*** *** ***
I dragged myself upstairs to the infirmary. Roderick was playing checkers with a shapeshifter boy. The collar on his neck had gone from orange to canary yellow.
I climbed the million stairs to our quarters, asked the guards to order some food from the kitchen, and took a shower. When I came out, Curran sprawled on our giant couch, his eyes closed.
I flopped next to him. "Help."
The blond eyebrows rose a quarter inch. "Mmm?"
"The mercs aren't going to reach a consensus." I lay next to him on my side, propping my head up with my hand. "No matter who I pick tomorrow, they won't like it. Marc can run the Guild, but the mercs despise him. The mercs can do the jobs, but the admin stuff leaves them clueless."
"Make them work together," Curran said.
"Not going to happen. They hate each other."
"If fourteen alphas can meet in the same room every week without killing each other, so can Mark and the mercs. The Guild has been without leadership for months. The people are tired and they want a strong leader. Not a tyrant, but a leader who inspires confidence. You need to walk in there and roar until they cringe. Demonstrate that you are strong enough to be take away their freedom to choose, make sure it sinks in, and then give some of the choice back to them on your terms."
Hmm.
"Tie it back to Solomon Red, too," Curran said. "It's basic psychology: under Solomon things ran, when he died, they broke. The more time passes, the more rosy times of Solomon look to an average merc. So if you attack them from 'Let's go back to the good old days' angle, they will fold. Make them think that following you is what they want to do."
"You scare me sometimes," I told him.
He yawned. "I'm totally harmless."
Someone knocked on the door. A bit early for food.
"Yes?" Curran called.
Mercedes, one of the guards, entered. "There is a man outside, my lord. He is big, he's wearing a cape, and he's got a giant axe. We're also pretty sure he's drunk."
Dagfinn.
"What does he want?" Curran asked.
"He says he wants to fight the Beast Lord."