You got this kind of response with new players, sometimes — people who were lucky early on in their history. Occasionally they steadied down and became forces to be reckoned with. More often, they hit runs of bad luck in diplomacy or battle as spectacular as their good luck had been, got burned out, and left the game; or else they so seriously annoyed their fellow players that the most wildly assorted forces would sometimes be assembled for the express purpose of stamping out the “new-sance,” publicly and with a flourish. So far Delmond hadn’t yet achieved that status, but he was getting close.
Shel glanced at the herald, and then at Alla, and Alla said, not raising her voice, “And here is Shel Lookbehind of Talairn and Irdain, free leader of a free people, who today has beaten you in battle. We will now dictate terms.”
The herald, Azure Alaunt, looked fastidiously shocked, as if someone had suggested a discussion about body odor. “Hear now the words of the Lord Paramount of Chax—”
“He doesn’t get to say anything,” Alla said, “until the victor has spoken and named the terms under which he will accept your surrender.”
Azure Alaunt bristled. “First my lord demands that you show proper courtesy to his army, the fiercely armed, the mighty-thewed, we who have labored to tragic effect in the terrible toils of war today—”
“Excuse me,” Shel said to the herald. “Were you in the battle today, Azure Alaunt? I don’t think so, because you don’t look at all like the rest of us, and you sure don’t smell like the rest of us. So you can just lose the ‘we’ part.”
“Ahem. Remembering that none can stand alone against the massing forces of the Dark Lord, if we do not all hang together, we will all hang sep—”
“Oh, please, leave Ben Franklin out of this,” Shel said. “As for the rest of it, well, ‘Dark Lord, shmark lord,’ that’s what I say.”
Delmond’s eyes widened. He opened his mouth, shut it again. “Let’s you and I get real now,” Shel said. “You shouldn’t find the attitude so odd, because you sold out your contract with the Dark Forces and went freelance as soon as you had a chance. A dim move, but you don’t need me to tell you that now, though everyone did try to warn you earlier. Even your mother. And now here you sit hoping that out of the dumbness — I mean the goodness — of my heart, I’ll be merciful, and ‘respect the usages of war,’ and save your butt from the mess you’ve gotten it into.”
He took a longish drink of honeydraft. “Well, I have news for you. The ‘usages of war’ as they are honored in Sarxos means that I can dispose of an unransomed prisoner as I see fit. My wizards have been talking to all potentially interested parties since earlier this afternoon. They can’t reach your mother, by the way; her under-wizards say this is ‘her day to wash her hair.’ There have been no offers of ransom for you…even when we discounted you. Sorry. So unless there is an offer by tomorrow at this time, which frankly I doubt, I can do with you, personally, whatever I like.”
Shel sat back and contemplated his cup of honeydraft for a moment. Alla watched Delmond unwinkingly, smiling, like a cat waiting to see which way a rat will jump. Then Shel spoke again. “Now, I for one think it would be just a ton of fun to see you dragged off into eternal servitude in the slave pits of Oron the Lord of the Long Death. See, here’s the note he sent me this afternoon, requesting the pleasure of your company.”
Shel reached across his map table and poked the smoking scrap of parchment with his knife, wishing privately that the ink on it would stop smoking. The effect was unsettling, and he kept worrying that the note would set fire to something valuable. “Not a ransom offer. It’s an offer to buy you. And there are about two hundred other generals, lords and ladies, and petty and grand nobility of the Great and Virtual Dominion of Sarxos, who would strongly suggest that I take the offer. However, I don’t like slavery much, and I’m persuaded by my quartermaster that it would be much better business to simply asset-strip you and turn you out to beg for your bread on the roads, so that the peasants whose lives you’ve made miserable by burning their fields and destroying their livelihoods can throw herdbeast patties at you as you pass.”
Delmond shivered visibly. “Surely it would be more useful to you, politically speaking I mean, to impound my army and send me and my property home with a suitable escort—”
“Excuse me?” Shel stuck one finger in his ear and began digging. “I could have sworn I heard you claim to have an army. That pitiful crowd of leftover wannabe skinheads in the corral out there, the bike-chained, the saggy-butted, those two hundred people with no horses and no weapons: that army? Oh.”
It had long been said of Delmond that he could not understand irony. Shel now found this to be true. “Not this army,” Delmond said hurriedly. “My other one.”
Shel laughed out loud. “I’m sorry,” he said. “If you do have another one stashed away somewhere, which I’m not sure I believe, they won’t be yours for long. Not after word of this afternoon gets out.” And Shel very much hoped that this was true. It was likely enough that Delmond could have another army…but that was no admission that Shel was prepared to make today. “And even if you have another, why would I want it, considering the quality of your troops? If ‘quality’ is the word I’m looking for.”
“Land, then.”
Shel sighed. “I don’t want your lands.” Much, he thought, but this was no time to discuss his personal ambitions with Delmond. Today’s battle was part of a long string of initiatives discussed with two other Sarxonian generals whom Shel trusted…well, trusted as far as you could trust anyone who was playing in Sarxos: about throwing distance, usually. If things went well, sometime in the next few months Shel would come in and take Delmond’s lands by force, and everybody in Sarxos, including the people who lived there, would wholeheartedly approve the change. For the moment, though, Shel said, “No thanks. I’m much more interested in your portable assets, and it serves you right to lose them. I can’t imagine why you carry all this junk around with you, except that you’re too spoiled to eat off normal dishes in the field, like everyone else. Half an acre of brocade for one tent, half a ton of gold plate, a dozen suits of ceremonial armor, a brigade of dancing girls…”
“You cannot take these things from me! They are the royal regalia of my house from time immemorial—”
“Delmond, I’ve taken them already. You lost the fight today. This is the ‘dictating terms’ part of the battle. Haven’t you noticed? And anyway, you stole nine-tenths of this stuff from Elansis of Schirholz a year and a half ago. Sacked her castle when only her little brother the Young Landgrave was home, with an insufficient force to defend it. Very nasty, Delmond, stealing the family silver from nine-year-olds. I guess it’s no wonder you won’t leave this stuff at home. You’re afraid someone might try the same trick on you. Well, you’ve outsmarted yourself, because all this stuff now counts as ‘spoils of war,’ having been taken fair and square on the battlefield. If you’d left it home, no one would be able to touch it.
“—But Elansis’ll be really glad to get the Eye of Argon back again. It’ll mean that something will grow in Schirholz’s fields this year, and Telairn will acquire a couple of powerful allies that will raise eyebrows from here to the Sundown Sea. That will serve you right, too. I can’t believe you stole that thing. It’s common knowledge that the Crimson Emerald will bring ruin on anyone who handles it except members of the Landgrave’s House. Don’t tell me your mother put you up to that, too?”