Hugh lowered his hands and took a deep breath. Sweat dripped from his forehead. He’d pushed himself for the better part of an hour, alternating the heavy bag and weights with weapon practice. His body finally realized that food was once again plentiful, and he was starting to rebuild the muscle he’d lost. He would need it.
Next to him Lamar propped himself against the stone wall of the keep. Hugh leaned next to him and began pulling at the wraps on his fists. In front of them the western end of the bailey stretched, filled to the brim with tents. It had been three weeks, and still more than half of his people were camping out in the open. He’d left the barracks renovation to Elara. She had insisted on it, and he gave it to her to avoid having another delay on the moat. His wife was dragging her feet on renovations. At this rate, they would still be in tents at first frost.
“What did you find out?” Hugh asked.
“Pretty much what we suspected.” Lamar kept his voice quiet. “Elara is at the top of the food chain. Below her are the two advisers. Savannah oversees the covens, infrastructure, and internal administrative issues. She also heads their legal department. Dugas deals with logistics, imports, exports, trade agreements and so on. Their powers overlap somewhat, so they have oversight over each other. Elara views them both as her parents. No clue what happened to her real family.”
In a war against Elara, the witch and the druid would be priority targets.
“What about Johanna?”
“Research and development. There are other administrators. The head accountant, for example. But none of them hold the power those three do. Most major decisions are made by them and Elara. Elara has the power to overrule them, but she almost never does. There is a fifth person involved too.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know,” Lamar said. “But some of our people have seen him. He moves very fast and seems to disappear into thin air. We don’t know what or who he is. We’re not getting anywhere with the locals. They’re all nice and friendly until we start asking leading questions about Elara and the Remaining.”
“Keep digging. There are thousands of Departed between the castle and the town. Someone will talk.”
“They’re really interested in our barrels.”
“Of course they are.”
A tent nearby collapsed. Iris crawled out of it, swore, and kicked it.
Lamar fell silent. Hugh glanced at him. “What?”
The centurion hesitated.
“Lamar?”
“None of the bulldozer operators showed up for work this morning.”
Fury began to rise in him. “Why?”
“According to the foreman, they and their bulldozers have something more important to do. They are digging on the north side.”
Hugh forced himself to sound calm. “Are we upside down on the salvage?”
“No. According to the smiths, we still have three days of work paid for.”
“Did you tell that to the bulldozer foreman?”
“I did.” Lamar nodded. “He said the orders came from Elara. He says he isn’t allowed to talk to us about it.”
Hugh tossed the hand wraps on the wall and marched to the keep.
Elara did most of her business in the small room off her bedroom, where she kept a desk, a computer she could access during tech, and paper files. Today she sat behind that desk, her head down, looking at some papers. Hugh strode through the door. A heavy-set Latino man was standing next to her, pointing at a paper in front of her. They both looked up at him.
Hugh unhinged his jaws. “Leave.”
The man grabbed his papers and took off. Hugh waited until he ran down the stairs and turned to Elara.
“Yes?” she asked.
“You pulled the bulldozers off the moat.”
She leaned back. “Yes, I did.”
His temper threatened to gallop off like a horse running for its life and Hugh made a valiant effort to hold on to it. “For what reason?”
“I felt like it.”
He stared at her. Elara stared back.
Hugh bit off words, pronouncing them with icy exactness. “Our agreement was, I get the salvage and you let us have the bulldozers. I have three days’ worth of salvage credit left.”
“Yes, but we didn’t specify when the bulldozers will be available to you. There is nothing in that agreement about any kind of timeline. You will get your bulldozers back. Just not right now.”
He couldn’t kill her. If he killed her, he would have to kill everyone else in this damn settlement. His rage was boiling over and he distilled it to a single word. “When?”
“When I feel like it,” she told him.
She was toying with him now.
Elara reached over, picked up a folder from the desk, and held it in front of her so only her eyes were visible.
“What are you doing?”
“Waiting for your head to explode. I don’t want to miss it, but I don’t want to be splattered with gore.”
He reached over, plucked the folder from her fingers, and dropped it on the desk. “I’ve explained the reason for the moat. It’s an urgent matter. We’ve been here for three weeks and my people are still in tents. They haven’t been paid.”
Elara crossed her arms on her chest. “Nothing you said indicates that I’m in breach of our contract. It specifies that quarters for your soldiers will be provided in a reasonable time. I can’t help that my definition of reasonable is different from yours.”
“Elara!”
“They are soldiers, Preceptor. They are used to sleeping on the ground. Now then, I have two stacks of paperwork to go through. Why don’t you go and punch that heavy bag some more? Take the edge off.”
That was it. He needed to take his people and go. “I’m done,” he told her.
“Excellent. Please go. And while you are out there venting your rage, if you’re so interested in what the bulldozer team is doing, why don’t you ask them yourself and stop wasting my time?”
Hugh walked off. A haze of fury floated around him. He walked into the bailey. The sunlight burned his eyes. He strode to the gate, flicking his fingers at a group of the nearest Iron Dogs. They fell in behind him. He marched outside the walls, turned, and headed north.
It was simple. He would remove the bulldozer crew, confiscate the bulldozers, and put his own people on them.
The heavy machinery sat unmoving on the north side of the hill. The crew, a woman and three men including Jay Lewis, the foreman, sat on the grassy slope, drinking from thermoses and eating sandwiches. At Hugh’s approach Lewis scrambled to his feet. He was about fifty, a shade under six feet tall, with a ruddy face that came from having northern European genes and spending too much time outdoors in the hot sun.
Hugh nodded, and the Iron Dogs formed a line between the crew and the four bulldozers. He fixed Lewis with his stare.
The foreman swallowed.
“What are you doing here?”
“Um, the thing is, sir, I’m not supposed to tell you.”
Hugh sank menace into his words. “Are you afraid of me, Lewis?”
The foreman nodded several times.
“Do you see my wife anywhere?”
“No, sir.”
“That’s right. She isn’t here, but I am. Do we understand each other?”
Lewis nodded again.
“Tell me why you’re here.”
Lewis opened his mouth, hesitated, and gave up. “The septic.”
“Explain.”
“We’ve doubled the personnel for the castle and the septic was never meant to handle that much volume. We had a bit of a problem, but it’s all fixed now, you see?” Lewis waved his hand at a patch of freshly turned over dirt. “It will be great. You’ll love it.”
The septic did take priority. They didn’t want to drown in sewage. She could’ve told him that. But no, the harpy took a chance to stab. He would remember that.
“Finish your lunch,” he told Lewis. “Once you’re done, I expect you back in the moat.”
“Yes, sir.”
A walk back to the gates took another five minutes. The Iron Dogs trailing him walked in silence.
Hugh walked through the gates and halted. The sea of tents had collapsed. The Iron Dogs crowded by the doors of the left wing. His gaze snagged on the pale spot of blue in the mass of black. Elara waved at him. She was holding giant scissors.
There was a blue ribbon strung across the doors of the left wing. It had a giant bow on it.
He’d been had.
“Will you do the honors, Preceptor?” Elara held the scissors out to him.