Blood Shaper

Book 5: Chapter 15

Snarling with rage Glowl, king of Nelam, threw the report on a pile of similar missives and documents. His anger unabated he was very close to knocking the entire stack over in a rush of displeasure and a need for violence, but he kept himself from going through with it. He didn’t trust nay of his servants to do the job properly at the moment, and there was no way he was letting slaves near documents of this importance, so any mess he made he’d have to clean himself.

His anger stemmed from the contents of reports. One after another after another told him the same story of the people who should be at his beck and call failing him, or denying him his right in order to cover their own asses. His Golden Escape Skill had kept him from any lasting harm in the battle against that fucking Outworlder but it had diminished his treasury, and his prestige. Taxes needed to be increased and the collection of duties and fees on traders and merchants needed to be more strictly followed through on. When wheeling and dealing suited Nelam, which was whenever he said, then it was fine to allow the affluent or connected to skimp on what they owed to the government in exchange for certain favors or benefits, but in this moment gold was much more necessary than comely young lovers or access to certain rare goods.

The most recent report was in the same vein as all the rest, his tax collectors claimed there was no new revenue to collect, not so soon after the last sweep. His nobles pointed to the payments they’d just made and said they barely had enough to keep their families afloat. He knew their ilk though, and they were all of a type. They stashed away the best of their gains and allowed his collectors access to only the barest glimmers of their hoards. When no one was looking they’d access their ill gotten wealth to spend freely, denying him what was his by right, what he’d earned as their king and defender after all these years. If this kept up he’d need to start making examples, both to ensure a proper flow of coin back into his coffers, but also to reestablish the correct tone with those beneath him. He ruled, they obeyed.

Annoyingly, even once he did direct his people back onto the proper path, most of the currency he received would be in the baser metals of silver and copper, not in the the most prized gold. He’d already scoured most of Nelam and each territory they’d conquered for gold years ago, needing it for his arms and armor. Trading the coins out for gold in any form was possible, but it would take time and he’d have to rely on unreliable subordinates to transport the coins to the people selling the gold, get the best deals, and transport the gold back.

He slammed his fist onto the table. If only he had more prospectors and miners! Keeping a productive workforce of miners, prospectors, haulers, and all the other jobs necessary to run gold mines productively had been difficult. Slaves were used for the manual labor, but without access to their Skills and unable to tier up, they got significantly less done than real Miners. Without actual Prospectors or other Classes that could find the raw gold in the ground it was a struggle to even find gold to mine. Training up loyal, human citizens had been attempted, but their repeated failure to meet quotas had resulted in many of them being punished, severally decreasing the number of high tier workers they could develop. Some of them still remained, but they weren’t producing nearly as much gold as Glowl needed and they would soon earn themselves further punishment if they didn’t speed things up considerably.

Recruiting suitable workers from outside Nelam, people that had already tiered up enough to be useful, hadn’t gone well either. Many refused to come anywhere near Nelam, even with very generous offers. Those who had accepted Glowl’s overtures were fools who’d ended up not being worth the slightest gram of gold, unable to meet even a tenth of their quotas. A few people had been recruited through more forceful means, but all of them had refused to obey properly and to a man had ended up dead after bringing harsh consequences down on themselves.

That was why he’d gone after that dragon in the first place! No one had even known she was a dragon in the beginning, they’d just heard word that a woman who was traveling through the border regions was a high enough tier Prospector or similar to identify several profitable mining or harvesting sites. The last few attempts to acquire new personnel had gone poorly, so Glowl had decided to lead the effort himself. Stumbling upon her while she’d been bathing was a stroke of good luck, with her disarmed and giving Glowl quite the nice look. To discover she was a dragon, and a golden one to boot! It had been a sure sign from existence that Glowl’s fortunes were on the ascent!

But the bitch dragon had refused to obey orders form her rightful master and he’d been forced to seal her away until she learned how to behave. If she’d just done as she was told, or if that fucking Outworlder hadn’t stuck his nose into other people’s business things would still be perfect. How dare he intrude into events that had nothing to do with him?

“Damn him!” Glowl slammed his fist into the table again. Things were starting to fall apart thanks to that upstart. No one was paying attention to the truth of the events of the battle, and that was hurting Glowl’s reputation. He’d retreated from the fray when it became obvious that he fools who he’d allied with were falling apart. Glowl would never be a part of a losing battle, so he’d pulled back to consolidate and prepare for a true assault. But some shitheads were saying that he’d run away because he had lost to that blood brat! The fucking nerve. Him, lose? He, King Glowl of Nelam, the one who’d raised this nation from its original position as a piddly little town into a true kingdom that dominated the region, losing against some child who hadn’t even been on Torotia for a decade? He would never, but some radicals were spreading rumors that he had lost! And now the Outworlder had left, treating Glowl and his army like some kind of middling power, not even worth worrying about!

His momentum, the continuous flow of building his Class to higher and higher levels of power, had started to slow and if it slowed enough it could start to roll the other direction. He had been accumulating power, prestige, and the correct prospective from his followers since he’d been a tier one Novice Bully, and he wasn’t going to be thwarted by anyone. Glowl needed to accumulate gold once again and begin a punitive campaign, to show the world who they should fear and respect once again. Without enough gold coming in at the rates he’d demanded, it seemed he’d have to start showing the citizens of his own nation how they should be acting first. A few thousand slaves, a hundred rabble-rousers here and there, and maybe a handful of nobles properly punished would teach everyone else to toe the line and do as he commanded.

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A knock on the door came and Glowl’s head snapped around to glare at whoever dared disturb him. There were only a small number of people that could be at the door right now who would get away without injury. “Enter.”

A figure who Glowl had definitely not been expecting stepped into the room, dropping into a deep bow as soon as he made eye contact with the king. “Your majesty. I have important news for you.” Kurtis Nel intoned.

“Nel, what are you doing here? You weren’t to return until Tumbling Rapids made the right choice and joined my kingdom.” The wealthy trade city was outside of the border region that ran along Nelam’s western edge, but the area in between that region and the city was mostly empty. Sewing up Tumbling Rapids would firm up Nelamina control over the area, firmly locking the small powers that existed at his sufferance along the border to capitulate or be destroyed. “You better have good news.”

“I am afraid I do not,” Nel replied, still holding his bow. “Following the news of the defeat of the conglomerated army that attacked Avalon, the city expelled our delegation, along with all traders and merchants from Nelam.”

“Those spineless bastards!” The third strike of Glowl’s fist hitting the table let loose a loud crack, and the wood sagged slightly under his hand. “They dare!?”

“It seems so, your majesty. They expelled us within the day, and I pushed ahead to let you know as soon as possible. The remainder of those who were in the city are a week or so behind me. I allowed the merchants who’d also been ejected to travel under the watch of our guards to make sure their merchandise made it safely back into Nelamian territory.”

Glowl snorted. “That’s something at least. If you hadn’t managed to recover that little of an asset from a mess of your own making we wouldn’t be speaking any longer.”

“Of course, your majesty.” Nel replied in a tone dry enough to turn a sea into a desert.

In his mounting rage, Glowl managed to miss the temerity of the spy’s response. “Those lily-livered pansies on that pile of puss-ridden cowardice they call a council failed to support you, didn’t they? They just went along like a great herd, willing to follow the will of others instead of standing up for what’s right!”

“If you’re speaking of those who realized the unstoppable might of Nelam’s expansion and sided with us accordingly, then yes, your majesty, they did. Those of them that remained.”

“What do you mean?”

“Over the last year and a half those who are against Nelam rightfully taking control of Tumbling Rapids have done their best to ensure that they cut the legs out from under those who do support us. Some of our partisans lost power immediately after the debacle with that Outworlder who is now king of Avalon being kidnapped, while many others were brought down recently, following your visit to the city. It seems those that stand against you began to fear for their own standings and decided to strike first. The few of our supporters that have any influence left are those that have been keeping quiet about their allegiance, hoping to quietly sway others to our cause.”

“Bastards! Cowards! They cower, now, at the moments when our rise is nigh? When I return to that city at the head of my endless army, they shall rue the day they did not stand on their principles on the side of the righteous! We’ll begin by gathering the army and making sure that they’re ready to begin our campaign. Once I acquire the gold owed to me and we’re prepared to crush those that stand against us we will begin marching on the fools who think they can withstand my might. After that, that pissant’s Avalon! I’ll show him that I’m never to be ignored!”

“Shall I gather the generals?”

“No,” Glowl sneered, “I’ll go to them myself. Let us see if they’ve been standing ready as they should.” He stormed for the door, fully expecting Kurtis Nel to follow as he should. He wasn’t sure what alerted him, what gave away the attack, but the king managed to spin, moving his chest just far enough out of the way that the dagger driving down at his heart stabbed into his shoulder instead.

Roaring, Glowl grabbed at the golden jewelry he wore, stuffed full of gold from years of conquest. Unleashing it in a massive blast, he blew through the walls, sending the limp body of the would be assassin flying away. Panting and sweating from both his anger and the exertion, Glowl flinched as the stab wound began radiating searing pain. Looking down, he saw the jagged wound the dagger had left in him. The edges of the cut looked sickly and putrid and as he watched the bilious colors spread an small amount into the skin surrounding the wound.

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Kurtis Nel limped away from the spot where he’d landed on top of one of Nelam’s Palace’s outbuildings. The items he had acquired in preparation for that strike had saved his life, making them worth every coin he’d spent. Sadly, he hadn’t been able to get a certainly fatal blow in on the pompous bastard who called himself a king, but the dagger he’d used had been enchanted to tremendously empower any Skills used through it and his Gangrenous Strike was the highest level of all of his Combat Skills. Even if it didn’t kill Glowl within a few days, it would be a lasting wound that would severely hamper the man and that would still play into Kurtis Nel’s plans.

No, that wasn’t his name anymore, was it? It had never been his true name, but it had been what others called him and what he called himself for so long that it was as much “his” name as anything else was. He wouldn’t go back to using his real name, not yet, but he’d have to choose another one for the time being so that his allies would have something to refer to him with. The “loyal” Nelamian agent was no more, and now the man who was left would become something new, a revolutionary fighting for the heart of his country. It would even be true, in a sense. He was fighting for the heart of his nation, just one that hadn’t existed in a century. In the wake of the chaos he planned to create, maybe it would have a chance to exist once again.

Alarms began to ring and guards began to clamor through the palace, and the man who didn’t yet have a name worked to slip out in the chaos he’d caused. There were allies to contact and plans to set in motion, so he couldn’t afford to get caught yet. Or ever. As the dreamlike images of ideals long suppressed flitting through his mind, images of Nelam burning and slaves freeing themselves from captivity, the scarred and broken stubs of his tail and his real ears began to ache, as they frequently did. This time the aching wasn’t in tune to his shame, his guilt, or his anger. Now the pain beat in time with his heart, aching and exulting at the chance to finally get the vengence he’d longed for for so many decades.