34. Town Meeting
Town Meeting
Kain woke early the next morning to find Ghost still by the hearth, which he hoped meant there had been no fresh trouble in the night. He rose, dressed, ate a quick meal, and went out.
No one came down to call him to it. He couldn't tell whether that was a good sign or a bad one. He rode up toward town with his mind turning over the ways the meeting might go, though he knew well enough what they would ask of him in the end.
It was the only thing they could do, and in their place he would likely have done the same. That didn't mean he was ready for it, or that he wanted it.
The Kettle was already full when he reached town, men crowded around the doors, and they parted for him as he rode up. He climbed down, handed off the reins, and slipped inside.
Inside, the place was packed to the walls. Sasha worked the counter, pouring drinks and setting out breakfast, and the smell of coffee hung over all of it. Sam stood at the end of the bar up on a small crate, which put him a head above everyone else.
Kain nodded to Sasha, and she waved him in behind the bar. He set to helping her serve, which was something to do with his hands and kept him from being stared at, though it also put him close to a good many more people than a corner seat would have.
Before long some thirty people had crowded in, most of them men, all of them glancing about uneasily. Jeremiah was there, and Garland too, still grey in the face.
Sam cleared his throat and raised a hand to bring the room to order.
"All right, all right. Let's bring this together." He cleared his throat again. "You're all here because you're good folk of Tillamore, and we've got a gryphon on our hands."
"Terrible business," someone called.
"We have to be rid of it."
"It'll kill us all."
Sam raised a hand. "Then let's cut straight to it. What do we do about it?"
The whole room broke into shouting at once.
"Call on the Adventurers' Guild."
"Adventurers come through here. We hold out for one."
"What if it takes a child?"
"Somebody will come who can handle it."
"What if it comes in broad daylight? Into the town?"
"What if it comes at night and tears a house open?"
"We should all clear out."
"Clear out to where? And what would that buy us?"
"Send word to Lathemtown."
"Lathemtown's not sending men out to die for us."
The noise climbed until Kain lost any hope of telling one thread of it from another. Sam had the room, though, and he shot Kain a wink.
Everyone had something they needed to get off their chest, and a short spell of all of them shouting at once would see most of it out. At last Sam raised both hands, and the room came down.
"All right." Sam looked around. "I believe we've heard from just about everybody, and we've got some fine ideas to work from.
" A few people laughed, thin and nervous, and he went on.
"Now to the business of it. First, somebody put it that we gather up everyone in town who can swing a tool and make an army of ourselves.
It's not the worst notion. We could land a blow or two, done right. "
A few heads nodded. Kain knew what Sam was doing, and he had to grant the man was good at it.
Sam understood as well as he did that Kain was the only one in the room who could do a thing about the gryphon. The whole village together might scratch the beast, and not much past that.
"We'd be slaughtered," Jeremiah called out at last. "We couldn't see off those wolves that came around last year. It sounds fine to band together against a gryphon, but you all know as well as I do how that ends. We'd be torn to pieces, and the thing would help itself to the town after."
"Then the second notion is clearing out."
"I'm not leaving my farm."
"Nor am I."
Shouts of refusal went up around the room, and Sam nodded along with them.
"Which brings us to hiring an adventurer. I did some asking around, of the right people, and the short of it is that it would cost far more than we could ever raise. Near ten gold. And there is not that much coin in the whole village."
Kain rubbed his jaw as Sam turned, slow, and looked straight at him.
"You, Kain. You're a B-rank mercenary. You've faced things like this before."
The room went quiet. Kain crossed his arms and looked up at Sam a long moment. Sasha had stopped in the doorway, and she gave him a small nod, and he stepped up to stand beside Sam.
"I know what I am," Kain said.
Will Martinson lifted his head at the back of the room, and Kain felt the man's eyes on him. He met them, then looked round at the rest.
They were all watching him the same way, and it wasn't hope in their faces. It was desperation. They were casting about for anything to hold to, and he was the only thing in the room to hold to.
Will's look, if Kain read it right, was bent less on the gryphon than on whether this was a man fit to be spending time near his daughter. That was a matter for another day.
"I'll do what I can," Kain said. "I'll need a week to get ready. Maybe two."
He didn't trouble to say that the most of the getting-ready was already behind him. The village knew he had been at something out on his land. They didn't know what, and he was content to leave their imaginations to it.
"Do you think you can kill it?" Sam asked, harder this time.
Kain didn't answer right off. Then he settled his arms across his chest.
"If I don't come back, you'll want another plan ready." He looked round at them. "I'd start on it now, were I you."
Will Martinson met his eyes and gave a small nod. Then he turned and went out, and that seemed to be the signal.
The rest began to file out after him, and Kain saw that they carried their heads a little higher than they had coming in.
Would they work on that other plan? Maybe. More likely not. They knew Kain had taken the job, and for them that was the whole of it.
Sam stayed put until the last of them had gone. When the door fell shut and it was only the three of them left, he turned to face Kain and Sasha.
"Sorry for the theatrics. It needed doing."
"I'm not blaming you." Kain leaned against the counter. "I'd like to. But I understand it."
Sam thumped a fist on the counter, started to turn away, then came back around.
"I sent word to the Guild near two weeks back. Told them we had a problem, that we couldn't pay the going rate, but that we'd show our thanks however we could."
"And what did they say?" Kain asked, though he had a fair idea already.
"That everyone was busy. They'd put the word out, but I shouldn't hold my breath." Sam blew out a breath. "Up until then I'd kept a little hope that some hero-minded fool might come out and do something stupid for no pay."
"It's not happening." Kain shook his head. "I wish it were. But I know the people who work those circuits. The only reason the Silver Hands ever kept coming back through Tillamore was Sasha, and the rest of us did not even know that much. We just thought Mark had gone soft in the head."
"He had," Sasha said. "In the best way there is, mind you."
Kain held her eye a moment, then squared his shoulders.
"Will a week be enough?" Sam asked.
"It'll have to be. I'll move as fast as I can."
"Anything you need, you say so." Sam clapped him on the shoulder and went out.
Kain watched him go, then looked back at Sasha.
"Everybody in town is going to want to know what your plan is," Sasha said. "If there's any way I can help, you tell me."
"Unless you've got a shipment of nightcap mushrooms lying about, I don't know that there's much." Kain made for the door. "I'll head out and collect more now."
"I'll bring you supper, at least," Sasha said. "Or send someone down with it, so it's one less thing on you."
"That would help, honestly. I don't care to go straight from making poison to making food." Kain almost smiled. "Too easy to get the one into the other, and that's the sort of mistake a man makes only once."
"No," Sasha agreed. "That wouldn't do at all."
Kain went out and was soon up on Roan, riding down the road toward home. There was no other way through it. It was time to fight.