the cycle,” the cleric half-protested, half-whined.

“Again, I don’t like owing people anything. So I pay my taxes at once,” I said and spurred my horse on. I needed to find Lily and find out if she was okay. My bodyguards followed me, while the rest of the convoy continued at its own pace.

I found Lily in the hall, she was sitting at the high table having a discussion with Gudrun, the strongest of lapomancers. I was still struck by the size of the stone mage but had been informed that she most likely had some giant blood in her ancestry. Hope was hovering behind Lily like a good bodyguard. There were a few serfs cleaning the hall as well. The only person I was not happy to see was Ethan who was sitting close to Lily.

Lily looked up to see who had entered the hall and when she spotted me she gave a small smile. Relief flooded me. It was weird I had never cared that much for another person before, but I suspected it had more to do with the fact that she was the mother of my unborn child than me actually liking her.

“Milord, you’re back,” she said happily.

“Yeah, a bit too late it seems,” I said and walked around to her seat. When she stood up I enveloped her in a hug. I felt her stiffen for a moment at my touch, before relaxing. “I’m glad you’re safe.”

Her voice was a bit muffled against my chest, but I still heard her answer, “Hope would never let anything happen to me.”

After thirty seconds I released the hug and sat down in my usual seat. “What were you talking about?”

Lily sat down as well. “I was asking Gudrun about reinforcing our barns or rebuilding them. Get rid of the wooden structure, so they don’t burn down so easily.”

Ethan chose to butt in at this moment. “Milord, I must still protest the fact that you’ve named a woman your steward, especially since you have one already.”

Sighing. “Listen, we’ve been over this. It’s not against the law for women to be the steward, they can’t own anything. They can’t conduct trade or sign agreements, but they can manage a hold and have others do those things. And for the record, I don’t have one. Vernon was turned into a serf and sold.”

“What did you do?” Ethan asked in a whispered tone.

“Oh, I found something illegal he did, which fell under Low Justice. Since the High Lord and Cardinal decided to double down on corruption, I punished Vernon for it, by making him a serf and castrating him,” I said with a grin.

“The Cardinal will never allow such a thing to go unpunished,” Ethan growled.

“The law was followed to the letter, I even informed the King and the Hierophant of the judgement,” I said and stared at Ethan. “I told you I would do what you guys brought me here to do, I would even follow the letter of the law. I expect to be afforded the same protection as any other Lord, which the High Lord and Cardinal have not been doing.”

He got up and left in a huff. I stared after him as he left the hall. Probably to go call or long-distance message someone higher up. I would be taking him with me to the Final Bastion, and if I got a chance, I would kill him without hesitating.

I turned to Lily and Gudrun. “Sorry about that. Please continue, I would like to hear what you’ve come up with. Oh, and I got another three lapomancers for you.”

“Milord, that would make our projects easier,” Gudrun replied with an awkward curtsy because of her size.

“How goes the preparation for the fort?” I asked.

“We managed to level some of the ground and stabilize it, but the fear of the harpies have halted construction, Milord,” she said fearfully.

“Understandable. Carry on with your discussion, I’ll just listen in,” I said. I was not going to butt in unless it was a truly terrible plan. That she had taken the initiative to do something was great progress in itself. I was not about to curtail that.

Listening in on their conversation, I realized it was not a very ambitious plan, and I had some concerns with it. Basically they wanted to replace the houses one by one, same size and everything, where it had stood originally. The problem with that was that there was no order to it. Which meant it took up more space than needed.

At the end of it, when they were about to go ahead with it, I said, “That’s a great start, but I find that it’s best to think about a plan for a day or two before implementing it. Especially if it’s not something that’s an emergency or could’ve lasting repercussions.”

“Like you did when you insulted the High Lord?” Lily asked with a bit of fire in her voice.

“My point exactly. I might give good advice, I just don’t always follow them,” I said with a laugh. She shook her head but agreed to hold off on implementing the plan.

That night, I found out that she would be sleeping in our room, but that it was not an invitation to anything. I could live with that. Instead, I told her about Earth, making sure to highlight stuff like urban planning and so on. Trying to be subtle about it.

The next few days flew by. The stone mages started construction of some new houses, and it turned out that Lily had been listening. Instead of just throwing them up haphazardly like before, they got created in blocks of four by four huts, with a shared courtyard in between. They even made a small well there. At least that was the plan. So far they were only starting to do the layout.

In the meantime, I led a hunting party to the north, while Caspar led one into the forest. They got the most game, but we managed to tag a few harpies and even kill one, without getting hurt.

Being out hunting with Yathanae and Emma, I finally found time to have another chat with Emma.

“Okay. You’ve had a few days to think about what exactly I did that night when I read your essence, so what do you think happened?” I asked as soon as she returned to her humanoid form.

“I don’t know, you somehow connected with my mana pool, but I’ve tried again and again to send a message to you. You definitely are not blessed by one of the Gods, or you would have gotten one of the messages,” she said.

“Blessed?”

“One of their priests. Because of your essence, I thought that you were selected by Ghidana, but you can’t be, because I can’t send a message to you. It’s a certain type of magic you’re born with that signals that you can become a priest,” she said.

“Are you sure?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“So what happened?” I asked. “I mean I can constantly feel which direction you’re in, and roughly how far away.”

“You somehow created a link with my mana pool, whether it’s permanent or not, I don’t know, and you somehow gained my ability to shapeshift,” she said.

That piqued my interest. “Can you shapeshift into anything?”

“Only cats, or that giant panther,” she answered. “Oh and my humanoid form.”

“Okay, that’s definitely weird. Can you perform the ritual the priest was performing to find out what my powers really are? Because I can certainly do more than linking objects, so there’s no doubt they lied about what my power is,” I said, and then told her about how I had fed Nathalie mana, even showed it to her, and the fact that my manacrystals seemed to be neutral, in that they did not need to be converted.

“I don’t know how that can be. I’ve never heard of such things,” Emma said with a frown. “I mean it would make sense if you had a priest’s power, you’ve taken or copied my shapeshifting magic, and they can use many different magics, but we don’t know what their power really is.”

“Didn’t you say that the power is dependent on the race? I think you said that fairies that are priests of the Wildmother don’t have the same power as you?” I pointed out.

“You’re right. The dwarven or orcish priests all have the same power, no matter which of their Gods they worship,” she said.

“What about the elves?” I asked about the only other race that had more than one God.

“They don’t really count, because they’re actually four separate races in that regard,” Yathanae said, joining the conversation for the first time.

“Damnit, I just don’t know what to do about my magic. I mean it’s great for some things, but I feel like if I reveal any of these properties I’ve discovered, the Church will definitely go after me,” I grumbled. Okay, maybe I whined. It was frustrating not having an owner’s manual on how to utilize my magic.

We sat in silence for a long time. “There’s nothing for it, we’ll have to experiment. And for that, you need to bring someone into your circle of trust.”

“Who?” I asked.

“Well, your two curomancers have kept quiet with what they’ve learned so far. But I think it would be better to take someone who definitely hates the human Church,” Emma said. I blinked my eyes in confusion.

Yathanae shook her head, “Siphanien and Ilmadia.”

I was about to ask who the fuck they were, when it struck me that it was the two other elven serfs, my two elven herbomancers. I had too many people to keep track of. All I said was, “Right. Good idea.”

It also occurred to me I had not followed up on their herb garden or their work with the vegetable garden in a long time. Being honest with myself, I was having too much shit to keep track of and being on top of, and not enough people I could delegate to. Well, I had people I could delegate to, but not a lot of people I could trust. I also had a nest of harpies to deal with. Which would have to wait until after the hunt.

One last thing had occurred to me that I should ask Emma about. “What about truth magic? Doesn’t it work on priests or what? I’m pretty darn sure that the Cardinal was lying. And Ethan once agreed a little too readily to be read by a fideomancer.”

“No,” she replied. “It should work. At least it does on all the priests I know about. But then again we don’t have a Goddess of Truth, who has been ostracized by her own Pantheon.”

I could only put that down as another mystery. From what I had gathered the human gods were pretty different from the others. The human gods embodied aspects like Law, Truth, Justice, and so on, while the other gods were more encompassing. Maybe that had something to do with it? Heck if I knew, I was not a theologist, nor a believer. However, did they really need me to believe? I was pretty sure they were real, I just did not worship any of them. Maybe I should start?

So many questions, so few answers.

A couple of days after returning from the hunt, I was heading out for the dwarven outpost. I had two goals. One was to earn some freaking coin. Unfortunately, we only had enough apples for three wagonloads. The other was to find and deal with those fucking harpies.

I was bringing eight of my now seventeen and a half platoons, as well as a lot of mancers. First, we had all of the stone mages, Nathalie and the new healer, both of my air mages and Linus, as well as my two new water mages. To everyone’s surprise, I had also brought Mina and Ilmadia. They were not going to like what we were about to do, neither were my soldiers.

Originally, the iron had been meant for arrowheads, instead, the blacksmiths had focused on creating climbing gear. It was something I could use to deal with the harpies here and now, but it was also something that would be useful when I went to the Bastion. I hoped.

We had made camp an hour away from the outpost and together with three of our four wagons, and two platoons I headed out for the outpost.

It was after midnight when we approached the dwarven outpost. I sincerely hoped that I had counted the days correctly, and that the note was not a trap. Would be a shit show if it was. Probably start a diplomatic incident, not what I needed at the moment.

When I moved into the giant warehouse, I saw a couple of extra light sources, as well as more than one dwarf. There was one dwarf waiting alone, and then a couple by the ramps. In his whispering shout, the lone dwarf said, “I’m Overseer Two Three Eight. You’ve brought some cargo to sell?”

“Yes, here’s a list of what we brought,” I whispered as low as I possibly could, and pulled a note out of my right saddlebag. If it had been another overseer, I would pull out the one from my right one. When he took it and saw it was written dwarvish, his eyes widened. At least that is what I assumed, the way his forehead moved, could not see them because of those goggles.

He read the note that said it was strong ale instead of cider, and to make an offer. Outloud he said, “We’re willing to pay two marks per wagonload of apples.”

Meanwhile, he was scratching his chest, however, I could easily see from my position that he was tracing the runes for “4”, “marks”, and “barrel”. It was more than I had expected, but I had learned long ago to never take the first offer. I cocked my head and tapped my saddle six times, while whispering, “Sounds like a deal.”

He frowned, and then traced “4” and “half” runes. I imperceptibly shook my head. When he traced “5” I gave him a nod. Loudly whispering, he informed me, “Then we’ve got a deal, I have a small token to show our appreciation. This stone statue was carved by Artist Two Nine Three One and is a symbol of Gyzbohr, as your missionaries describe him.”

He reached into his satchel and rummaged for a long time before he brought out a stone statuette. It was hideous, to say the least, but when I took it I could feel something moving around inside it. He then handed me a pouch. “Here’s the agreed upon payment of six marks for the apples.”

The dwarves at the ramp surprised me when they brought out some giant beetles dragging some sledges. They parked them right behind the wagons at the ramps and asked us to unharness our oxen. When we did as they asked, they used stone magic to raise and tilt the stone beneath the carts, so that they slowly filled the sledges. A dwarf made sure that the barrel was well buried beneath the apples.

After everything was said and done we left. One platoon went back with the carts, except for the fourth cart which was carrying our supplies and was back in the camp. I gave the senior squad leader the pouch with six marks and told him to give it to Lily. She knew what was needed with regards to paying only taxes to the King with it, and she knew nothing about the other deal I was making.

I had a test to perform tonight, well a lot of tests. However, one of them would hopefully allow me to not pay taxes on the fifteen marks that were hopefully in the hollow statuette. Not a bad deal, since I had only paid fifty thalers, or half a mark, per barrel. Had gotten ten times the value. It made me smile.

When we made it back, which was a little easier since all of us were mounted, I found my way to my tent. The campfire in front of it revealed three sleeping figures. Yathanae, Ilmadia, and Mina.

I waited for the soldiers that had just come back to go to sleep before I quietly woke Mina. When she woke, so did Emma and I knew she was starting to walk around and making sure no one was too close.

Mina did not look happy when I asked her into my tent. It was larger than most of the others, but that did not mean it was large. Especially not for my size. There was room for a cot and a chest if need be, but for the moment there was only the cot. With the two of us in the tent, it felt cramped. The tent was lit up by the candle I was holding in my hand.

She looked at me with tears in her eyes. “It was all a lie, Milord?”

“What?” I asked baffled.

“Milord, you promised you would not force any of us to sleep with you, yet here we are,” she said with a quivering voice.

‘Goddamnit,’ I thought when I realized how this looked. With a frown, I said quietly, “No. It was not a lie. I’m going to test something with magic, and I need your help. But you can’t tell anyone, my life could depend on it. I trust your sister, and I’ve already decided you’re my primary truth mage, so I’m going to trust you even more.”

The tears stopped, slowly, but the uncertainty was still clear in her eyes. “What do you need to test, Milord?”

“If I can use my magic to fool your truth reading.”

“That’s impossible, Milord,” she said with a headshake.

“Ask me some inane yes and no questions, or something like what’s my favourite colour, and so on,” I said and sat down, placing the candle on the ground nearby.

When she placed her hands on my temples, and I felt her magic wash over me, I sent my own mana out. Not magic, but pure mana, and felt the connections that she had made with my brain.

“Is your favourite colour blue?” she asked

“No.”

“Truth,” she said, which it was, but more importantly I felt the magic react.

“Is your favourite colour red?”

“Yes,” I lied.

“False,” she said, and I saw and felt how the magic reacted. Different from before.

We went through a dozen more questions, when I felt her mana pool was starting to dry up. I looked at her and said, “This is another secret you can’t tell anyone.”

And with that, I poured my mana into her pool, stronger and faster than I had with Nathalie. She gasped and flushed. When her reserves had filled up a bit I asked her to continue. I was ready for the real test.

“Are your eyes blue?” she asked after a moment she used to recover.

“Yes,” I said and tried to force her magic to react the same way it had done when I was telling the truth.

“Tru—no false,” she said confused. “What’s going on?”

“I tried to alter your reading. Almost had it. Again,” I said.

It took me ten more tries to finally fool her reading completely, but by then she was completely exhausted, from the continuous mana drain and refilling. It would need more testing, but at least I knew it was possible, and it seemed more and more certain that I was sharing the same powers as the human priests. Yet Emma insisted I was not one. What the hell was going on?