Chapter 136 - A Thousand Welcomes

  Harding led us to a stable near the gate where Farnsworth was asked to leave his mount. Once the horse was settled with a stableboy, we pressed on. Harding left about half his force near the gates, taking the others with him as a sort of honor guard for the pair of us. They marched on all sides as we proceeded down the main path toward the keep at the center of the Domain.

  I had to wonder what they were making of us. Farnsworth might only be tier six, the same as Harding—but I was tier ten. None of them could even tell my tier level, because the gap was too great between us. All they were getting from me was ‘bigger than I am.’ It had to be leaving them at least a little nervous, in the same manner I had been when fighting Lyonius.

  But they stayed with us, flanking our steps all the way to the castle. It was an impressive level of courage and discipline.

  We passed by parts of their settlement as we walked, and I made all the mental notes I could, both good and bad.

  On the good side, they had a bunch of crops laid in. We hadn’t tried to do that at all over at the farm. With the Hannaford’s grocery store right nearby—and we’d found a Trader Joe’s as well, not much more distant—the farm was pretty set for food. I had every confidence we’d be able to make it through the winter without too much trouble. Among all the other supplies we’d scavenged, we’d laid in a very large supply of seeds. That would serve us well once spring hit.

  Still, I watched what they’d chosen to plant. Beets, chard, even some peas—and all of it had grown well in only a month or so. It was impressive. They’d managed to plant enough crops to get a decent haul. I doubted that it would feed everyone by itself, but it would certainly help boost their food stocks in the months to come.

  Then I spotted something that made me want to slap myself in the forehead. Two people rushed past us on the road, headed back toward the gate, then turning off down a side-street. But they hadn’t been on foot—they rode bikes! Of course bicycles would still work, in the same way my wind-up watch did. Machines that worked on basic physics seemed to still function just fine. Why hadn’t it occurred to me to get all our people on bikes? They were more limited in some ways than horses, but way more effective in others.

  Harding noticed my interest. “We have an active messenger and delivery service which uses bicycles to get around. Because KingsHaven is so large, it takes a while to move things around. They help. We even have little towed wagons they can pull, if there’s a need to bring more goods somewhere quickly.”

  “It’s a smart move,” I replied. I was impressed and saw no point hiding it. “We’ve mostly stuck with horses so far, but that wouldn’t work as well for a place like this.”

  “Indeed,” he replied. We pushed on through the space, and I continued taking in everything I could. There was a lot to like.

  On the other hand, the issues Kara spotted with the way the place was run become obvious quickly. There were three classes of residents visible.

  The most common wore tattered, dirty clothing and had sunken eyes. It didn’t take a pre-med student’s knowledge to see they were undernourished. These were all laborers, working on the patches of garden or repairs to assorted buildings. None of them smiled. They were alive, but it seemed clear to me that they weren’t being valued the same as the other people.

  Also common were people in armor. In fact, these folks had more suits of armor than even the Air Guard! Where the Guard had ripped apart their aluminum aircraft to make lightweight armor, this stuff was all steel. I had to assume they’d torn apart every car they could get their hands on for the metal. It made sense, and that was something my Domain really ought to get on soon, too. There were so many dead vehicles everywhere that we wouldn’t be short on raw materials for a long time.

  The third group was different. They were a mixed bag, all featuring different clothing, all armed with a variety of weapons and armor, and most of them tier four or higher. They had a rugged look to them, and I figured those were probably the ‘adventurer’ types Kara mentioned from her scouting run. These were the people who paid two crystals a week for the right to keep a residence here. They would go out into the wilds, fight monsters, gather crystals, and bring them back to KingsHaven to sell and trade. It was something I should maybe emulate.

  As we went along, people stopped to stare. Everyone who was tier five or higher froze as soon as I came into view, and they watched me very carefully as I passed by. I flashed a smile at a few, which made them immediately look elsewhere, but for the most part I just left a flat, stoic look on my face as we proceeded through the Domain.

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  It didn’t take long to reach the castle, and the gates were already parted when we arrived. Harding stepped forward to speak with someone stationed there, then returned to us.

  “Since it’s almost lunch time, King Eddings would like to ask if you would like to join him for a meal? Or, if you prefer, we have prepared rooms for you. You may retire there and rest if you’re tired from your journey.”

  I wanted to meet this man. “We’d be delighted to join His Majesty for lunch.”

  Farnsworth tilted his head toward me in a small nod of agreement. I was more grateful for that than I might once have been. All of this new stuff I was facing—diplomacy between what were effectively nations, or at least tiny city states, for crying out loud? This wasn’t where I’d ever expected my life to travel, and I was trying to do my part anyway. But the stakes were sky-high now. Flying blind would leave me shattered against a mountainside. Having the sage counsel of someone with a little more life experience felt helpful just then.

  We followed Harding through the castle courtyard, to the stone fort across from the gatehouse. That was another gate, basically—more massive wooden doors. They were open as we approached, but it was easy to see how they’d be hell to break through once they were shut and a beam placed across the inside brackets.

  Or perhaps not. That was back in the old days, after all. Now, was it still the same? I wasn’t sure. In medieval times, a castle like this would have been very difficult to penetrate and defeat. Most likely someone would have tried besieging it rather than punching through—hey, I loved stories about knights and castles as much as anyone else, back when I was a kid!

  But unlike whoever designed this place, I knew that we weren’t actually living in medieval times come back a second time. As we went deeper into the castle, I grew more certain that’s what I was seeing. From the people outside treated like ‘serfs’ to the honest-to-god tapestries hanging from the stone walls inside the castle, I was more sure by the second that what I had here was someone who’d taken that childhood love of swords and knights, then dialed it up to eleven.

  Those days were gone, though, and they weren’t coming back. Today, someone with a high enough strength could smash through the strongest door with a fist. Against that, I wasn’t sure how much good even the thickest stone walls or steel doors would do. We were still building walls back at home, for sure; but that was more to defend against random strikes, and to slow down a determined assault. If someone wanted to smash those walls, then they were probably coming down.

  Likewise with this place. It looked very good on the surface. But medieval castles weren’t built to defend against beings who could fly—and neither was this place. It was a critical flaw I kept in mind as we went deeper into the castle’s inner rooms.

  Harding finally stopped before another set of doors, this one with a pair of guards outside it. He knocked hard, and a voice inside called for us to enter. The guards threw back the doors and allowed us to pass.

  The space inside was larger than it had to be. This whole place had been built to look pretty rather than be functional—but it succeeded well at that! Massive columns held up a vaulted ceiling two dozen feet overhead. Banners and art tapestries hung from every wall. An enormous fire burned in a fireplace midway down the wall across from us, and a generous table held pride of place in the center of the room. One man sat there.

  I did my best to take his measure. He was tier nine, which was impressive. I hadn’t met anyone else that high, yet. With the way ranking up a tier required geometrically more crystals, that meant he’d found two hundred and fifty-six of the same crystal, which was incredible. I’d jumped from tier seven to ten in one swoop by killing a tier ten creature, but the Forgotten King was one of the only things that strong I’d seen. The dragon was the other. Had this man won against a tier nine monster, like I had against Lyonius? Or had he only gotten his rank on the back of his taxes?

  He was older than I, but not yet middle-aged. He looked at least a few years younger than Farnsworth. He was dressed in what I could only describe as a Hollywood fantasy medieval king costume. Not kidding; that’s a solid description. If you merged together the ‘generic medieval king’ look from half a dozen films, you’d probably be close to what this man was wearing: long blue tunic, overcoat of gold silk, with dark blue almost black pants in a very non-modern cut. He wore an actual crown on his forehead.

  This person wasn’t just calling himself king for fun. He really saw himself that way.

  “Welcome!” His voice boomed, echoing in the hall. He stood and gestured for us to advance. “I am Peter Eddings, and I formally welcome you to my Domain!”

  He came around the side of the table toward us, revealing a sword buckled to his waist. We hadn’t been disarmed before coming in here, which surprised me a little, but now I wasn’t sure it was an oversight. The man exuded confidence from his pores, and I had the sense it was earned. He really was that strong.

  At first, Eddings headed toward Farnsworth, and I realized with a jolt that he thought the older man was the one in charge. I rolled my eyes a tiny bit at that, but it wasn’t unexpected. Farnsworth and I had even talked about pretending he was in charge, but it wouldn’t fly anymore. Anyone who bothered to look at both of us would realize I was much higher tier than him.

  Eddings hadn’t bothered to look, which took my impression of him down a notch.

  And then he did. I saw it in his eyes, the moment when he glanced past Farnsworth and spotted me, when he really looked and saw my tier. Unlike all his people, who were too low rank to identify my tier level, Eddings was only one behind me, so he knew exactly what my tier was.

  He paled, just for a brief moment, but then the smile was back, and he went directly to me, bowing deeply before me. “My lady. I see you are a woman of astounding power and beauty. I am so glad you have come to visit my court. A thousand welcomes to you.”

  Eddings rose from his bow, then gestured toward the table. “Please, come join me for a meal.”