I’m sure I wasn’t the first to notice it, but Adventurers were not at all like soldiers. Trying to organise even a small army of them was like trying to herd tigers.

  I know that’s not the normal expression, but adventurers were much more dangerous and stubborn than cats.

  “Is it just me, or are there too many people here?” I said to Captain Guertin. He gave me a long-suffering look. Which was totally unjustified. No matter how difficult it had been, he had only been doing this for a few hours.

  “I don’t think military doctrine has the concept of too many people,” he said. “But some of the people here are onlookers… I think.”

  I looked at the squadron of men that he was directly in charge of, all formed up into some semblance of order. I’m sure a drill sergeant from back—from Earth—would have torn strips off them for the many imperfections they were exhibiting, but as long as they were standing in a line, that seemed fine to me.

  “Should you cordon off the area or something? That would give your people something to do while we wait for Koenig to get his people in order.”

  I looked over to where Koenig was shouting at two front-line fighters that seemed about half his size. He’d been going for a while now, but it looked like he had more shouting still in him.

  It wasn’t that adventurers were disorganised. They were easily able to form small, tightly-knit teams and deploy them in different formations as the situation required. The problem was that part of that team-building involved an ethos that boiled down to ‘my team against the world’. They shit-talked the other teams, they formed rivalries, and they squabbled over kills and treasure.

  So when you tried to put two teams together, it all fell apart immediately. The best case was you got two teams who wouldn’t work together, but would stand within twenty feet of each other. The worst case scenario was you got four or five people between both teams who would work together and the rest of them became mortally offended that their so-called friends would work with their mortal enemies. That ended with both teams broken and maybe a fight.

  “I would, but I can’t tell who are the civilians, and who are the adventurers,” Captain Guertin said. “Going armed is common in Talnier, and lots of adventurers prefer light armour.”

  He looked at me as if he was making a point, but I couldn’t imagine what it was. I was wearing armour, and if it happened to be lighter than the plate and chain that Guertin and his guards were wearing, that was neither here nor there.

  “I hope he won’t be too much longer,” I said. “It's already after sunset and—oh, here’s Nadine.”

  Indeed, Nadine was entering the square, followed by a group of rough-looking adventurers. It looked like Nadine had no trouble getting her herd of tigers in a line.

  “I’ve brought the rest of the fighters for this operation,” she announced. Looking over at Koenig’s antics, she added, “I’ll get to that in a bit. But first, aren’t there too many people around?”

  “I thought at least some of them were your people,” I confessed. “They’re not?”

  “No, they look like townsfolk to me,” Nadine said. “Some of them look like they can take care of themselves, but if we were involving civilians that should have been discussed in the planning phase, yes?”

  “Absolutely,” I agreed. “We’ll get rid of them while you handle… that.” I gestured at Koenig.

  I looked at Captain Guertin.

  “We?” he asked. Then he started giving orders. Squads were sent out to block the avenues that led into the town. The main gates were still open, a practice that had started when the treaty had been put in place. Monster attacks had been way down since then.

  Sending troops to the gates might have set something off, but most of the onlookers seemed to be townsfolk. For the ones that were already here, further squads were sent to wander about the square and let people know that they should leave.

  A few moments passed.

  “That’s odd,” Captain Guertin said. I looked at him. I had been watching the group that Nadine brought in, but they were behaving. Their group wasn’t lined up as neatly as the guards had been, but they weren’t brawling which was… a step up from Koenig’s group.

  “What is?” I asked.

  He pointed at the square.

  “They’re not dispersing,” he said.

  As I watched, a group of guards approached an onlooker. A few words were exchanged, and the onlooker nodded and turned to go. After a few steps, with the guards already moving on to the next target, the onlooker stopped, turned around, and drifted right back to where he’d been standing.

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  “That is weird,” I agreed. “Assuming it’s deliberate civil disobedience, what on Earth makes them think that it’s going to work.”

  Guertin looked at me oddly. “Peaceful rebellion?” he asked. “Is that something that happens where you are from?”

  “Civilised nations are more reluctant to beat their own citizens,” I said, ignoring his reaction to my gibe. It wasn’t his fault that he’d never seen or heard of a civilised nation. “It allows for more varied ways for people to protest government policies they don’t like.”

  “Sounds traitorous to me,” Guertin muttered.

  “Which is only part of the reason why it would be stupid to try it here,” I told him. Abandoning that conversation, I walked up to one of the onlookers.

  I didn’t approach from the front, but he didn’t notice me until I addressed him, which was another weird thing. This was a town where griffins occasionally dropped out of the sky and ate people. It demanded a little more situational awareness than that displayed by a headphone-wearing teenager on a bus.

  “Oh, hello!” the man said once he’d noticed me. He gave me a… no, the smile was normal-looking enough. I was just being paranoid. My social senses weren’t picking much up, though, as if he wasn’t paying me much attention. That tracked with the way his gaze drifted off me and went back to the gatehouse.

  “Are you here for a reason?” I asked, bringing his attention back to me.

  “Oh, no. I’m just… waiting.”

  “Waiting for what?” I asked.

  “Nothing in particular,” he said absently. “I’m just…”

  He trailed off as if he was thinking about it, but he must have lost his train of thought because he drifted back to watching the gate.

  “You’ve got to leave,” I told him. “There’s a military operation starting. It’s dangerous.”

  “I’ll just be a little while longer,” he said, not reacting at all to the mention of danger.

  “No, you have to leave now,” I insisted. I kept my Skills out of it, for now, but I was already thinking about which approach to take. [Intimidation] would require a threat, and he didn’t seem to know who I was, which made threatening him with my position dubious. [Persuade] it would be, then.

  “Oh, very well,” he said and started walking away. I took a step forward so I was standing in his spot and watched. Just like the other one, he walked away and then turned in a circle to walk back. He would have ended up right back where he’d been, except that I was standing there. He gave me an apologetic smile and took a step to the side. Then he went back to ignoring me.

  Yeah, this was very far from normal. I fired up [Charm] and [Persuade].

  “Look, buddy, you’re going to have to move. There’s going to be a battle here, and it will be dangerous.”

  He was paying attention to me now. I don’t think he had any choice about it. Now that I was engaged, as it were, I judged him to be about Level Three. A fairly sheltered existence for a border town, but you could manage it if you didn’t leave the walls.

  And didn’t get caught outside when it rained griffins.

  “Oh, yes, certainly ma’am,” he babbled. He headed off, but this time I followed him. He took a few steps and started to turn, but I prodded him with a reminder of my existence.

  “You have to go, remember?”

  “Oh… yes…” he replied, more reluctantly this time. He took another few steps and paused. I prodded him again.

  “I have to… I have to be…” he stammered. He was getting more agitated, but he turned around and took another step.

  Up ahead, at one of the entrances to the square, fire bloomed and people screamed. My eyes widened as I took it in. I dashed forward. This time I’d remember my water spell.

  “What happened?” I yelled as I doused a guard with water. A civilian was on the ground, blood covering his torso. Another guard had blood on his sword and a terrified look on his face. Already, I had half a story.

  “He just—just took out that Firetrap and set it off!” That was a third guard. The entire group of four had gathered around and one of them was tending to the damp and smoking victim. The few people they had detained were not standing around protesting, yelling in fear or otherwise behaving like normal people. They had just walked around the unheeding guards and I was now looking at their backs as they entered the square.

  “Who did? The dead guy?” I asked.

  “He threw it right at Matty!” The guard with the moustache said.

  “I had to—he might have had more. I had to put him down,” the guard with the bloody sword said.

  “Keep it together, Guardsman,” I snapped. Guertin was rushing over, I didn’t need to take charge. But I was here, and seconds counted. Felicia could heal him, she was…

  Outside of the walls. In Trader Town.

  I felt the first twinges of dread as I looked at the twenty or so civilians who had gathered in the square. That wasn’t many, but if they all had Firetrap potions…

  “Get that man treated, and get that one off the street,” I said, “And give me a proper report!”

  It wasn’t one of my usual social skills that I flexed, but [Bureaucracy]. The guards were part of an organisation that I was high up in, and they had procedures to follow as much as my bank employees had.

  The effect of the skill was interesting. All the guards calmed down and straightened up. They were pretty close to saluting me, but Guertin rushed up at that point, so they saluted him instead.

  “Firetrap,” I answered before he could ask his first question. “I think all of those… have been manipulated by the Countess, and they might all have the same potion.”

  “Firetraps?” Guertin asked. “They’re dangerous, but you can stop them with a shield if you’re ready for them. What does she think they’re going to do with them?”

  Even as he spoke, another bloom of fire sprouted from one of the other entrances. From a distance though, it looked like the Captain was right. Primed to expect a fire, a guard had gotten his shield in front of the potion bottle. He’d had to throw away his shield, but his attacker had taken more damage than the guard had.

  “You see?” Guertin said. “No trouble, and they seem pretty passive if you don’t stop them. We’ll come in behind with clubs.”

  At that moment, the evening bells rang. That wasn’t a surprise or anything. We were still in winter, so the sun was down well before the bells rang. What made it significant was that all the onlookers suddenly started heading for the gate. A gate with no one blocking it.

  “She’s thinking that Trader Town is flammable,” I spat. “She’s not using poison, she’s using fire. And if we try to stop them, those townsfolk that she’s turned into sleeper agents are going to die.”

  Characters!

  Captain Guertin - I’m having a lot of fun having this guy be Kandis’ long-suffering subordinate. Why won’t you listen to reason and stay out of danger, Councillor?

  Nadine Lagacé - Deputy Guildmaster. She’s competent.

  SmilingGuy17 - Really needs to be in a place

  SmilingGuy23 - Change this name to DeadGuy

  Gaspard Morel – A grizzled veteran with a thick salt-and-pepper beard and a permanent scowl. I hear he stabbed a guy. Like recently, in this chapter.

  étienne Roussel – He has a thin moustache that he thinks is more impressive than it is.

  Henri Leclair – Broad-shouldered and bald, with a deep, booming voice.

  Mathis Duval – Smells like bacon.