"You thieves, the scourge of countless families!"
Aldric's studded gauntlet caught the screaming girl across the face before anyone nearby had registered he'd moved. She dropped. The women around her stumbled back, grabbing each other, certain that Mad Aldric was about to do something worse with that iron-handled axe at his hip. Only the girl who had been struck looked up at him, her eyes burning.
"Cursing all of a sudden? What kind of thing is this?"
Shiron muttered it under his breath, genuinely puzzled. Elder Ged shrugged beside him.
"Well, if you hate Northerners this much, you could always take it up with the survivors. Oh, you said you were going south this year, didn't you?"
Along with the slaves, Aldric and his companions had found the new recruits waiting in the branch's unloading warehouse, each armed with a goat-foot crossbow fitted with a steel shaft. They had watched the scene with the girl unfold and now stood with the particular expression of men who had not yet decided whether they'd made a good decision joining this company.
Aldric ignored their faces.
"Noisy, but these women wouldn't fetch a bad price, north or south. We'll take them." He turned his attention to the most heavily armored of the young recruits. The young man wore old-fashioned middle armor, leather over iron plates, with an open-brimmed helmet hanging from his belt alongside a short sword. His bearing made his role obvious. Aldric asked him directly, "Are you the crossbowman Mori mentioned?"
"Yes, sir. My name is Tilly. Are you Commander Aldric?"
The soldier was briefly taken aback but answered without hesitation. Aldric nodded and gave his introduction without ceremony.
"Your official title is Captain Aldric of the Veld Infantry. You appear to be the leader of these young men."
"Yes, sir."
"Everyone else looks under-equipped. Oren."
Oren nodded and closed his eyes, reciting from memory.
"Loyalty to the King of Se Parol. Minors under fifteen and the elderly over fifty are not permitted to join, except as officers. Recruitment is based on ability to hunt. Enemy numbers are small, and anyone who runs will meet my hands before the captain's. If any of us are attacked, all of us respond. Anyone who talks nonsense and lowers morale will be punished. Anyone who sells weapons or armor without the captain's permission will lose them to the captain before I can get there. Wear a sword, axe, helmet, short gun or spear. Shields and armor are welcome. Crossbowmen carry a crossbow, thirty arrows, an axe, a sword and a helmet. Shields and armor are welcome."
Aldric nodded once.
"Good. Swords are expensive, so at minimum get a hatchet. If you want a sword badly enough, that's fine. The cost comes out of your pay."
The young men looked unhappy. A crossbow alone cost more than a pig. They had already committed a large sum just arriving. But the contract deposit was already folded into the cost of weapons and armor. There was no other way. Aldric moved on.
"Combat experience?"
"I served at Ortman."
Aldric's face shifted into the particular expression of a man who has no idea where that is. Tilly noticed and explained.
"A fort about a fortnight northeast. Two counts had a dispute over toll rights."
"Tolls are a problem everywhere."
"You became famous because of a toll dispute yourself, didn't you, sir?"
Aldric shook his head slowly, the way a man shakes his head at something unpleasant he stepped in a long time ago and still occasionally smells.
"That failed."
"It'll go down in history regardless. You're the only Northern Army commander who actually tried to take a city."
"If that's your motivation, give it up. I won't do it again."
The further north you traveled, the smaller a city became relative to the great southern ones, so even a population of ten thousand was considered substantial. But it was still a city.
A hundred fighters had gone at that city.
The battle had escalated quickly, pulling in several armed northern ships and other hired companies. But Aldric, unable to fully encircle the outer district, had failed to cut the supply lines. After more than two months of siege, long enough to wake the nobles and knights of the Magic Kingdom from their comfortable assumptions, he was forced to pull back. The siege itself, however, its audacity, its duration, the sheer refusal to stop, had done something to his reputation that success might not have. Even now, the mention of Mad Aldric was considered one of that city's more reliable nightmares.
"I'll have a chance to tell that story properly someday. Maybe even make money from it."
"I said I won't."
Tilly smiled, maybe indifferently, maybe because he already knew how that particular argument ended. He turned his attention to the female slaves standing to the side. Six of them. Not particularly striking, but each with a capable, alert face. "Well chosen" was the right phrase.
"Where do you plan to sell them?"
"I'm considering a southern voyage this year, so I'll try there first if I can. If slave prices are running low, I can work them on the fleet and sell north later."
"North? I heard the settlers only buy strong men."
"I could sell them to an old settler bachelor. But if I want a real price, I'd have to sell to the survivors."
"A deformed son cursed by the Lion King? I've never seen one, but if it's true, that's a waste of a woman."
Elder Ged felt obligated to explain at length. He chuckled and turned to Tilly with the patience of a man who had given this particular explanation before.
"That's exactly why they sell for so much. Do you know what wealthy, physically incomplete men think about? They think about using women with intact limbs as surrogates, to leave behind better offspring. Two arms, two legs, one face, and if possible, even teeth."
Tilly immediately looked fed up. The slaves shared precisely the same expression.
"The survivors hate Northerners, so how are they supposed to trade?"
"Why do people here trade with the Ember Empire? They fight constantly."
The elder answered his question with a question, and Tilly's mouth closed. Trade with the southern heretics across the sea was a reliable source of wealth for Velrun and cities like it. The Knights of the Holy Sun, clients of the Free Reaches, would froth publicly about interference with the Crusade. Despite repeated truces and renewed wars, the trade continued without meaningful interruption.
"The world runs on money and blood. Oren, take the slaves. Hall 2."
Oren moved immediately. He crouched beside the woman who had fallen after being struck and muttered quietly.
"Captain. Her mouth is torn."
"It'll close."
"Understood. I'll carry her gently."
He lifted her by the right arm, brought her upright carefully, and walked her out. The other slaves, unprompted, followed on their own feet. The two musketeers carrying the golden palanquin fell in behind them. What remained in the warehouse was Aldric, Elder Ged, and the new recruits.