“Must I ask Vilga of the Fire Hawk to make sure you keep your honor?” she asked.

The trio of pups blanched, their tails involuntarily tucking beneath their legs. Feista and her pups had discovered that her Goblin bookkeeper’s grim efficiency had many applications beyond managing the accounts. Mrs. Hrurk wondered what else Vilga was good at, though the children had apparently decided that ignorance was bliss. “No, Mother,” they muttered.

Aubren and Feista watched the children scuttle out of the kitchen. “Anything I can do to help, ma’am?”

“Yes. I’ll need you to handle the carpenter while I head to the Wall,” said Feista.

“Oh, I… I haven’t done much negotiating,” confessed Aubren.

“Everyone negotiates,” Mrs. Hrurk said. “The trick is getting better at it. Just stay calm, hear what he has to say, and let him know what we know and what we’ll accept.”

The girl still hesitated. “But what do I know about carpentry?”

The Gnoll grinned. “We know he’s been whining that material costs are up. And we also know that the lumber yard says wood prices are where they were a year ago, and the blacksmith says he raised the price on a bag of nails by a penny. You can do a lot with that information.”

Aubren thought for a moment, then smiled. “So he’s been lying.”

“He’s been exaggerating,” said Feista with a shrug. “Food prices are rising. I’m sure his lunches and coffee grow more expensive, and his laborers feel the same pinch. He’s told half the truth, and hopes that the gap in our understanding will let him raise prices by…” She did some mental calculations as she checked her slim, black briefcase. “I would guess around eight percent. Show him what you know, and you should be able to hold him to three or four.”

“That’s all it is?” asked Aubren.

“That’s all,” said Feista, pulling her cloak around her. “Most of negotiation is just showing up with the right information.”

Information is power.

Not in the conventional sense of power, like armies and heroes and enchanted weapons. Never bring a book to a knife fight. But the right information, known at the right time, deployed with care and precision, can best any weapon. If you know where your enemy sleeps, there doesn’t need to be a knife fight at all.

The right knowledge could raise armies or raze cities. It could make careers or shatter lives. It could change lines of succession. It could bring down kings and the people in powerful places.

It was the latter sort of information, specifically, that Gorm Ingerson pored over with his companions amidst the ashes of Sowdock. He had never met this Jerald Fisher, but the late town crier’s foresight or luck had preserved his investigations into a number of suspicious deaths and disappearances. An old Dwarven proverb held that secrets were like daggers pointed at their target; these journals were more like a battery of trebuchets pointed at the Palace of Andarun.

“Everyone who saw Handor die, everyone who looked into it…” Gorm said.

Burt nodded. “No loose ends, as they say, right?”

“And the dragon…” Kaitha stared at the horizon, trying to fathom the unsaid possibilities.

“There might not be a dragon at all,” Laruna said.

“Of course, we all know there’s a dragon beneath the mountain,” said Kaitha. “I mean, we know there is a dragon down there, right?”

Gaist shrugged.

The Elf frowned as she pushed her memory as far back as it could stretch. “I feel like we’ve always known there was one down there. I just can’t recall anyone who’s ever seen it up close and lived. But the attacks⁠—”

“They’re all here,” Gorm marveled, flipping through the pages. “Every time the dragon’s struck in the past year. Dayle. The Base. The Agekeeper’s Cloister at Waerth.”

“You think Johan’s in league with the dragon?” said Laruna skeptically.

“I still ain’t sure the dragon was here, or that there even is one,” said Gorm. “But I’m bettin’ that the bannermen will say that’s what did this to Sowdock.” He waved a hand at the general destruction around them.

“They might be right,” said Laruna. “Dragonfire isn’t like other flames. It burns hotter than any other fire, enchanted or chemical. And it’d be easy for forensic mages to tell if a fire is created using mundane or magical tools.”

“Well, that’s why we need a wizard to look at the wood and that chunk of barrel,” said Gorm.

“And we’ll find one back in the city,” said Burt, jerking a thumb over his shoulder. “Speaking of which, we’d best make tracks before the bannermen get here.”

“Or better yet, we’d best not,” said Kaitha. “Lead my horse. I’ll cover our passage.”

“Aye!” Gorm started toward the horses with the others, but Kaitha held him back a moment.

“I know you’re excited, Gorm,” she told him. “But we can’t move too fast here. We need proof.”

“And we’ll find it,” he assured her. “But for the first time in a long while, I can see all the signs pointin’ in the same direction.”

“It’s not proof,” Kaitha reiterated.

“But it’s a good story, and it’s easy to follow. That may matter just as much,” said Gorm. “Who benefited most when Handor died? Who was with the king at the time he did? Who would want to silence an eagle that was the only other witness? And who has the most to lose if an Agekeeper and some town criers go digging into the story?”

Chapter 4

“The Doom of the Bloodworm of Knifevale! The Slayer of the Lion of Chrate! The man who took down the Necromancer of the Ashen Tower!” A herald in gold and blue livery ran across the stage, crying adulations into a hollow drake’s horn. The bony spindle was enchanted to carry the man’s voice over the blaring trumpets, the thunderous drums, and the roar of the adoring crowd. “You know him as the foremost Hero of the City, the Champion of Tandos, the one who drove back Detarr Ur’Mayan’s army, the leader of the free Peoples of the Light, and your king! Please welcome His Majesty, Johan the Mighty!”

The crowd thundered in response. The masses rose to their feet as one, a swelling tide in the sheltered bay of Andarun’s Grand Opera House. Faint pink lights flared in the orchestra pit, a telltale signal of the sprites that the town criers gathered there used to help remember the event. Above them, the occupants of one of the state boxes dutifully rose to their feet, clapping politely.

One of them was swaying.

“Hooray! Hooray fah Johah!” Weaver Ortson’s words were a slurry of mumbled praise and dripping sarcasm. The Grandmaster of the Heroes’ Guild in the Freedlands rocked back and forth like a tree in a breeze. The goblet he raised in mock salute would have dribbled wine everywhere had he not had the foresight to drain it as soon as it was filled.

“Sit down, man!” hissed an ancient Dwarf from the seat next to him. Looking at Fenrir Goldson called to mind a barrow king in a suit, with his emaciated frame, skin like spotted paper, scraggy remnants of a long white beard, and a disdain for all living mortals. “Good gods, Ortson, have you no dignity?” he rasped.

“I’d think you know better than that by now.” The leathery Halfling next to Goldson gave a short laugh. Bolbi Baggs was merely ancient, which made him the younger of the duo that helmed the Goldson Baggs Group. “But do sit down, Ortson. The king is about to speak.”

Weaver slumped into his velvet chair and looked with bleary eyes at a gleaming figure standing in the middle of the stage. King Johan’s heavy armor was decorated with enough gold to gild a palace. His flaxen hair and crimson cape blew in an otherwise imperceptible wind, the product of expensive magical glamours. The mages had done well with the cosmetic enchantments; the deep, purple scars that a liche’s magic had left across the king’s face were barely noticeable, even with the opera house’s heavy lights beaming down on him. When he laughed, it was like the clarion call of a trumpet leading to war. When he spoke, almost every mouth in the great auditorium fell silent.

Almost.

“This drivel again?” Goldson hissed to Baggs a few minutes into the king’s speech.

“The gods will smile upon us if he’s just here to review familiar themes.” Baggs swirled a snifter of brandy as he watched Johan raise a fist to the crowd. “For all we know, he’ll be letting us know about another terrible merger we’re to do, or disrupting trade with the Empire for no good reason again.”

Goldson snorted.

As a king, Johan approached the kingdom’s levers of power much the way a barbarian with a sledgehammer might approach a Gnomish steam engine: quickly, brutally, and without any consideration for the way things were supposed to work or the wreckage he left behind. Companies were told what business decisions they would make. Nobles were given new duties on whims. Guildmasters and union leaders found themselves scrambling to respond to royal edicts. Those that didn’t comply found themselves publicly scorned and sometimes privately sequestered in Andarun’s dungeon. Those that did roll along with the edicts endured a different sort of punishment, which mostly involved struggling to stop losing giltin hand over fist while maintaining ostensible compliance with the king’s decisions.

All of Andarun’s high society dreaded these sudden decrees. And everyone knew Johan’s favorite medium for delivering them was the Speech.