novelraw Chapter 102: Refusal
Chapter 102: Refusal
Darion thought about what the knights actually got out of serving Percvale.
Before he arrived, the answer had been simple and not very impressive: a roof. That was it. They stayed because being a knight gave them somewhere to sleep, and in Percvale’s condition, having a place to sleep was enough of a reason.
There was no Baron to order them into battles or hunts. No mandatory duty beyond existing as a knight order that was slowly starving alongside the rest of the barony. They had preserved themselves through inactivity, which was a grim kind of luck.
Now they had food. Real food, consistently too, the kind that had put visible weight back on men who had been hollow-cheeked and slow-moving when he arrived.
They had a functioning routine which was training, hunting and the farmland work. They had purpose in a place that had been running on empty for years.
No monetary payment yet. He hadn’t addressed that and it sat in the back of his mind as something that needed addressing eventually.
He didn’t fully understand how payment worked in this world’s military structure, back on Earth, medieval knights had complex systems of land grants and stipends and obligations that varied wildly by region and era.
Here the word ’knight’ seemed to cover a broader range than he was used to. What he called a knight on Earth had specific connotations — mounted warrior, nobility, a particular kind of training and social standing.
Here it seemed to mean something closer to armed fighter in service to a lord.
The foot soldiers, the infantry, the men who would never own a horse and had no noble blood, they were also called knights.
The distinction between ranks existed within that category, senior and junior and battle knights and so on, but the word itself was applied more broadly than he had expected.
It was the word this world used for the same role that different historical periods on Earth had called by different names depending on the century and the region.
He found it interesting rather than confusing. This world had its own logic and he was still learning it.
What he knew was that shelter and food were, right now, genuinely competitive benefits in Percvale. Better than most alternatives. The town had two thousand people and most of them were getting by rather than thriving. A knight got a bed and ate well. For a place that had been starving six weeks ago, that was substantial.
The twenty new recruits showing up without being asked made more sense when he thought about it that way.
Garren pulled him out of it.
"What did you decide about Valdenmoor?" he asked.
Darion looked at the table. "Honestly? I don’t know. Everything I come up with is a dead end."
"Killing Aldric?"
"Too risky. Even if I could get to him, Valdenmoor will have men positioned in the woods now. I’d be riding into something I can’t see before I even reached the walls." He shook his head. "And killing him doesn’t erase the debt. His advisors keep the books. Someone else picks up where he left off, possibly angrier about it."
"So we wait for the deadline."
"Five days," Darion said. "Even if I started rebuilding the animal inventory now and went back for another infiltration, by the time I had enough venomous bats to do anything meaningful, made the journey, ran the operation, and got out, five days would be gone. I’d be doing it on the deadline itself."
"And if the deadline arrives and you haven’t signed over the land?"
"They attack," Darion said simply.
"Which isn’t a war," Garren said. "It’s a conclusion. We’d be finished before it started."
"I know." Darion turned his cup in his hands. "So I need to make sure it doesn’t become a war. Or if it does, I need bodies."
Garren looked at him. "Bodies?"
"Yes. Hired fighters. Foot soldiers from nearby villages we have decent relations with. Promise them something substantial, put it in writing and keep the promise when it’s over." He paused. "Percvale has goodwill right now that it didn’t have two months ago. People have seen what’s changed here. That’s worth something."
"Will villages risk sending their men against Valdenmoor?"
"If the alternative is Valdenmoor expanding its reach into their direction eventually? Maybe." He shrugged. "It’s not a strong hand. But it’s what I have."
The surrounding baronies knew what was at stake if he told them. If Aldric took Percvale’s eastern farmland, it wasn’t just about the debt anymore. It was about what came next.
Land was power. Everyone in the region understood that. A kingdom that acquired territory didn’t stop acquiring just because it had enough. The same thing that drove a man to want more coin drove a king to want more land.
Garren was quiet for a moment. "They should accept," he said finally, without much conviction.
"They should," Darion agreed, with about the same amount.
The thirty days ended on a grey morning.
The twenty new recruits had been assessed and taken in, training already underway, Garren running them through basics alongside the established knights.
The farmland was half restored. The archery program had ten people who could hit a target consistently. The livestock were healthy and the females were pregnant and the seeds in the ground were showing green.
Darion stood outside the castle gate and looked at the road.
He was expecting them. Had been expecting them since waking up, the knowledge of the date sitting in his chest like a stone.
They came around midday. Three men in a two-horse chariot, moving at a pace that said they were on official business and knew exactly where they were going.
They stopped at the gate, climbed down, and presented themselves with the formal stiffness of men who had been sent to do something unpleasant and were going to do it correctly regardless.
The lead man produced a document case.
"We come from Valdenmoor on behalf of King Aldric," he said. "As the thirty-day period has elapsed without settlement of the outstanding debt, we are here to complete the transfer of the eastern farmland as agreed. We need your signature, Baron."
He held out the papers.
Darion looked at them. At the neat formal writing, the official seals at the bottom and the blank line waiting for his name.
He looked at it for a long time.
Then he looked at the man holding it.
"I cannot sign the handover of Percvale’s farmland," he said. "I’m requesting an extension. Sixty more days. The barony is actively improving, the land itself is being restored, livestock are breeding, crops are in the ground. In sixty days I can demonstrate meaningful progress toward repayment."
The three men exchanged glances.
The lead one looked back at him. "King Aldric anticipated this response. He asked me to inform you that if you refuse to sign, Valdenmoor will march on Percvale. He strongly advises you to consider what that means for your people."
Darion looked at the road beyond them. At the gate behind him. At the grey morning sitting over everything.
"What choice do I have," he said.
He really had no choice.
Sign the land off to them or get attacked. Two options, neither good, but one was clearly worse than the other. To be honest, he would prefer the latter. At least in a fight, there was a chance, there was always a chance. A slim one, maybe, but a chance.
"You do know that we are serious, Baron," the man explained. "We won’t be merciful if we march into Percvale. We strongly advise you to sign now and avoid that. I’m sure the lives of the people of Percvale matter to you."
Darion looked at him.
The man’s face was neutral. Not cruel and not kind. Just a messenger doing his job, delivering words someone else had written. The threat behind those words wasn’t his. But it was real.
Darion thought about what an attack would look like if he was to face them with just his men, no extra help.
Valdenmoor’s soldiers coming down that road. All of them? or whatever portion Aldric decided to send. Organized and well-equipped. Marching into a barony that had been starving six weeks ago and was still trying to rebuild.
His knights would fight. His undeads and living knights. They would kill some of Valdenmoor’s men before they fell. But they would fall. Numbers would bury them. There was no strategy that made over a hundred knights into thousands soldiers.
Then there was Seren. The farmland she had been restoring. Gregor’s forge. The goats and cattle. The archery program that hadn’t even really started. All of it gone in a day.
He looked at the messenger again.
"Again," Darion said, "what choice do I have?"
"The other choice you have is to sign these bloody damn papers."
Darion shook his head. "That is not an option for me, to be honest."
The three men exchanged glances. Brief. Nothing dramatic.
The lead man shrugged. He tucked the papers back into the document case, secured it, and turned toward the chariot.
The other two followed.
The chariot creaked as they climbed in, the snap of the reins, and the horses pulling them back onto the road.
Darion stood at the gate and watched them go.