Kingdom of the Weak

3. Dangerous Encounter

“You’re in luck.” Max grunted as Remian arrived at the Iron Legion camp at the north side of town bordering the desert with only the token and the shirt on his back. “We just happen to have some extra clothes you could use.”

He brought out an oddly familiar looking package. Some leathers and furs, a worn-out bow and a quiver half-filled with arrows, and a broken axe…

“That… isn’t that Tan’s…?” Remian pointed.

“It was.” Max nodded agreeably. “He’s dead. Got into a fight with a local gang boss in the first tavern he came across. We got there in time to get him away, but he died of his injuries. Didn’t last an hour.” Max eyed him. “What happened to you?”

“Got robbed.” Remian grimaced.

“At least you survived. There’s something to be said for being weak.” Max grunted. “How did you get the shirt?”

“Made a new friend.” Remian shrugged.

“Even made friends? Huh. You might last quite a while yet.” Max scratched his head. “So… you still want to be our agent?”

“I thought I already am.” Remian blinked. “I carry the token, don’t I?”

“That you do!” Max nodded to himself in satisfaction. “But how do you plan to dig up information without Tan?”

“I let the information come to me.” Remian told him. “I want to open an inn, and make it the most popular inn around town.”

“The most popular, you say? And how do you propose to do that?” Max asked.

“By making it a place where the customers can earn money.” Remian explained.

Max stared at him, dumbfounded. “What kind of inn gives away money?”

“The kind of inn that gives away jobs.” Remian told him. “From other people. We’ll just use a board in the common room and sell them dinner while we’re at it. We’ll get money from the guests, we’ll get money from the customers who come to eat, we’ll get money from the people who post jobs on our board, and we’ll take a cut from the people who do the jobs and win the rewards.”

“And why would anyone come to our inn and our board for those jobs?” Max asked. “Rather than do it themselves?”

“Because we’re a neutral party. That means anyone can post on that board, and anyone can do a job and earn from it, regardless of which gang they’re in.” Remian explained. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but this town is pretty much run by five gangs who really don’t like each other.”

“That does seem to be the case.” Max agreed.

“So the Iron Legion seems to be a neutral party that has no enemies, but that nobody wants to fight.” Remian pointed out. “That means we can potentially do business with everybody and become a bridge, a nexus, for the local gangs.”

Max thought it over a little. Then, “What do you need?”

That night, Remian returned the priest his shirt.

The next day, Max moved the Iron Legion camp to just outside the fort’s southern gate. There was a barbecue pit and some small beasts caught by the legionnaires; Remian wanted a beer stand, but they simply didn’t have any. All they had was what they could find in the wilderness, which meant meat. Thus, the barbecue.

Other than the barbecue pit and the food stand, there were also benches made of newly hewn logs around a large board that seemed to have been the top of somebody’s table a long time ago.

On that board were notices of a new road being built; requests for information and maps, bounties on criminals, and the offered prices for selected goods that the Iron Legion wanted. All of them had rewards posted.

Remian himself mainly just manned the barbecue pit and sold skewered rabbit and boar chunks. While the legionnaires were busy about their work and Max was having to set up a supposed ‘training camp’ behind the stall, Remian simply barbecued chunks and sold them to whichever hungry traveler happened to stop by.

There weren’t many. Remian had a dozen skewers laid out on the barbecue pit by lunch time and only five were sold by that time. Those five weren’t even for different customers. Two men had bought them all.

“Why isn’t anyone going out into the Frontier?” Remian had to ask. “Isn’t that why we’re all here? There’s so much riches and opportunity out there! Why is everyone just staying in town fighting each other for scraps?”

“Because everyone wants to protect their own scraps and they’re afraid of other gangs stealing it, so they keep their people in town guarding their scraps.” Max yawned. “It was a nice idea, Remian, but don’t expect too much from these people; most of them don’t actually want to be here, much less do anything especially dangerous like hunt Wilds and such.”

Remian turned back to his ten skewers on the pit, and fanned them slowly. He sighed. “Maybe I should actually go and talk to the gangs. We might get more information that way.”

“Maybe.” Max nodded. “Pass me a skewer, will you?”

Remian passed him two, and turned back to tend to the seven remaining…

Wait a minute. What?

Remian’s eyes narrowed. He glanced back at Max, then at the pit, and frowned. Then, he took one skewer for himself and went over to sit on the bench next to Max. “Think you could lend me some armor?”

Max barked a laugh. “Not without sending you through legionnaire training camp. I’m afraid you simply won’t survive it. Sorry, Remian. No Iron Legion armor for you.”

Remian shook his head, finished his skewer and went back to the barbecue pit to tend the last one… “HEY! Who’s stealing all our skewers?!”

One or two disappearing behind his back was one thing, but this time the thief took FIVE!

Max inspected the ground near the pit. “Uhoh. We might be in trouble.”

“What trouble? Who dares to steal from the Iron Legion?!” Remian fumed, as if he himself was the legionnaire rather than Max.

“Someone who leaves prints like that.” Max pointed.

Remian gulped. Imprinted into the softer dirt was the outline of a paw and claws. “A Wild?”

“A small one, at least.” Max mused. “A very smart, very fast one. Do you know anything about traps?”

“Not really.”

“Then it’s time you learned.”

The next day, the barbecue pit and the camp was surrounded with snares, lures, pits, and tripwires. Some money had to be spent buying traps from the locals, but traps were plentiful in this frontier town, lots of people made them and used them. Dealing with whatever they caught in those traps, though, was a harder job.

Using barbecued rabbit as bait, Remian laid it out in the middle of an absolute tangle of traps right around lunch time, and almost as soon as his back was turned, was rewarded with the sounds of snapping springs and tightened ropes. There was a high-pitched yelp, then a sudden, nervous silence.

With a grim smile, he turned, ready to pronounce judgment on whatever thieving critter had taken his lunch yesterday.

There, hanging by a foot upside down in mid-air was a little black wolf cub…

No, wait. Not a wolf. A wolfcat. That little critter had cat-claws, meaning it could climb trees.

“You need to be more careful, more vigilant.” Remian lectured the little furball. “Like me! See? I…”

A deep, low growl behind him suddenly made Remian’s blood freeze. That did NOT come from a small little cub. That growl…

“Back off!” He held up his skewer against the throat of the cub hanging in mid-air. “Back off, or he gets it!”

How did Remian know the cub was a ‘he’? Well, swinging upside down like that, certain secrets were made publicly known in short order…

The cub let out a small, insulted growl.

Then from the bushes nearby, a much, much louder growl made the air shake. Remian gulped, but held his ground and held the skewer up relentlessly. “I’m serious! Back off!”

Two large, furry ears pricked up from the bushes. The head that rose slowly was canine, wolfish, and big enough to take Remian’s entire head off in one bite. Heck, it could take the whole top half of Remian right off his waist at that size. The paw that emerged next was bigger than his head, very likely quite capable of squishing said head underfoot.

“Is that your mom?” Remian asked the little cub suspiciously.

The little critter gave him a wide wolfish grin.

Remian gave him an annoyed poke in the tummy with his finger. Feeling something prod him where he expected the skewer’s sharp sting, the wolfcat cub let out a panicked yelp.

The huge mother wolfcat lunged forward a full foot worriedly, then stopped and backed away, eyes fixed on every inch of the puny human just feet from her very large teeth.

They stood there for a while, neither of them moving an inch. Remian was hoping Max would come out and see him in trouble and then do something, rescue him somehow, but Max remained elsewhere, completely oblivious.

Meanwhile, the little black cub was getting restless and twisted and turned a bit. Bored, he took the liberties to use Remian’s finger as a massager, rubbing its own belly against it selfishly.

Letting out a small snort, Remian tickled the little fellow in the tummy, making it squirm playfully a bit more. The cub let out a playful bark.

Seeing it, the mother wolfcat relaxed a little. Just a little.

Seeing her relax, Remian paused, trying to think of a way out.

Seeing him pause, the little wolfcat gave him a small, demanding bark, wanting him to keep up the tummy rub.

“Quiet.” Remian pulled the cable off the cub, held it under one arm, then a chunk of barbecued meat off the skewer in his hand and to the cub’s delight, stuffed that in the cub’s mouth.

The little black furball gobbled it down in no time, then let out a happy yip, tail starting to wag.

The big mother wolfcat eyed him again, then slowly started to withdraw. She was skinny, he realized, and seemed to favor her right leg. Starving and injured, how had she managed to feed her cub all this time…? Or maybe she didn’t. Maybe that was why the little critter had gone for the barbecue.

Either that, or the cub simply liked his dinner cooked and warm.

Seeing how thin the mother wolfcat was, Remian hesitated, then grabbed the entire uncooked rabbit and put it on the ground, then backed away slowly. The mother wolfcat sniffed at it, watched him back off, then slowly, cautiously emerged and sniffed at the rabbit. Then, in a lightning fast lunge, she gobbled it down in no time flat.

Remian gulped. That could have been him getting chewed up.

With that, the mother wolfcat paused, considered him for a bit more. Hesitantly, warily, her tail waved to one side, then the other. Then before Remian could wonder about what it all meant, she turned away and bounded into the brush, leaving him with the little wolfcat cub still under his arm.