Kerric the Mercenary: Episode 8, The Barony of DeSon
Kerric finds a badly rundown barony offing that contract.
DeSon did not improve Kerric’s low opinion of most nobles and their estates south of the Black Sand. The DeSon estate was particularly loathsome. Their crops were awful choices in the wet conditions near the Black Sand. They had laid out their fields in a haphazard space-wasting way, making it far harder to keep them weed-free, as their current condition attested to. The three hundred-year-old rundown keep looked to have had no more than minimal maintenance done in that entire three hundred years. Even for southern estates, this one was in a sorry condition. It tempted him just to take his men and ride back to DarkGate. The chances of such a barony being able to afford common mercenaries, much less the fee for top rank ones such as his, were not high.
His ears picked up the livestock in the keep, raising a ruckus at their approach. Nor did it require enhanced hearing to do so. Any man could have heard it. He pulled up Akrus just outside the circle of light cast by the two dim, nearly burned down torches outside the main gate. Without orders, and in total silence, his men did the same, spreading to his left and right.
Listening to those men inside those walls trying to calm the livestock, his disgust grew. They were as incompetent with their livestock as they were with their crops. His men waited in silence, listening to those men cussing their animal.
Had every competent animal handler and guardsmen been in that caravan Corman took? That was possible. These men seem to have forgotten the basic principle, that when your animals are acting up, check outside.
False dawn was well underway before a guardsman climbed the wall and it had nothing to do with the animals acting up. It was just time for his round to start. Finding a line of warcats and riders waiting outside their walls was a complete surprise to him. Further lowering Kerric’s opinion of the people of DeSon, that idiot panicked and rang the alarm, setting off the other guardsmen and panicking the animals further.
Kerric’s disgust with these guards never entered his expression. That could not be said of all his men. That two of his men let their disgust with these people creep into their expressions was one more bad sign. Letting others see what you felt was far too dangerous at home.
He made eye contact with Harkmen, then looked at those two. Harkmen’s barest nod showed he too had seen it and would have private talks with them. Despite being half the age of the two men in question, Harkmen was the right person to bring it to their attention. A reprimand from himself would have caused far more fear in these men than the infraction warranted, causing more problems later.
Yet his delegation of things this trip south was undoubtedly the cause of them becoming so lax. He suppressed his impulse to just cut off their heads and be done with it. They were still weeks away from heading home, and with Harkmen’s help, could get control of themselves before then.
If nothing else, this mission was pointing out more factors that they needed to fix before heading home and he would at least meet with this Baron and find out if he could meet the fee his company demanded.
They took such a long time before someone opened the keep gate and came out that the sun was peeking above the horizon. Only his excellent hearing let him know it was general confusion and not an insult that left he, and his men, standing out there that long.
“The Baron awaits you in his study,” said the lone elderly guardsmen that stepped out of the gate.
