Simon deliberated on it for a day before he decided on public executions. Courtiers and Varten’s widow spent that day arguing that he should torture one or more of them to get to the truth so fervently that he was fairly sure that they were in on it, but he ighem.

  Not only did he have no pns to ever torture someone whose name wasn’t Varten Raithewait, but in this case, he was fairly certain that even those who weren’t directly responsible for what had happened deserved to die. He wasn’t a fan of killing i people, but none of the nobles he’d rounded up and named as dangerous co-spirators had been i for decades.

  He gave the ned men a week to beg for their lives and throw each other uhe bus while the gallows were built, but it was dohe sobbing men were still led out and hung iown square where everyone could see. After the five of them stopped jerking and twitg, Simon stepped out onto the ptform and made a speebsp;

  “I didn’t ask to be put in charge of this town or this region,” he told them. “My wife… she died not so far from here, and though I won’t go into the details of that tragic day, I will say that it could have beeed if powerful men had dohe right thing.”

  He tinued as quiet onlookers listened without interruption. He expihat he hoped to leave in a year or two and that all he wao do was leave Crowvar better than he’d found it. There were no cheers when Simo and walked back to the tral keep, but then he didn’t expey at such a solemn occasion. There were no boos or threats either, and that was enough for now.

  Simo a low profile over the few days, waiting to see if he’d made a mistake, but things got back to normal shogly quickly. It was only when he was sure riots weren’t going to break out over what he’d dohat he met with the remaining three dozen members of his impromptu merary and gave them all a different sort of speebsp;

  For the st year, all he’d done was fight and then move to a new location to fight again, but today, he was giving them a different sort of message. “It’s time to dig in or move on,” he told them.

  Some had obviously been expeg that message, but others were surprised by it and had hoped he’d return to fighting on the pins once Jak had recovered fully from being poisoned. Simon told those who wao leave and fight on their own that they were wele to do so and that those who wao settle down and build something would be gifted acreage at his expense so they could start a farm or something simir.

  Truthfully, much of the nd he wao hand out had been seized from the men he’d just executed, but that wasn’t important. There lenty of Raithewait nd thatcurrently id fallow that ah a strong back might put to good use.

  Less than half of the men that were still here took him up on that offer, but that was still more than zero, and he was sure that nearly two dozen proven warriors would have a better impa Crowvar’s future than five dead leeches. It wasn’t enough to make him stop sleeping behind a locked door every night, though, or eating at random inns throughout the town each day. Simon was sure that he hadn’t gotten all the men and women who wanted him dead yet, and while he worked on his priorities, he did his best to make their job as difficult as possible.

  He worked with the captain of the guard to cut the size of the town watch by almost half si took up most of the able-bodied men, then he pledged rge portions of the town’s st remainih to projects that would fix the outer wall, tear down the burn-scarred buildings that remained, and start to fix the main trade road.

  Simon was no expert ihings, but as long as the pce looked like a shithole, he figured people were going to treat it that way. If, oher hand, it looked like somewhere you would want to raise a family, then maybe there would be more families. It was simple logic, but he was going to go with it. Not that he was going to stick around to see the sequences in this life; of course, he’d get things ba track, and then he’d move on. Somehow, that never quite happehough.

  Each time things started to look good, and he packed up his things so that he could head further north, something came up. At first, it was a dispute over the exact height of the southern wall. Then, there was a difference of opinion over whether or not the road to the main trade road should go on the same path it always had or if they should build a new se that took a shorter, more direct path.

  Simon didn’t really see why the men doing the work couldn’t decide these things and why they he Baron’s ent to resolve these issues. The Baron couldn’t do it, of course. He was just a ten-year-old boy who was being taught to hate Simon now that he could speak, but Simon ighat as he focused on things like pnning the expansion ation ditches aliy disputes.

  Despite all that, though, after three months of adoration from the oners and mute hatred from the powers that be, he was once agaiing ready to leave when there was word of an orc attack at a vilge not so far away.

  Despite the fact that Simon’s stubble had as much gray as brown in it now, and he had more than his fair share of wrinkles around his eyes, he didn’t hesitate for a sed and immediately rounded up two dozen men a out to stop the war band before it could bee something worse.

  Despite the chilly weather, it felt good to get back out of the walls. Here, he didn’t have to look over his shoulder for assassins. Hell, he didn’t even have to watch what he said. Half the time, he had to crack a dirty joke or two just to keep people from treating him like he was a hero that they o put on a pedestal in a museum or a temple.

  By the time they reached Krovel, it was a plete loss, as Simon had thought it would be. Only the small tower of the minor lord that was charged with defending this group of vilges still stood. He and his family were fine, of course, but when it was revealed that the only survivors who hadn’t fled were members of the noble’s household and that he hadn’t tried to let iher vilgers, Simon’s only respoo the man’s expnations was to have him hanged for failing to do his duty.

  Part of Simon wao see the man flogged first, but he thought that was a bit much, especially after his wife and children begged Simon to spare them. That hurt more thahought it would, and it made him wonder when he’d bee so heartless, but it wasn’t enough to make him relent in his judgment.

  “The tower is there to fight against the things that attaexpectedly,” he lectured to everyone who was still standing, from the man’s family to his own soldiers. “Not to save your skihings g! The same punishment that I apply to deserters and cowards will be applied to any man that supposed to be better than the men I lead into the field.”

  There were some cheers at that, but there were some sobs too, and long after Simon had sent the women and children back to Crowvar with an armed escort and they had moved north to follow the orc tracks, sed thoughts haunted him.

  Am I treating people like NPCs because I’ve been doing this too long? He wondered. It was one of his more frequent fears now that he no longer spent most nights missing Freya. He worried that repying the same events might lead to him losing touch with the world. After all, power corrupted, and these days, Simon had a lot of it. Hadn’t the nobles he unishing doly that? Hadn’t they lost touch with the world in their own way?

  Fortunately for Simon, a group of orcish scouts was happy to help him regain touch with the world again the following m, and though he took a blow to his shield that was nasty enough to cave part of it in, his bde drank green blood again for the first time in a long time. The battle was short and decisive. By the end of it, there were three dead orcs, and one of his younger men had a broken arm that Simon was fairly sure was going to heal ly.

  That evening, they found a sed scouting party that was dealt with even more ly by peppering them with a hail of crossbow bolts. Everyone y unfortably in their armor, and no one slept well that night as they waited for the final battle to e. That was wise, given that scouts shouted the arm just before dawn.

  The opposing force was rger than Simon expected but smaller than he feared, with ten orcs. In the past, he preferred a three-to-one advantage or horsemen to deal with groups as rge as ten, but this time, he had her, which was stupid. With all his public works projects going on, horses were in short supply. That would o be rectified, he decided. Unfortunately, he could only do that after he lived through this.

  For the first time in months, Simon sidered using a word of power. He resisted, of course, at least until he realized that one of them was a shaman of sorts and called the lightning to deal with them. That was a shoon, figuratively speaking. The magic arced from the clear sky and hit the two men closest to the orcs before he could speak the words of lightning prote and stop the purplish arcs from hitting anyone else.

  That sirike almost broke the morale of his men. Orcs were scary enough, but orcs with magic? That was ahiirely. The charge died, even as it had been in the process of being born. Instead, the soldiers around him formed a defensive line and looked to him for some idea of what to do . Simon gritted his teeth. He wasn’t going to let some orc kill him or anyone else, not with lighting or fists or anything else.