Chapter 80 - Refugees?

"So there’s actually someone in this world that can keep up with the two of you?" Bronwyn asked.

"There is," I answered with a nod.

Silence fell over the diner for a moment.

"But that still won’t help us," Bronwyn said. "The three of you alone can’t stand against two-hundred men."

"You’d be surprised by the difference a few people can make against an army," Cat smiled. "And besides, it won’t just be the three of us."

"Exactly," I nodded. "We still have some time to grow our numbers."

"Although, I don’t know how Daniel is going to feel about paying so many salaries," I couldn’t help but smile. "And honestly at the moment we wouldn’t even be able to afford that many salaries."

"Salaries?" Bronwyn asked.

"Yeah," Jason said. "Daniel is paying all of us eight silver a month, and providing food and shelter while we’re in the village."

"He actually pays you that much?" Bronwyn asked. "Even though he’s giving you a place to stay?"

"Yes," Jason said, his entire group nodding in agreement. "He calls it... employment benefits."

"He sounds like a very... strange man," Bronwyn muttered.

"That he is," Jason smiled.

"Anyway," I said. "We can give you all a place to stay for now, but we can’t afford to hire you into our company at the moment."

Once again silence fell, Bronwyn looked back at what was left of her people standing behind her. Most of the elves standing there looked ragged and tired, their clothes were practically only scraps of cloth at that time, and the children seemed to be constantly shedding tears.

"If you can provide us with food and shelter, and train us in combat, we’ll work for you," Bronwyn finally said, those silver eyes flashing with determination.

"That won’t be necessary," Cat said. "We are good friends with the chief of this village, and would be able to convince him to take you in. We don’t want to force any of you into conflict when that is not what you want."

For a moment Bronwyn simply looked at us with wide eyes.

"You won’t take this chance to increase your numbers?" She finally asked.

"Not at the cost of people who don’t actually want to fight," I answered. "Having people among us who are only there because they feel indebted will only weaken us."

"Daniel believes that the best employees are the ones who are there because they want to be," I continued. "He also has this strange notion that his employees should be able to forget that he’s their boss."

"But wouldn’t that cause dissent?" Bronwyn asked.

"It hasn’t yet," Cat smiled. "Ironically, instead it has only caused more loyalty."

"Of course it has," Jason said. "The man treats us like we’re his friends, he pays us well, provides shelter, food, trains with us, and he never orders anything, instead he asks if we would do something for him. Who wouldn’t be loyal?"

I couldn’t help but feel proud of our husband when I heard the way Jason spoke about him. For months I had worked in secret to help him gather faith without him knowing it, and all it really took was for people to get to know the real him.

The villagers absolutely loved him.

The people who worked for him were absolutely loyal.

The mercenaries would lay down their lives for him, or any cause he chose to fight for, because they knew that he would never do anything immoral, or corrupt.

Almost everyone in the village already looked at him as if he was the true leader, although he still hadn’t realised that small fact yet.

The fact that he had never forced anyone into anything, or even ordered anyone to do anything, just made everyone love him all the more.

"We’ll go and talk to the village chief now," I said as Cat and I stood from our seats. "In the meantime, you can wait here and get something to eat."

"Can I come with you to meet the chief?" Bronwyn asked.

"Sure," I answered with a smile.

"Sylph, would you make our guests some meals please?" Cat asked as we moved past the kitchen.

"Sure," Sylph answered, sticking her head out the door with a bright smile on her face. "I can do that."

"Thank you," Cat smiled as we continued on our way, Bronwyn following along.

We moved through the village, snow still dropping from the roofs of the houses as we made our way toward Worick’s home.

The first snow had started to fall a few days before that, and I could only imagine how much Daniel would have hated the cold that came with it.

"Can you imagine how much Daniel would complain about this cold?" I asked Cat with a smile.

"It would probably be non-stop," Cat giggled.

"I would actually pay money to hear those complaints at the moment," I whispered.

"You and me both," Cat mumbled.

We made our way through the village in silence after that. With Bronwyn walking behind us looking at all of the changes Daniel’s suggestions had made with confusion.

After walking for a while longer we finally reached Worick’s home, just as I raised my hand to knock on the door, he opened it.

"Julia? Catharina?" Worick asked with a smile. "How can I help you?"

"Morning Worick," I smiled back. "Can we speak to you for a moment?"

"Sure, come in, come in," Worick said, moving to the side so we could step into his home.

Worick led us to his small seating area to the side of the entrance, where his wife sat in a chair, a thick blanket covering her legs.

"Good morning, Janice," I said with a smile.

"Morning Julia, morning Cat," Janice smiled back, gesturing for us to have a seat.

"So how can I help you?" Worick asked, sitting down next to Janice. "And who have you brought with you?"

"Some of our mercenaries have found some refugees on their travels," I said, smiling as I saw Janice lovingly sharing her blanket with her husband. "This is Bronwyn, she’s the daughter of their chief."

"Refugees?" Worick asked, the word seemed almost strange to him.

"Our village was destroyed by a man who wishes to conquer the elven lands," Bronwyn said.

"What?!" Worick exclaimed, almost ripping the blanket from both him and Janice as he tried to stand again. Only Janice’s hand on his knee keeping him down.

"Is it a human?" Janice asked with a frown.

"No," Bronwyn shook her head. "It’s an elf that leads an army of humans and elves."

"An army?" Worick asked.

"Well I won’t really call it an army," Cat said. "It’s more like a battalion."

"What’s the difference?" Bronwyn frowned.

"An army makes it sound like it’s thousands of men," I answered. "With only two-hundred men, this is more like a battalion."

"You keep saying only two-hundred men, like that isn’t a lot." Bronwyn frowned again.

"Well," Cat said. "It isn’t."

"If you give us a few weeks, we should be able to upgrade our defenses to a stage where they wouldn’t stand a chance against this village." I nodded.

"Do we have a few weeks?" Worick asked, his face significantly paler than it was.

"We don’t know." Cat and I answered together.

"We’d need to send out a scouting party to determine where this battalion is now," Cat said. "We’ll send Jason and his men back out tomorrow, they need to go and find the other group and bring them back anyway."

"In the meantime, we’re going to need you and the other villagers to help us shore up our defenses." I said. "We’ll also need you to help us to provide places for the refugees to live, most of them could fit in the barracks, but not all of them."

"How many?" Worick asked.

Cat and I both looked toward Bronwyn for that answer.

"There are about sixty of us," Bronwyn answered.

"As you know, we can house about fifty of them," I said. "And the rest can also stay with us for now, but it won’t be a long-term solution for all of them to stay in the barracks."

"I’ll talk to Darvel about having the rest of them stay in the inn for now," Worick said. "It’s not like there are any rooms other than your own that’s in use."

"Sounds good," I said, as Cat and I stood up to leave again. "We’ll get them settled in the barracks for now."

We made our way out of Worick’s home, and back to the barracks, where we were surprised to find a group of twenty men and ten women waiting for us.

"We’d like to work under the contract Bronwyn mentioned." The woman at the front said.

I couldn’t help but frown at those words.

It seemed that they had been discussing this while we were away, but I still stood by my opinion that I didn’t want any of our mercenaries to work for us because they were indebted.

"You don’t need to do that," I said. "Like I said, we don’t want you to work for us just because we gave you a place to stay."

"We don’t want to do this because we feel indebted," Bronwyn said from next to us. "If they feel anything like I do, we want to do this because we don’t ever want to feel like this again."

I understood what they meant.

They never wanted to be in a situation where they didn’t know how to protect themselves again.

They wanted to be able to protect themselves and their loved ones.

"I understand," I said. "We’ll train you, but we won’t make you work for us, or fight for us, unless you truly want to."

At the time I felt like that would be something Daniel would do.

"But you should know," I smiled at them. "It will be the hardest thing you have ever done."