"Well…" Yhal said some time later, "I suppose that's mildly impressive for a civie." Making housing wasn't difficult for a Whisperer as long as they had stone and enough time, excavating the ground was nothing special—it was just digging out rock, after all—nor were the dozens of other little projects that the woman had done, but actually building and maintaining all of them, and even maintaining a dragon shelter through not one but two dragons… even for someone in the militia, that was a lot of work. A militia Whisperer would be more than up to the task, of course, but still. No wonder the civie was insane. Not that he was going to say that out loud. It might get back to her.

  "She's not here, and even if I reported back, she'd be completely uninterested in hearing the finer details of this meeting," Yllian said with that sly smile of his. "Feel free to call her insane. Many of us certainly do. Not to her face of course, but we say it." He raised the tin cup of honeybrew to his lips, taking a small, measured sip. Despite the fact that they still had several barrels of both honeybrew and tuberbrew booze—and intended to make far more once they had things set up—the man was drinking like he was holding the last cup of the stuff in the demesne.

  "Well, as long as you said it first," Xiasam said. The man was drinking one of his strange teas, made from mixing together pinches from several different pouches of dried and crushed leaves he kept with him, and a couple leaves that Yhal had seen him pluck from nearby trees, with some tuberbrew thrown in 'for warmth'. One of these days, the man was going to drink something that poisoned him, and there weren't going to be any Deadspeakers around to keep him alive. "Still, all that and you don't have a steam hut?

  "We'll probably ask for one this winter." Yllian said. "In the time I spent there, the bath houses in Lorian got… well, almost steamy. Though to be fair, everyone spent most of their time in the Dungeon that winter, so there wasn't really any use for a steam hut. There's not really much need to get warmed up again when you don't really get all that cold." He took another sip of booze.

  The four of them sat under a tree some distance away from where people were setting up camp. Tents were being raised, meals were being cooked early, and some hapless young men and women—the ones just old enough to get int trouble but not quite you old enough to be set straight by getting into the militia—were having to keep the children from getting lost in the woods, all of which the four of them were avoiding because they were ostensibly doing 'officer work'.

  "So, are you really going to be abandoning us to set up another demesne?" Yllian said.

  Yhal snorted. "Of course not. But the civie didn't need to know that. Let him sweat a little so he'll be more willing to negotiate when he comes back."

  Yllian rolled his eyes. "Well, your games with Rian aside, does that mean I can get started on getting the demesne ready to accept you? We'll need to get the houses we're using for storage emptied and ready for people again, find a site outside the dome for the wizards to live on, mark out where we can build new houses, estimate how much the dining hall has to be expanded to accommodate everyone…"

  "Why do you even have a dining hall?" Otin said. His booze steamed slightly, heated by the man's magic, since he preferred his drinks hot. "People can eat in their own homes, surely?"

  "I used to think so too. Then that sort of thinking led to us almost starving, so the Great Binder decreed no one was to cook their own food at home, and that all food would be cooked at the dining hall kitchen so we could track exactly how much grain was being used."

  "How…?" Tsad said, unable to complete the question.

  "I would love to blame stupid civies, but apparently if civies are acting stupid enough, even militia who should know better start acting stupid as well." He sipped his booze. "Not me, of course."

  "Of course." Yhal, Otin, Xiasam and Tsad all said, nodding as they pretended to believe that.

  "In short, people started hoarding food in fear the food supplies would run out, which of course began to cause the food supplies to be depleted faster than expected. And since they suddenly had a lot of food in their house, people start eating it, which meant they had to ask for more food supplies…" Yllian sighed. "To keep any such stupidity from recurring, we established communal meals cooked centrally at the dining hall kitchen. Not only does it help limit the amount of food being consumed, it also prevents accusations of people getting more or less food, or complaints that some people are eating better than others." He rolled his eyes. "Of course, now there are people who complain that the food is all the same."

  Otin nodded. "People will complain about anything."

  "Well, don't worry. We bought a lot of supplies for the winter, so there shouldn't be any need for such measures anymore," Yhal assured him. "And we won't stand for any of this hoarding, so there shouldn't be any stupidity."

  For some reason, Yllian didn't look assured. "If you'll be joining the demesne, that won't be up to you to decide, Yhal. The Great Binder gave an order, and she hasn't rescinded it yet."

  Yhal rolled his eyes in exasperation. "Surely we can make our own decisions about how we eat? It's our glittering food." Who tried to decree how people ate? They'd been times when nobles had commanded what people could eat, and that had been stupid enough, but how? Why? What was the point?

  "Not if you choose to settle in River's Fork, Yhal. All food is held communally by the demesne and controlled by quartermaster, who only released enough for the day's meal to the ones who will be cooking in the dining hall, no one else and not a grain more or less," Yllian said patiently. "Not that different from when we're on the march really, except as a rule the food will be cooked by the ones who know how to make more than boiled grains with salted meat."

  The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

  "No one's going to like that, Yllian," Xiasam said. "A lot of people were looking forward to eating proper homecooked food."

  "And a lot of people will be glad of the fact they don't have to cook for their families by themselves every day," was the dry reply. "Trust me, you're not going to miss it as much as you think you will. Is this really the fort you want to make a stand in?"

  Yhal grunted, not replying. This business of River's Fork being ruled by a civie Dungeon Binder who wasn't one of their own… well, it wasn't ideal, far from it. One of the reasons they'd left Lomabuyar Demesne—not the only reason, but one of them—was because those who commanded the militia had been so far removed from the men and women they had been commanding. Having a Dungeon Binder who was not part of the company, much less a civie, and one who lived in another demesne—you couldn't get more removed than that—was exactly the sort of situation they'd left to avoid. Yhal, at least, didn't want to be under some leader who just threw out commands they pulled out of their latrine hole without understanding the situation of the people who need to take the orders.

  … though, perhaps it wouldn't be so bad, now? Given how the woman would most likely be spending her time in her real demesne, it stood to reason they'd be able to take care of matters according to their better judgement as the ones actually dealing with the problem. And since the only militia in the demesne was themselves…

  His musings were interrupted as a commotion arose. "Oh, what now?"

  Yllian stood up, as did the rest of them, Xiasam actually rising up in the air for a few paces. "We have visitors," the Mentalist called down.

  "Technically, you're the visitors," Yllian pointed out. "We live here."

  Yhal rolled his eyes at the pedantry, even as Xiasam humored the man by nodding. "Ah, that's true."

  The ones who had arrived—Yhal wasn't getting into who was the visitor—turned out to be people they knew, honest militiamen and a few women, all carrying baskets of fruit suspended between them on long poles that on a second glance turned out to be recently-cut branches. Reunions were occurring all along the line as relatives and friends recognized each other. He saw his cousin Avigayr in the lead, who was being met by his wife and children, with his daughter Sumerki examining the contents of the basket with interest.

  From where he was standing, Yhal recognized micans, golden buds, and pink ladies, but there were blue ones covered all over with strange curling hairs, as well as large yellow vaguely bean-shaped ones…

  Oh, and the civie was unfortunately there too.

  "Hey, Yllian!" the man said, grinning as he walked up to them. "We talked it over back in the dome after her Bindership left, and everyone agreed that we could spare some of the fruit stores to give your friends a sweet welcome. Figured that after who knows how much salted or preserved food, something fresh and tasty would be a nice change of pace." The civie looked around. "Is there a quartermaster or someone we should drop these off with so that everyone can get some? Otherwise the children are going to eat everything."

  Yhal turned towards the nearby Mentalist. "Xiasam, can you…" he gestured vaguely at the fruits.

  "Fine," the man said, downing the last of his tea. "Give it here, I'll see about making sure it's distributed."

  "Thanks! Binder Shanalorre personally tallied up everything, so there should be fifty micans, golden buds, pink ladies and happyfruit each, as well as about a hundred and fifty hairy blueballs."

  The Mentalist didn't even pause at that last. "The name was Koshay's idea, wasn't it." It wasn't a question.

  "So I've heard," the civie said with a bright smile. "They're actually pretty good despite how strange they look, although there's a trick to getting them open." He reached into his belt pouch and pulled out one of the little blueballs and oh Great Binder that name was never going to leave his head now! "I brought a few here so you can try it out, and tell everyone how you're supposed to open it. Here, have some." He handed out the fruits to them, which despite their appearance wasn't all that strange to hold. The hair-like growths on it were soft and not as disturbing to the touch as he thought they would be.

  "The skin is actually pretty thin despite how tough it is," the civie explained, "so you can't peel it with a knife, and if you try to use your fingernails… well, you could, but you'll get sore under the nails pretty quickly. To eat it quick, you have to squeeze it like this…" His fingers pinched the round fruit, and after a moment the skin tore, revealing a pale and dry-looking flesh. The civie peeled back the blue skin and popped the whole fruit into his mouth, chewed a moment, then spat out a large dark seed. "And that's the seed. Don't bite into it, it's pretty bitter, and not good for much—doesn't really work as a dye—but they're easy to grow."

  Yhal squeezed as the civie indicated, and the skin cracked open under his fingers. The fruit was tart but sweet, and the seemingly dry flesh turned out to be very juicy, flavor spreading in his mouth as he bit. He wondered if there were any of these fruits nearby…

  As the civie stepped away with Xiasam to see to distributing the fruit, Yllian turned towards Yhal. "I know civies tend to just get in the way most of the time, but idiots like that don't really survive out here. He might not really seem like it, but Rian's one of the capable ones. His father used to be militia, or so he says, so he must have been raised properly."

  "If he were raised properly, he'd be in the militia," Yhal retorted, but the words were half-hearted as he eyed the civie. At the very least, Xiasam hadn't dismissed him yet, and the two seemed to be speaking amiably. "You sure he's not going to make trouble for us?"

  "Not as long as we don't make trouble," Yllian said. "Trouble like forcing the issue of communal meals."

  "Are you still on that?"

  The man shrugged. "I'm just saying, we're going to have a lot of people working to put up houses and other buildings for the next couple of weeks. Feeding them is going to be a lot easier if we had one place making a lot of food for everyone."

  Yhal rolled his eyes. "Is this really that important?"

  "Well, we only have so many cookpots, so if we're going to feed everyone, you'll need to provide more at the very least. Plates and forks too, since we only have a couple of carpenters and no lathe, and trying to carve that many plates by hand would take all winter. You know how it is, Yhal. We need to know how to fit you into our camp, once you inform the Great Binder that you agree to her conditions."

  That last made Yhal grimace, but… well, Yllian was right. Unless the other company officers and wizards decided the terms were too onerous to put up with—the wizards especially—they would need to integrate into River's Fork. And since they were all militia here, pride at the very least meant that they were not going to allow it to resemble those times when the militia was temporarily stationed in a town while on march which resulted in the civie mayor getting in his face about his men and women's conduct. And that meant… well, doing it smoothly, like being stationed at an established fort.

  "I'll get on it," he said. "We'll be ready in three days, once we get some concessions from the civie."

  "…well, I wish you luck with that. And get one of the happyfruit if you can, they're really good."