Chapter 133: For the Right Reasons
It was evident from the first moments that Varten didn’t stand a chance against Simon. In the time since they’d last met, he’d grown older and lazier; his steps were not as sure, and his sword strokes were not as decisive as they’d once been. He was obviously out of practice.
Simon had grown older, too, but he’d spent the last several seasons using his sword constantly, and he was as sharp as he’d ever been. So, he parried each blow easily, getting inadvisably close to the Baron and practically daring him to do something about it just because he was pretty sure the man couldn’t lay a finger on him.
“What are all of you doing!” Varten yelled to his soldiers after half a dozen slashes, and a few thrusts showed him how one-sided this was likely to be. “Kill this man!”
They’d already made their decision, though, and stood there silently in a wide circle, watching the duel. “They’d fight for a ruler that commanded their respect or their fear,” Simon taunted the Baron. “You have neither, though. Not like your father did before the Orcs brought your whole family down a peg.”
“You know nothing!” Varten raged, lashing out wildly with a series of strokes that forced Simon to give ground for the first time. “My father was a great man, and the people love me.”
“There’s been no love in Crowvar for a long time, and I blame you for that more than anyone,” Simon answered, smiling grimly, knowing that his opponent would never understand the comment, not even if Simon explained it to him.
How could he? The world that Simon remembered had never happened. Crowbar wasn’t important to anyone but him anymore. That was plain to see on the map he was slowly making.
It was the backwater of a backwater at the very edge of the Kingdom of Brin. That was part of the reason he’d thought it was a safe place to settle with Freya so long ago. Now, though, well, if the desert were to encroach a little further north, and the Barony were to dry up and blow away, no one except the King’s treasurer was likely to notice when the annual tax receipts never arrived.
“Your family's stewardship, if you even want to call it that, has ruined this place,” Simon taunted. “You hid behind the walls of your fine fortress while everyone else died or fled. Even you can see it's nothing more than a shell of what it was like in your childhood.”