Fallen Ward (Deepwoods Saga Book 3) (36 page)

The heavens were not listening. It took multiple meetings to straighten it out, and for some strange reason, everyone insisted that Siobhan just had to be there.

Negotiatons lasted three days. A treaty had been signed by Dahnner that essentially said he would establish trade agreements with Darrens in the future and he would stop attacking Robargean cities. Cha Ji An had been formally invited to act as an advisor, and she had formally accepted. Immediately following that meeting, she had promptly dragged Dahnner aside and given him a long list of things that she thought might work. When Siobhan had left, the two were enthusiastically discussing ideas.

She didn’t expect problems from them in the future.

In the second meeting, the guildmasters had put their heads together and figured out what to do with Lorcan and the surviving prisoners of war. Darrens took the prisoners, sentencing them to two years of working on the Grey Bridges. They were still under reconstruction, after all, and any labor at all would be helpful. But most of these men were masons by trade, so Darrens was gleeful about sending qualified help.

Lorcan was another matter.

Siobhan would have thought he was the trickiest matter to resolve but actually it turned out to be quite the opposite. Dahnner was forthright about how to deal with the man. Lorcan had betrayed a former guildmaster, he had disobeyed the current one, and had started a war with an ally—for all of those crimes, he deserved execution. Darrens felt the same way. After all, this was the man that had started the war against all Robargean cities, even one on Orinite soil, he couldn’t be trusted. Lorcan was summarily sentenced to execution, the sentence to be conducted before the week was out.

No one was sorry to see the man go, sadly. When Siobhan broke the news to Alex, he got that tight look to his face that spoke of pain, but even he was relieved. She could not think of a sadder thing for a fellow human being, that no one would mourn his passing.

This morning had been the last of the meetings, thankfully. While her guild worked on building, she’d gone to Blackstone’s compound for the last time, at least for this business. This time, the matter was not so weighty. As Siobhan had been the one to bring people from Saoleord, they’d wanted her to come and hear what would happen to her delegation. She’d expected to have to drop everything, again, and take people home.

To her surprise, it was quite the opposite.

Cha Ji An was of course going to Coravine with Dahnner. But neither Hyun Woo nor Ryu Jin Ho wanted to return home either. The two were apparently having too much fun teaching a whole continent strategy and battle tactics. Ryu Jin Ho had been invited by Nuel Hammon to come and train everyone in Silver Moon. It was an offer he was quite excited about and had already accepted. Jay Fowler was to come and fetch him within the next two days.

Hyun Woo had been equally invited to stay by Darrens, who liked the idea of having the man teach his own guild. The man had accepted the offer with a dignified bow and an outrageous twinkle in his eyes. After the meeting, he had confided to Siobhan that he would have found a way to stay anyway. He hadn’t yet taught Rune, Wolf, Tran, or Fei everything that they needed to know, after all. He wanted to complete their training before returning home.

Siobhan had the sense it was Rune he was the most worried about but did not ask. Some questions weren’t necessary to voice in order to know the answer.

Now, she was finally ‘home’—not that it was completed or habitable yet. She stood just inside the doorway and looked around for a moment. Everyone had scattered, working on the parts that they had the skills for. Even Alex was involved, hammering in boards that Wolf held for him. He wasn’t as clumsy as he was at first, and managed to put in two nails without hitting his thumb or someone else’s. She smiled to see it.

Well, the whole guild was here. Maybe there was one last meeting to be had. Siobhan clapped her hands together loudly. “Alright, order! Everyone sit down, time for a guild meeting.”

Beirly groused good naturedly, “Siobhan, aren’t we done with meetings? I’m sick of them.”

“You only attended a
third
of the meetings I had to, By, don’t start with me. Sit down.” She waited until people had found seats. Their Hall was still only half constructed, so people made benches out of buckets and boards, although some chose to sit on the half-installed floor. The couples, of course, sat together. Siobhan found it hilarious for some reason to see Rune actually on the ground for once instead of squirreled away in the rafters.

Denney was good for that boy.

With them settled, she started. “This meeting is simple, I’m just giving you an outline of how the next few months will go. I need to put a few of you in motion as well. Now, first, we will not be going to Saoleord as I thought.” There was a wave of murmuring, the nuance confused and surprised. She shrugged in agreement. “I didn’t expect this, but our delegation from Saoleord doesn’t want to return home yet. They’re apparently having more fun here. They said in a few months, when they’re ready to go back, then they’ll ask for an escort. But in the meantime, they have every intention to stay.”

Siobhan was just as glad, as they only had about half the equipment they needed to make a journey with at the moment. And she hated taking a job without the guildhall finished. It was an unexpected but welcome reprieve.

“Second,” she continued, waving to Alex, “as I’m sure most of you have heard by now, Alex is now officially a part of Deepwoods.”

There was a hearty cheer and the people closest to him reached over to slap the kid’s back in welcome. Alex openly beamed.

“What he’ll do in the guild in the future, well, we haven’t figured that out yet. But there’s two things that I’ve decided should happen. First, we need to give Alex a well-rounded education.”

Alex pointed to his nose and objected, “I’ve been taught, though!”

“Your education is lacking, kid. It has more holes than a slice of cheese. We need to fill in the gaps.” Siobhan pointed her finger at the person as she ordered, “Markl, teach him economics and bookkeeping. Make sure he can read at an advanced level.”

“Certainly, we’ll start tomorrow,” Markl promised.

“Fei, history.”

“As you wish, Ajie.”

“Tran, the basics of your culture. He’ll be lost in Teherani when we go there, so teach him what he needs to know so he can travel through it.”

Tran gave Alex a smile known to scare lesser beings. “I’ll teach him how to memorize too.”

Poor kid. Siobhan had been on the receiving end of
that
lesson before. “Beirly, give him some basic know-how on tools. He should be able to make basic repairs on anything from leather to wood by the time you’re done.”

“He’s already got some of that in him, but I’ll teach him the rest.”

“Good, good.” What was she missing? Oh, duh. “Now, Wolf, Fei, Rune, Tran, I expect you four to put your heads together and teach him strategy and combat skills. Find what he’s got good aptitude for and go from there. Do not, I repeat, DO NOT teach him assassination skills.”

Tran whispered loudly to Rune, “She’s talking to you.”

“She’s not,” Rune stage whispered back. “I taught him how to effectively kill people. Not the same thing.”

They’d have to have a little chat about that comment later. “And do
not
,” Siobhan gave Rune the stink eye, “teach him to lurk in the rafters. Two of you are bad enough.”

Fei and Rune gave her twin looks of innocence as if they couldn’t fathom what she was referring to. They practiced those looks in the mirror, she knew they did. Ignoring them with a pointed sniff, she turned to Sylvie and Denney. “The two of you have good life skills. Cooking, shopping, bargaining, etc. If you go out, take him with you. The best way to learn is actually do. If either of you are cooking, have him help.”

“We’ll take care of it,” Sylvie promised.

Denney raised a hand. “Animal care?”

“That too. Conli, basics of medicine.”

“Absolutely. Actually, can I include Rune in on those lessons?”

“You can,” she responded promptly. Rune’s head jerked back in surprise. She noted the reaction with interest. So, Rune still wasn’t sure what Conli thought of him courting Denney yet, eh? She made a mental note to investigate that later. Going back to the matter at hand, she continued, “Basically, I want Alex to be able to walk out our door and handle whatever life throws at him. He only has about a third of the skills he needs right now. I expect all of you to teach him what he doesn’t know. Clear?” When she got nods all around, she relaxed, satisfied.

Alex was looking around the room, his eyes growing round as he realized that by joining the guild, he’d gained ten adults that could boss him around. That was not something he had expected when he’d maneuvered his way in here. Siobhan wasn’t about to show him any sympathy. Learning consequences to rash decisions was just part of his education. “Also, Alex, I want you to make friends your own age.”

“Friends,” Alex repeated as if she were speaking some foreign language.

“Friends,” she repeated firmly. “You’ve been locked away far too long. Learn how to play. Go enjoy people. There’s no purpose to life if you can’t cut loose and have fun.”

This idea went over far better than the idea of lessons. Alex said, “Sure!” readily and with a look of anticipation on his face.

“Rune?” Siobhan waited until he turned to her before saying sweetly, “You too.”

Rune gave her a poleaxed look. “You want me. To learn how to play. Are you serious?”

She softened in sympathy. “Dearling, before you came to us, you were never allowed to be a child either. And in the past eight months or so that you’ve been with us, you’ve either been training or in war. I think it’s time you learned how to enjoy life too, don’t you?”

Denney slipped her hand into his and supported this by saying softly, “I think she’s right.”

Rune eyed the two of them as if they were both crazy, then scratched at the back of his head. “I could try? I guess?”

“That’s the right attitude,” Siobhan encouraged. “Just don’t play the same way that Wolf and Tran do. That’s all I ask.”

Most of the guild snickered.

Happy that they were all in agreement, and she’d had no arguments during all of this, she gestured to the hall around her. “I think it goes without saying what our third agenda is. For the next two months, our job is to complete the new Hall and re-furnish it. Beirly has agreed to build most of what we need. Grae, if we can take trips out for lumber, that’ll save on costs.”

“Just give me a lumbering crew, and I’ll take them,” Grae promised.

“Good, good.” An idea of lumbering extra, and selling it to people in the city, sparked in the back of her mind. Siobhan made a mental note to mention it to Sylvie after the meeting, see how viable it was. “When the guildhall is complete, we’ll go back to business. Anyone else have something they want to discuss?”

Tran waved a hand. “Siobhan, what about jobs? I know we’re not really outfitted for it right now, but are we getting any offers in? We can do short trips, I think.”

“We can,” she responded with a nod. “But right now, we haven’t had any.”

“The markets are still out of whack because of everything that’s happened,” Sylvie explained to the group as a whole. “I wouldn’t expect merchants or caravans for at least another month.”

“Which is why we need to finish building and recoup what we’ve lost as quickly as possible,” Siobhan tacked on. “Before those jobs start coming in. We’ll take day jobs at first, until we’ve replaced our equipment.”

“And then?” Grae asked uncertainly.

“And then we’ll see what the future has in store for us.”

Rune rounded the corner, heading toward Conli’s clinic, only to pause near the doorway as a voice floated out from inside the room.

“—through the steps of how to care for a wound,” Conli requested in his ‘teaching’ voice.

“Burn or cut?” Alex asked uncertainly.

“Good question,” Conli approved. “Let’s say cut.”

“First, if it’s a big cut, put pressure on it.”

“Good. And then?”

“And then clean it out.”