Chapter 36: Fusing 300 Trained Hounds
An obese man stood atop the stone ramparts, his rich velvet cloak rustling softly in the night wind. Below him, slaves in chains trudged out of the gate in silence, the clatter of iron shackles echoing faintly behind the creaking of wagon wheels. Dozens of torches illuminated the convoy’s departure, casting flickering shadows across the muddy road.
To commission such a transfer in this part of the realm, and at such a scale, meant power. Money. Authority. And Baron Garrick Fenlan knew it.
"Kaelor Dravion," he said under his breath, his beady eyes narrowing into slits. "So... you’re the one the Duke gave my rice town to."
A gleam of malevolence lit his gaze.
He could send three hundred well-trained Footmen and crush Kaelor’s dreams in a week. But instead, the flesh on his face pulled back into a slow, wide smile, revealing his white teeth beneath his curled mustache.
Why would he waste troops... when he can let a fool build a fortune for him?
From all he’d gathered, Kaelor was exiled, even if unofficially. The Duke had given him a backwater to disappear into. And the rest of the Dravion family? They wanted nothing to do with him. That made him vulnerable.
And ripe.
"My Lord?" came a gravelly voice beside him.
Eric, a seasoned sword expert, stepped forward. The man’s green gambeson was pristine, his longsword gleaming faintly at his belt. An eye patch covered one eye, but the remaining one gleamed with sharp instinct.
"Should we follow them?"