Demesne 246 - Worth More Than Anything (Patreon)

As Lori stared in shock, people started yelling and moving.

Lord whatever-his-name-was, the closest to Shanalorre, moved first, knocking the belt knife out of her hands. The sound of it hitting the ground and bouncing under the bench they'd been sitting on was strangely loud to Lori's ears .

"Medics! Doctors!" Rian cried as he leapt towards the other Dungeon Binder, taking hold of her forearm. Already blood was trickling down, painting her skin dark, almost brownish red. "We need bandages, there's bleeding from the wrist! Does anyone have a cloth that's not sweaty?"

"Shana, heal yourself!" Lord whatever-his-name-was said, digging through his belt pouch and pulling out a small roll of bandages, followed by some cord.

"No," Shanalorre said, turning and somehow twisting her bleeding arm out of Rian's grip, leaving his hands slick with blood. She held that arm to her chest, griping it with the hand of her undamaged limb and crouching down as blood began to stain her clothes. Despite all this, her gaze was still intent on Lori. "I offer you a sign of my sincerity, Binder Lolilyuri. If you do not trust me, then you need not trust me. You need not break your word. Simply allow me to die as you've waited for, and claim my demesne."

"Stop being so dramatic," Rian snapped as he tried to regain hold of the bleeding arm, but Shanalorre kept twisting out of the way. "Someone grab her and make her stop moving! If all this agitation keeps up, she's going to bleed out even faster!"

People were start to crowd around them now as if trying to get a better look at the bleeding. Others recoiled, moving away and grabbing nearby children to pull them back. Shanalorre's blood was beginning to stain her shirt, the dark fluid creeping downwards as she surprised Rian with an aggressive and well-aimed punched to the face that had him recoiling in surprise and clutching at one eye. Lord whatever-his-name-was tried to take advantage by grabbing the outstretched limb, but she managed to parry him on the backswing, twisting out of his way and somehow moving closer towards Lori.

So much blood… how was there already so much blood? It had been only a few short moments, but already Shanalorre's arm was welt, and drops of blood were smearing across the floor, from Shanalorre trying to avoid the two men. Rian hand thrown himself bodily at Shanalorre, trying to tackle her while Lord whatever-his-name-was kept her hemmed in, but she somehow managed to avoid him, jumping over him as he slammed into the ground where she'd been. The younger lord let out a pained groan, then a cry of complaint as Lord whatever-his-name-was' foot struck him in the shoulder. In the struggle, the stool holding the now-empty plate of food fell over, the wooden cups bouncing and splashing water everywhere as the pitcher hit the ground and broke, sending more water everywhere.

It… it was convenient, really. Yes, this would perfectly deal with her objections to this suspicious proposal. After all, Shanalorre could not betray and usurp Lori if the other Dungeon Binder was dead. Hadn't she just been waiting for Shanalorre to die all this time? To the dragons, to the winter, to random chance? And here she was, bleeding to death. A death from cut wrists was far slower than opening the veins on the neck, but Rian was correct. All this movement and agitation, the quickened heartbeat that would result from it, was no doubt pumping more and more blood from the young girl's body, hastening her death.

All Lori had to do was sit back and wait. She simply had to sit back down onto the bench next to her and wait… not all that long. Perhaps a tenth of an hour or so. As long as the wound was not properly bandaged and treated—

Lori blinked as she realized someone was calling her name, and had been doing so repeatedly. "What?" she said distractedly, focusing on Rian. Shanalorre's arm looked painted, trickles of fresh blood keeping the color from darkening as it would normally have the way the blouse she was wearing was doing. So much blood…

"A little help here?-!" he cried as he was getting to his feet, his feet sliding a little on the wet floor and nearly falling over again. His teeth gritted and one hand rubbing at his shoulder, trying to quickly alleviate the pain. "Tell her to stand down and stop moving so we can treat her!"

Lori's mouth parted open in a tangle of instincts. Words chastising Rian for speaking to her in such a way tangled with the words to tell Shanalorre to stop and to stand down, words accepting her surrender, words telling Rian to not fall for whatever trickery this was to manipulate them, words telling him to leave her alone and deal with this…

Really, this was a simple choice. She could accept this suspiciously generous surrender of a still-living Dungeon Binder's demesne, ostensibly to save its residents because they were supposedly running out of food and wouldn't last to produce more on their own, and no doubt inevitably be betrayed. Or she could simply do nothing and simply waiting for Shanalorre to die of blood loss, succumbing to her wounds, and then taking the demesne's core, claiming power and authority over the territory in the traditional, established method.

Obviously, she would do the latter. It was the intelligent, sensible, rational thing to do. There would be no possibility of betrayal or usurpation, and she would not have to worry about any unexpected attacks from people in Shanalorre's employ if she was dead.

She would not be breaking her word. She would not be taking Shanalorre's life, simply letting it slip away. Indeed, she really had no power to prevent it. After all, despite her efforts and study, she still had no skill with Deadspeaking, and therefore no ability to heal, so really the only one with the ability to save Shanalorre was herse—

Lori's stream of thought stopped at that realization, as if slamming into a wall. And as with slamming into a wall, the force of her thoughts was redirected sideways at a reversed angle.

Shanalorre was capable of healing. Shanalorre was the only one capable of healing. Certainly, they had doctors and medics, but those were only, when you go down to it, specialized scholars with knowledge of how to tear the body open and put it back together. They couldn't actually heal, not the way a Deadspeaker could, simply put the pieces back into place and wait for the body to heal itself.

And while Lori would have liked to say at as a Dungeon Binder, she was the only one they needed to perform healing… she was willing to admit that even up to now, Deadspeaking eluded her as surely as Horotracting and Mentalism. While her demesne could function without healing, and incident serious enough to needhealing would be have a small but undeniable impact on her demesne's productivity. The impact would increase drastically if the affected party was someone with an uncommon but highly useful skill, like the potter, the roper, Rian or… herself…

Shanalorre, as a healer, was an important resource. As a Dungeon Binder and a potential threat and danger to her, however…

But then, any wizard would always be a danger to her, wouldn't they? That's why she had given Rian orders not to recruit any wizards to join their demesne during the expedition to Covehold. Any of them would have had the ability and motivation to kill her and usurp her position as Dungeon Binder if they couldn't find a location that appealed to them for setting up their own demesne. Or even if they did find a location that appealed. After all, why have only one demesne when you can have two?

Shanalorre, however….

She was savant. She knew how to heal and only how to heal… and, admittedly, how to claim a dungeon's core. However, beyond that, she would know nothing. Not how to affect the life in Lori's body to make her ill, not how to cause growths to swell in her organs, or how to stop her heart from beating. On consideration, she would be the safestwizard in all the continent for Lori, as any danger to she posed would have to be through commanding her subordinates to do Lori harm… something Lori could mitigate with more subordinates or simply not coming out of her room…

Lori looked down, really looked down, into the eyes of the smaller Dungeon Binder who, even though her attempts to evade Rian, her own lord, and others who were beginning to become involved, would turn her gaze at Lori, awaiting some kind of response. Her movements were starting to slow, but whether from tiredness or blood loss, Lori wasn't sure.

She opened her mouth. "Tell me—" Lori began, then frowned as her words were swallowed up by the sounds of people yelling, of Rian and Lord whatever-his-name-was both trying to convince Shanalorre to stop moving so the bleeding in her wrist could be staunched and bandaged, of people trying to replicate Rian's attempt at bodily throwing themselves to catch the savant and instead replicating his crash onto the floor as she continued to evade them. Lori bound airwisps.

"All of you, enough!" she snapped, the deafening sound of her voice sweeping over everyone, her words just barely not blending together into unintelligibility. Rian and the others paused in mid-movement as they tried to surround Shanalorre, giving her the opportunity to duck under their arms and stand smoothly to face Lori, still cradling her bleeding arm to her chest protectively. Only Lord whatever-his-name-was still moved as he tried to get around the hesitant men and women and towards her Binder, only to trip on some blood on the floor, falling painfully on his face.

In the short lull that followed, Lori faced Shanalorre. Irrationally, she wished she had her staff in her hands. It would have been useless, but she wanted it anyway. "I believe you have sufficiently shown your willingness to die."

"Have you reconsidered your position, then?" Shanalorre said calmly even as her blood continued to flow, droplets falling from her elbow.

"That your death would be useless to me if I were unable to claim your demesne," Lori said. "If you are truly intend to die as a demonstration of your sincerity, then tell me: where is your core and how do I reach it?"

"That'swhat you're asking her?" Rian exclaimed incredulously.

Lori ignored him.

"The core is located under the central tree," Shanalorre said immediately. "The entrance is an opening among the roots underneath the stairs, currently buried by dirt and rocks to obscure the signs of an underground cavity. You can access it easily."

Lori stared at her for a moment. She stared back just as impassively.

"Fine. I will accept authority of you and your demesne under two conditions," Lori said.

"Which are?"

"First, confirmation that your core is, in fact, where you say it is."

Shanalorre nodded. "And the second condition?"

Lori pointed. "Heal yourself. Your value as a healing savant is worth more than anything else your demesne contains. You will live and be useful."

Shanalorre hesitated for a moment. Her arm was drooping, growing weak as she lost more and more blood. "Understood," she said eventually. "I will comply." There was a beat. "It is done."

"Finally!" Rian exclaimed, his face twisted in a pained expression.

"Show me," Lori ordered.

For a moment, Shanalorre looked around, and only then seemed to spot the spilled and broken pitcher, the pottery vessel lying on the ground next to the upturned stool. With solemn dignity, Shanalorre raised her wrist to her mouth and spat on it, then used her other hand to the fluid on the blood staining her limb. She presented her wrist to Lori, revealing smooth, unblemished skin surrounded with red-stained flesh.

Lori grunted, continuing to stare down at the Dungeon Binder. "You place yourself and your demesne under my authority?"

"Yes, Binder Lolilyuri," Shanalorre said. "All those who previously obeyed me, I shall order to now obey you, and only you, as their Dungeon Binder." A brief pause. "Those who did not obey me, I have no authority over."

… technically true and correct. Lori suddenly very strongly reminded that a portion of the current population of River's Fork had originally been from her demesne, and had left to no longer be under her authority. How problematic for them.

"Does this mean you're also going to help keep the people who live in River's Fork from starving now?" Rian said, sighing heavily as he sat down on the bench next to them. Lori noticed that the game board that had somehow managed to remain in place.

Ah, yes. There had been that condition, hadn't there? Authority in exchange for sustaining Shanalorre's subjects—those who had formerly been Shanalorre's subjects—through their oncoming difficulty. "The problem will be dealt with," Lori said. "However, we have more immediate matters." Lori turned to look at whatever-his-name-was and frowned. "Rian, what's his name?"

Rian sighed as he put a hand on his face for some reason. "Yllian, your Bindership. His name is Yllian."

Lori nodded, facing the man. Except for how his shoulders moved as be breathed in from his exertions, stains from the water and blood on his clothes and hands, the man looked calm and composed as he stood with his hands loose at his sides. His eyes, however, kept looking between Lori and Shanalorre. "Yllian," Lori said. "You heard Shanalorre. Do you obey?"

The man looked between her and Shanalorre one more time. Slowly, he bowed his head. "Yes, Great Binder," he said, voice flat.

"Excellent," Lori said. "From now on, you are assigned to guard and monitor Shanalorre at all times, with an emphasis on ensuring that blades of any sort are to be kept out of her reach. Is this understood?"

"Perfectly, Great Binder," he said, straightening.

"Make your own arrangements as to how she is to be monitored in the baths," she said. "Rian, see to it my new subjects are moved to more permanent quarters at the shelter. As they are now under my authority and are therefore no longer guests, have the alcove put back in order and start assigning duties to the men who came with her."

"Uh… shouldn't that wait until we can get them back home to their families in River's Fork?" Rian said.

"No," Lori said. "Those who don't work don't eat. Tomorrow, they start earning their keep in the demesne." She looked down at Shanalorre. "Including you. No more all-day baths."

"I understand… Great Binder," Shanalorre said, bowing her head in submission.

Lori reminded herself it as hardly the best time to luxuriate in the feeling of having a Dungeon Binder bow down to her as a superior. No, not the time, not the time. "Shanalorre… you made this mess," she said, gesturing at the mix of blood and water staining the floor. "Clean it up. And gather the shards for repair." There were only a few pieces. While broken pottery was usually given to the potter to render down into material for future pottery, the pieces were large and whole enough she could easily fuse them back together with earthwisps.

"Yes, Great Binder," Shanalorre nodded, then paused, looking around uncertainly.

Lori ignored her, moving to sit at the end of the bench, which was just out of range of the mess of blood and spilled water. She leaned back, resting against the stone wall behind her, and waited for her heartbeat to calm down.