Death After Death

Chapter 135: Slow Progress

Simon deliberated on it for a day before he decided on public executions. Courtiers and Varten’s widow spent that day arguing that he should torture one or more of them to get to the truth so fervently that he was fairly sure that they were in on it, but he ignored them.

Not only did he have no plans to ever torture someone whose name wasn’t Varten Raithewait, but in this case, he was fairly certain that even those who weren’t directly responsible for what had happened deserved to die. He wasn’t a fan of killing innocent people, but none of the nobles he’d rounded up and named as dangerous co-conspirators had been innocent for decades.

He gave the condemned men a week to beg for their lives and throw each other under the bus while the gallows were built, but it was done; the sobbing men were still led out and hung in the town square where everyone could see. After the five of them stopped jerking and twitching, Simon stepped out onto the platform and made a speech.

“I didn’t ask to be put in charge of this town or this region,” he told them. “My wife… she died not so far from here, and though I won’t go into the details of that tragic day, I will say that it could have been prevented if powerful men had done the right thing.”

He continued as quiet onlookers listened without interruption. He explained that he hoped to leave in a year or two and that all he wanted to do was leave Crowvar better than he’d found it. There were no cheers when Simon left and walked back to the central keep, but then he didn’t expect any at such a solemn occasion. There were no boos or threats either, and that was enough for now.

Simon kept a low profile over the next few days, waiting to see if he’d made a mistake, but things got back to normal shockingly quickly. It was only when he was sure riots weren’t going to break out over what he’d done that he met with the remaining three dozen members of his impromptu mercenary and gave them all a different sort of speech.

For the last year, all he’d done was fight and then move to a new location to fight again, but today, he was giving them a different sort of message. “It’s time to dig in or move on,” he told them.

Some had obviously been expecting that message, but others were surprised by it and had hoped he’d return to fighting on the plains once Jak had recovered fully from being poisoned. Simon told those who wanted to leave and fight on their own that they were welcome to do so and that those who wanted to settle down and build something would be gifted acreage at his expense so they could start a farm or something similar.

Truthfully, much of the land he wanted to hand out had been seized from the men he’d just executed, but that wasn’t important. There was plenty of Raithewait land that currently laid fallow that anyone with a strong back might put to good use.

Less than half of the men that were still here took him up on that offer, but that was still more than zero, and he was sure that nearly two dozen proven warriors would have a better impact on Crowvar’s future than five dead leeches. It wasn’t enough to make him stop sleeping behind a locked door every night, though, or eating at random inns throughout the town each day. Simon was sure that he hadn’t gotten all the men and women who wanted him dead yet, and while he worked on his priorities, he did his best to make their job as difficult as possible.

He worked with the captain of the guard to cut the size of the town watch by almost half since it took up most of the able-bodied men, then he pledged large portions of the town’s scant remaining wealth to projects that would fix the outer wall, tear down the burn-scarred buildings that remained, and start to fix the main trade road.

Simon was no expert in these things, but as long as the place looked like a shithole, he figured people were going to treat it that way. If, on the other hand, it looked like somewhere you would want to raise a family, then maybe there would be more families. It was simple logic, but he was going to go with it. Not that he was going to stick around to see the consequences in this life; of course, he’d get things back on track, and then he’d move on. Somehow, that never quite happened, though.

Each time things started to look good, and he packed up his things so that he could head further north, something came up. At first, it was a dispute over the exact height of the southern wall. Then, there was a difference of opinion over whether or not the road to the main trade road should go on the same path it always had or if they should build a new section that took a shorter, more direct path.

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Simon didn’t really see why the men doing the work couldn’t decide these things and why they needed the Baron’s own Regent to resolve these issues. The Baron couldn’t do it, of course. He was just a ten-year-old boy who was being taught to hate Simon now that he could speak, but Simon ignored that as he focused on things like planning the expansion of irrigation ditches and settling petty disputes.

Despite all that, though, after three months of adoration from the commoners and mute hatred from the powers that be, he was once again getting ready to leave when there was word of an orc attack at a village not so far away.

Despite the fact that Simon’s stubble had as much gray as brown in it now, and he had more than his fair share of wrinkles around his eyes, he didn’t hesitate for a second and immediately rounded up two dozen men and set out to stop the war band before it could become something worse.

Despite the chilly weather, it felt good to get back out of the walls. Here, he didn’t have to look over his shoulder for assassins. Hell, he didn’t even have to watch what he said. Half the time, he had to crack a dirty joke or two just to keep people from treating him like he was a hero that they needed to put on a pedestal in a museum or a temple.

By the time they reached Krovel, it was a complete loss, as Simon had thought it would be. Only the small tower of the minor lord that was charged with defending this group of villages still stood. He and his family were fine, of course. However, when it was revealed that the only survivors who hadn’t fled were members of the noble’s household and that the reason so many others had died was because he'd barred the gates instead of letting as many villagers as he could take refuge inside those safe stone walls, Simon’s only response to the man’s explanations was to have him hanged for failing to do his duty.

Part of Simon wanted to see the man flogged first, but he thought that was a bit much, especially after his wife and children begged Simon to spare them. That hurt more than he thought it would, and it made him wonder when he’d become so heartless, but it wasn’t enough to make him relent in his judgment.

“The tower is there to fight against the things that attack unexpectedly,” he lectured to everyone who was still standing, from the man’s family to his own soldiers. “Not to save your skin when things go wrong! The same punishment that I apply to deserters and cowards will be applied to any man that supposed to be better than the men I lead into the field.”

There were some cheers at that, but there were some sobs too, and long after Simon had sent the women and children back to Crowvar with an armed escort and they had moved north to follow the orc tracks, second thoughts haunted him.

Am I treating people like NPCs because I’ve been doing this too long? He wondered. It was one of his more frequent fears now that he no longer spent most nights missing Freya. He worried that replaying the same events might lead to him losing touch with the world. After all, power corrupted, and these days, Simon had a lot of it. Hadn’t the nobles he was punishing done exactly that? Hadn’t they lost touch with the world in their own way?

Fortunately for Simon, a group of orcish scouts was happy to help him regain touch with the world again the following morning, and though he took a blow to his shield that was nasty enough to cave part of it in, his blade drank green blood again for the first time in a long time. The battle was short and decisive. By the end of it, there were three dead orcs, and one of his younger men had a broken arm that Simon was fairly sure was going to heal cleanly.

That evening, they found a second scouting party that was dealt with even more cleanly by peppering them with a hail of crossbow bolts. Everyone lay uncomfortably in their armor, and no one slept well that night as they waited for the final battle to come. That was wise, given that scouts shouted the alarm just before dawn.

The opposing force was larger than Simon expected but smaller than he feared, with ten orcs. In the past, he preferred a three-to-one advantage or horsemen to deal with groups as large as ten, but this time, he had neither, which was stupid. With all his public works projects going on, horses were in short supply. That would need to be rectified, he decided. Unfortunately, he could only do that after he lived through this.

For the first time in months, Simon considered using a word of power. He resisted, of course, at least until he realized that one of them was a shaman of sorts and called the lightning to deal with them. That was a shock to Simon, figuratively speaking. The magic arced from the clear sky and hit the two men closest to the orcs before he could speak the words of lightning protection and stop the purplish arcs from hitting anyone else.

That single strike almost broke the morale of his men. Orcs were scary enough, but orcs with magic? That was another thing entirely. The nascent charge died, even as it had been in the process of being born. Instead, the soldiers around him formed a defensive line and looked to him for some idea of what to do next. Simon gritted his teeth. He wasn’t going to let some orc kill him or anyone else, not with lightning or fists or anything else.