Only Villains Do That

Hearing Junko rapidly approach, I decided to take a risk.

“Oh, she scared the hell outta Benit and Radon the first time,” I said aloud, deliberately casual. “I’ll go ahead, calm the dog and wait by the gates. Biribo, you can guide ‘em the rest of the way, right? See you in a minute.”

I set off ahead of the group at a brisk trot while a few confused voices spoke acknowledgment behind. Biribo, at least, I trusted to figure out what was up. Probably some of the others, too—Goose was pretty sharp and attuned to subtext—but mostly I didn’t want to scare the kids. With Biribo’s senses and Aster’s artifacts, if Lady Gray chose the brief moment of my absence from the group to jump out at them, they could hold out long enough for me to run back. Hopefully.

And meanwhile, I would find out whether what I feared had come to pass.

I was pretty sure at least some of the others had had the same thought. Aster definitely, probably Goose. We’d been operating for a while now under the assumption that North Watch was a secret which could not be kept, and Lady Gray was highly motivated not just to destroy my organization as I’d done hers, but to hurt me. She had been notably absent since depositing her last grotesque message outside the Kingsguard stations. I had thought, when I decided to spend that day in a vigil and that night excising the cancer that was Uncle Gently, that she would hover around Gwyllthean for the chance to strike at me while I was there. But during the day and a half we’d been heading back, I had realized that, if she wanted, she could had stolen a march and reached North Watch before us. That was what none of us had said aloud, because there hadn’t been a moment when we could be certain none of the children were listening.

The fact was, I did not know what I would find in the fortress when I got there, and had reason to fear the worst. It was a good sign that Junko was alive and apparently normal, but…

The dog met me with her usual ecstatic yipping and jumping about, and I gave her a quick hug and a skritch behind the ears because how could I not? But mindful of the group behind me quickly catching up, I kept moving forward, ordering Junko to heel.

Perceptive of my mood as always, she instantly fell into step alongside me, tail furiously wagging in her happiness at being reunited, but otherwise alert as I almost ran the last meters to the gates of North Watch.

Two women I couldn’t identify from down below were on watch above the gates; one waved at me. So far, so good. I didn’t begin to properly relax until the actual welcoming committee, doubtless warned of my approach by Junko’s barking, met me in the open gates themselves.

My people hadn’t been sitting on their hands during my Gwyllthean adventure, I noted with approval; khora had been cleared back from the fortress’s outer walls in both directions, and just inside and off the main path, a pair of huge gates looked to be in the latter stages of construction, waiting to be finished and hung once we acquired the necessary hinges and fittings. I took all this in with a glance before focusing on the three who’d come to meet me.

“Is everything all right?” I demanded.

Minifrit raised her eyebrows, taking a long drag on her pipe. Sakin grinned a very Sakin grin, which might have meant anything or nothing. Standing right between them, Kasser looked somewhat harried, and it was he who answered.

“No notable problems, Lord Seiji. Some scuffles and… Well, putting this many people together in one fortress when they aren’t used to it obviously causes tension, but Minifrit’s been handling it very well. Are you all right? Where’s Aster? Where’s Biribo?”

“They’re coming with the others,” I said impatiently. “You haven’t been attacked? No casualties? Unexplained…incidents?”

Even Sakin stopped grinning by that point. “We’re renovating a fort in the middle of the wilderness, Lord Seiji, weird shit happens out here,” he said. “What kind of incidents are you looking for?”

“Others?” Minifrit asked pointedly.

“In a minute,” I said, still terse even as I was beginning to relax. Okay, the worst had not happened, nor apparently even the notably bad, but this was no time to get complacent. “We’re moving to a defensive posture and I want everyone on high alert. I need watchers on the walls at all times, each one positioned where they can see and be seen by at least two others. Minifrit, adjust the duty schedule in whatever way is necessary to make this happen. Some kind of impediment has to go across this opening until the gate is finished, and I want every exterior window accessible from outside the walls boarded up.”

Now all of them had gone still and sharp-eyed, Minifrit staring particularly narrowly at me.

“Lady Gray knows where we are,” she guessed.

“I don’t know that for a confirmed fact, but it’s my assumption North Watch is a secret that cannot be kept much longer.” I glanced over my shoulder, hearing the steps of the others catching up. “I’ll tell you the long version later, but in brief, I accidentally finished destroying her organization, but she survived and escaped and appears to have gone utterly batshit insane and is…miffed at me.”

Kasser let out a low whistle, raising his eyebrows. Sakin laughed aloud in apparent glee, very nearly earning himself a slime to the pelvis, and Minifrit just grimaced for a moment as she exhaled smoke through her nose.

“And you are alone and empty-handed,” she said pointedly. “Any luck acquiring the supplies which were the primary purpose for your trip, Lord Seiji? Or the people you went to secure?”

I winced. “Ah… As you might have gathered, things did not go according to plan. Everybody we could identify as a possible target is under the protection of the Kingsguard or the King’s Guild or the Convocation, and a lot of them are being taken off the island. Auldmaer has my shopping list, but we’re gonna have to make a separate trip soon to pick everything up. I didn’t come back empty-handed, though!”

They proved me right with perfect timing, the group beginning to straggle into view around the last bend of the path, Aster in the lead with Biribo buzzing about her head. Junko turned back and barked a greeting at them, tail wagging furiously. Nobody appeared to be distressed; Gray had still not put in an appearance.

The anticipation was really starting to wear on me.

“Is that…” Minifrit stared past me with open incredulity, a rare lapse in her normally controlled expression. “Lord Seiji, did you really just acquire two dozen blended Gutter Rats and…somehow…noblewomen?”

“Oh, yeah, you would not believe the shit he drags home,” Sakin cackled. “One time it was a stray dog. And then a whole mess of whores!”

Both of them gave him sidelong looks, Kasser apprehensive and Minifrit openly scathing. I started to wonder if there were long-running tensions here I should worry about, though frankly it came as a relief to me to have someone as strong-willed and smart as Minifrit on hand to counterbalance whatever Sakin might get up to.

“Your eyes do not deceive you, Minifrit,” I said aloud. “I’ll need your help getting everyone settled in.”

“Well, you arrived at a good time,” said Kasser. “Dinner’s being served in the hall right now.”

“Gwynneks,” Minifrit said sharply. “You brought…fifteen gywnneks. What are we supposed to do with these?”

“Yeah, we sort of don’t have a stable anymore,” Sakin commented.

I could already see several of my new non-horse horse girls stiffening up in offense and intervened to avoid starting everybody off on the wrong foot.

“Gwynneks are extremely useful creatures,” I told Minifrit. “I’ve already seen how fast they can move through difficult terrain like the khora forest. Considering a cornerstone of our strategy is going to be controlling disparate bandit territories from this extremely non-central location, they’ll be absolutely priceless.”

“Oh, yes,” she said, smoke dripping from her lips with every syllable like a visible manifestation of the sarcasm in her voice. “Not only that, but they’re a fine military addition. Absolutely vicious in combat and far more willing to fight than dhawls or even horses. Clever, too. Altogether a tremendous asset, Lord Seiji. Do you know, then, why every nation doesn’t bother to keep a gwynnek cavalry?”

I blinked. “…do they not?”

“Because,” she said acidly, “they are carnivores the size of horses. Not only are they notoriously difficult to train and uncooperative with anyone other than individuals with whom they’ve bonded, they require meat. Lots of it, daily! You’ve brought us the most expensive and difficult possible mounts at a moment when, last I checked, we were little more than a week from running out of food.”

“That’s actually not a hardship on largely wild and under-hunted territory like most of Dount,” Nazralind broke in, smiling reassuringly at her. Minifrit looked unimpressed, Sakin…well, like Sakin. Kasser, though, was visibly uneasy to find himself facing an actual elf. “We’ve been keeping them without trouble in forest camps. This is perfect land for it, in fact! They can hunt not only for their own needs, but add to our meat stores for the personnel.”

“Mmm.” Minifrit finished another long drag and blew a streamer of spicy smoke directly at Nazralind, who fortunately was too far away for it to reach her before dissipating. “I don’t suppose Lord Seiji thought to inform you, my lady, that North Watch is in the territory of—in fact, quite close to the main village of—a tribe of catfolk with whom we have a tense and ambiguous relationship. Who outnumber us roughly two to one, and who will take it as a hostile act if we start hunting in their lands.”

“…ah.” Nazralind turned a wide-eyed look on me. “Well, that’s…”

“Wait, you can’t hunt?” Lady Loreith peered about from atop her own mount. “Or even gather? How else are you feeding everyone in this wilderness?”

Okay, so these details had slipped my mind, but I wasn’t caught without an answer.

“The plan was already to take out nearby bandit gangs and absorb their territory,” I soothed. “We’ve already got started on that with Auron’s gang, remember? Once we wipe out the gang over there on Clan Yldyllich lands, we’ll have access to a whole lot of wild khora with no one claiming it. And those are the assholes who like to murder and rape people for sport, so it’ll be a quick and clean operation. No recruitment or difficult parts like last time, just killing them all. We can have it done tomorrow.”

“Just like that, hm,” one of the ladies whom I couldn’t see muttered.

“So the big plan is to hunt on Clan Yldyllich’s lands?” Minifrit said, her voice tight. “Lord Seiji…”

Nazralind turned over her shoulder. “Hey, Mimi! Care to weigh in on this?”

Another rider guided her gwynnek forward, stepping carefully past the Rats who eased out of the way. They’d relaxed around the huge birds considerably over the last few days but were still wisely careful not to go anywhere near those massive talons.

“That’s actually not a bad idea,” the brown-haired woman who’d come forward said, nodding to Nazralind. “The Yldyllich Clansguard’s reputation for brutality will discourage competition, but the truth is the Clan only cares bout protecting their toll road. The Clansguard doesn’t even patrol deep into the khora; that’s the only way a bandit gang could have survived in there. Poaching is only a problem if the Clan in question values its hunting rights, which Yldyllich doesn’t. Long as we’re careful not to be seen and don’t bother anybody on the road, hunting and trapping in there shouldn’t be a problem. I also have contacts I can reach out to that might make our movements easier. Safer, at least.”

“You are…remarkably well-informed, my lady,” Minifrit said warily.

The woman Nazralind had called Mimi grinned and released her reins to fold down her hands, which made Minifrit blink in surprise. “Lady Yldyllich Miriami, at your service.”

“I know you’re aware we’ve accumulated enemies, Lord Seiji,” Nazralind added, “but we also have friends all over this island, both commoners and even a few highborn. I assure you we’ll pull our weight.”

“I never doubted it,” I said, winking. “Satisfied, Miss Minifrit?”

The ex-madam heaved a sigh, tendrils of pipe smoke curling away into the evening air. “It seems you have indeed planned appropriately, my lord. Forgive my skepticism.”

“Not at all, that inquiring mind of yours is one of the things that makes you so useful. Now, as for getting everyone settled in…”

She looked critically over the group. “Mm. These children look exhausted. Please take them directly to the mess hall for something to eat; I will make sure there are…” Minifrit’s eyes darted across the group, lips moving soundlessly for a moment as she performed a rapid head count. “…twelve beds prepared when they’re finished. Ladies, we are going to have to improvise some shelter for your mounts. I gather you would prefer to see to that before your own meals?”

“Correct,” Nazralind said with a grin. “They won’t need much, though, we’re all accustomed to roughing it in the forest.”

“Why doesn’t the famous North Watch have a stable?” Sadhith demanded.

“Oh, it used to,” Sakin said seriously, “but Lord Seiji turned it into a bath house.”

All of them perked up visibly and there ensued a general chorus of “Oooh!”

“Kasser, if you would accompany us?” Minifrit suggested. “This is no time for anything too complicated or permanent, but we may need to rig up some semblance of a pen. Even if they don’t need a roof, we do not need anyone accidentally wandering into a bunch of surprise gwynneks in the middle of the night.”

“Uh…sure.” Kasser actually took a step backward, now staring at the gwynneks with visible unease. Junko was also staring at them, pressed against my leg and no longer wagging her tail. She wasn’t trembling or anything, inferring from my own relaxed demeanor that there was no danger here, but I couldn’t blame her and Kasser for their reaction. If you weren’t familiar with these escapees from a dinosaur movie, they were extremely alarming to see up close.

“They’re all very well-trained, don’t worry,” Nazralind assured him with a winsome smile. “Newneh is quite sociable, in fact. You want to pet her nose?”

She guided the bird forward slightly, and Kasser retreated to widen the space between them.

“No! I mean… No thank you, my lady.”

“Naz, please don’t give Kasser a hard time,” I interjected. “Kasser, the birds are safe, I promise, as long as you don’t do anything stupid around them.”

“Define stupid,” Sakin requested, grinning maniacally.

I ignored him, turning to the Rats. “All right, that’s enough of that drama. C’mon, kids. I dunno about you, but I could really use a hot meal right about now. Sounds like they have ‘em ready, too.”

“Hot food?” Aenit said skeptically. She was usually the first to speak, the others following her lead. “Like…whole meals? For us? Why?”

“D-did she say beds?” stammered a boy half-hiding behind her.

I was rather gratified to see Minifrit’s face momentarily tighten, mirroring the sensation that gripped my own chest at this. The Alley cats and Gutter Rats had had an unfriendly relationship back in the Gutters, but with all that in the past, it was reassuring to see that she felt the same pain at the spectacle of deprivation these poor kids made.

“I told you,” I said as gently as I could, “I take care of my people. Food, beds, clothing and whatever else you need. That’s what you’re here for, after all. C’mon, you should be able to meet Gilder and the others inside, they never miss a mealtime.”

“I bet they don’t,” Aenit muttered as she and the rest of the Rats trailed along behind me toward the central fortress, whose main doors opened conveniently onto the foyer that led right into the mess hall.

Immediately, I could tell this wasn’t going to go as smoothly as I had hoped, to judge by the raised voices I could hear from inside. Shrill voices that sounded like they were on the verge of transitioning from screaming to fists.

Great.

Guards had been posted at the front door, to my satisfaction. Currently one of the bouncers from Cat Alley and a woman who’d been in Grey’s organization before jumping ship to mine with Kadret. Good—my administrators were not only taking security seriously, but were posting people from different factions to avoid forming cliques within the organization. I saw Minifrit’s capable hand in this. Both nodded at me, the man opening the door for us to emit a blast of light and warm air.

And shrieking.

Fortunately, it was a small confrontation, despite its volume, and almost everyone in the room was eating their dinner rather than joining in. Mostly half-turned to gawk, but at least not making it worse. No, it was just Sicellit and Ydleth nose-to-nose in the middle of the aisle and evidently on the verge of violence.

Not what I’d expected. Sicellit was one of Minifrit’s unofficial lieutenants and usually pretty even-tempered. Ydleth was a former prostitute from one of the poorer brothels who I mostly remembered because back when I was doing weekly healing trips I noticed she tended to get beaten up more than most.

“Who the fuck are you to tell me—”

“You have no business here if you’re going to act—”

“Nobody put you in charge of me, cunt!”

“At least I have—”

“Ara, ara, ara.” I projected as hard from the diaphragm as if I were commanding a stadium, my voice cutting through the shrieking match without the indignity of yelling. Everyone stopped what they were doing, turning to stare at me. Including, fortunately, the two combatants.

I kept my features composed, even as I was internally cringing at myself.

Goddammit, I did it again! Why did this keep happening? I’d never said “ara ara” in my life before I came to Ephemera, I swear.

Of course, once I actually posed myself the question, I knew the answer. On occasions when I needed people to stop acting like idiots and listen to me but wasn’t willing to set them on fire, I automatically mimicked the foremost expert in that feat I had ever witnessed: my grandmother. That was, Obaasan in Yokohama, not Granmom in San Diego. A woman who ruled her neighborhood association with such an effective velvet glove that she never needed to show off the iron fist inside it, who I swear could stifle a forest fire through sheer force of polite disapproval. Great, I was the Dark Lord who channeled the awesome power of Stern Old Lady.

Well, you know what, fine. It was fine, this could just be my thing. Rock stars have been playing around with gender presentation since Elvis discovered how profitable it was to upset traditionalist types in front of their grandkids. In fact… Yeah, now that I thought about it, this was Ephemera. Nobody here should even recognize “ara ara” as effeminate. Great, I was in the clear. I just had to remember not to do it in front of Yoshi.

Belatedly I realized that several continuous seconds of expectant silence had passed while I projected a calm facade and internally castigated myself. God, I was too tired for this. In the last few minutes I’d gone from expecting to find half my people slaughtered to relief that everything was fine to towering annoyance at finding them doing…whatever the fuck this was. And on top of that, I hadn’t had a proper rest throughout my extremely stressful trip to Gwyllthean. I was really not at the top of my game right now.

To begin with, I saved face by pretending I wasn’t the one who’d been holding up proceedings.

“Well?” I prompted, raising my eyebrows. “Is someone going to explain this nonsense I had to walk in on?”

Both women turned to stare at me and pointed at each other, swelling up like angry bullfrogs. Ydleth was faster to speak by a hair.

“She—”

“Wait!” I held up one hand, silencing them both. It was gratifying I still had at least that much control over this situation. “Ladies, is this going to be an involved explanation?”

“Oh, just wait till you hear about this, Lord Seiji,” Sicellit snarled.

“I was afraid of that,” I sighed. And to think ten minutes ago I’d been afraid they were dead. “I will be with you in a moment, girls. Hey, Gilder! You in here?”

“Right here, Lord Seiji!” He popped up from one of the tables nearest the dais—where, I noted, Donon had set up the big meeting table as a serving station with big cauldrons of stew and piles of wyddh.

“Perfect, are the others with you?”

On command, Benit and Radon poked their heads out from behind the crowd, though they didn’t speak up, as was fairly typical.

“Great, c’mere. I have a task for you. See, kids, I told you they were fine.”

“Holy shit!” Grinning, Gilder came skittering forward in such a hurry that he actually dashed between Sicellit and Ydleth, though Radon and Benit circled around them more warily. “Inon! Tamin! Dony! And is that Aenit? Wait, where’s everybody else? What happened?”

“I was planning to help you kids get settled in personally,” I said, turning back to Aenit and the others, “but as you can see, I now have to deal with whatever this is. So. Gilder, please take Aenit and the others to get some dinner and give them a rundown on how we do things here. Aenit, while you’re eating, please catch Gilder and the others up on what went down in the city. I promise I’ll be available to talk about it later if you want, but it’ll have to wait a bit.”

“Huh.” Gilder folded his skinny arms, brazenly looking Aenit up and down. “How come you got top name in this crowd?”

She curled her lip, meeting his stare. “How come you did?”

I tensed in spite of myself, for one second fearing I had just created yet another pointless argument I was going to have to settle before getting back to the first one before I could actually eat and get off my feet…

But Gilder, bless him, only matched Aenit stare-for-stare for a moment before grinning amiably. “Well, hell, fair enough. C’mon, you guys look fuckin’ starved, let’s go get something hot into you. You’re gonna love this, the food’s real good and they let you have as much as you want! Long as you don’t piss off the cooks, I mean. You’ll never believe who they got running the kitchen: it’s Gannit, that old lady from the Jugs! Stay on her good side. Oh, but that’s Donon up there at the tables, he’s cool. Don’t filch anything, that’ll just get your hands whacked an’ there’s no point, he’ll give you more’n enough anyway…”

His running commentary didn’t let up for a moment, only diminishing slightly in volume as he led the rest of the children up to the front toward Donon’s serving table. I tuned them out after a moment, deciding this was probably in good hands. Donon had been good with the kids so far. So had Gannit, for that matter, though she was more inclined to whack grabby little hands with her ladle.

I turned back to Sicellit and Ydleth, putting on a cold smile that made them both ease warily backward. That was a good start; I was not in the mood for whatever bullshit this was, and so much the better if they knew it.

And that was why this mattered: I was still in the earliest stages of establishing this organization. Forming a culture, as Minifrit described it. It didn’t actually matter what these two were feuding over—and there wasn’t a doubt in my mind it would turn out to be something stupid and pointless—but it would matter a lot how I handled it. I could not have my people going at each other like this during mealtimes. Or at any times.

So all I had to do was pull some conflict resolution skills out of my ass, in front of an audience of almost my entire organization, while I was exhausted and hungry.

Fucking fabulous.

“Thanks for your patience, ladies,” I said pleasantly. “So! What in the hell is the matter with you two?”

And it was at that moment I knew for certain that this was not going to go well.