Chapter 106: The Threat from the Swamp

This was the first time Joanna had ever heard someone describe her grandfather’s former glory in the town, and thinking of the old man’s present, forlorn state, she could not help feeling her nose sting with tears.

“However one looks at it, no one can deny that Mr. Guillaume Tail had every right to attend the town council. Considering how poorly he walks, it is understandable that he has missed so many sessions over the years. Since he made the exception today and came in person, it certainly would not have been just to cast a blank vote.” Mr. Longfellow returned to the point.

“Whom did my grandfather support?” Joanna asked, curious.

“Just as twenty years ago Mr. Tail brushed aside all opposition and called on the townsfolk to resist the orc invasion by force, this venerable old gentleman once again made the same courageous choice. In front of the entire town, he spoke with great passion, pointing out that ‘running away solves nothing’ and that ‘it only encourages ambitious bullies to worsen their abuse of us.’ So he firmly backed Mr. Flint’s proposal to prepare for war. In this way, the two heroes who once joined forces to lead the townspeople in resisting the orcs reached agreement again after twenty years. Joanna, it is a pity you were not in the council chamber then; you missed the sight of the old dwarf embracing your grandfather with tears in his eyes. It was truly moving.” A trace of shame surfaced on Mr. Longfellow’s face. “The courage of those two old heroes is admirable. Alas, someone as ordinary as I am does not possess the sort of bravery Mr. Tail has. In the end I cast a cowardly abstention, and when I got home, all I could think about was how to send my wife and daughter somewhere safe as quickly as possible. The more I think about it, the more ashamed I feel.”

Joanna put herself in his place and thought it over. If she had been in Mr. Longfellow’s position, knowing disaster was about to strike, the first thing she would probably have considered would also be the safety of her own property and loved ones. If she could flee, she would flee; she might not truly have had the courage to stay and defend her home. She wanted to comfort Mr. Longfellow, but she was not good with words, so she changed the subject.

“What conclusion did the council finally reach?”

“Perhaps I should not criticize our town’s system of government, but... Joanna, when the two sides in the council are evenly matched, when they are locked in fierce dispute, it is almost impossible to reach any clear agreement.” Mr. Longfellow looked dejected. “The mayor and his supporters believed there was no need for our town to get involved in the lizardfolk’s internal strife. For the sake of our own safety, we should expel the fugitive lizard prince Vesh as quickly as possible and be rid of that hot potato. Flint and Mr. Tail, on the other hand, insisted on protecting this political refugee and using his influence to oppose the usurpers of the cold-blooded tribe. Each side had its reasons, and neither would yield. By the time the meeting ended, no clear conclusion had been reached. If you ask me, both sides made sense. It would almost have been better to draw lots. Even entrusting the matter to the goddess of fate would be far more efficient than following this kind of endlessly bickering, low-efficiency council system. Whenever this happens, I just wish someone would step forward and overthrow the town’s council politics, replacing it with the more efficient dictatorship of some powerful monarch... Ah, I must have lost my mind. Why am I spouting this nonsense to a child?” The leather-goods shop owner patted his own forehead, a self-mocking smile on his lips.

...

Mr. Longfellow’s criticism of the Derin town council was not excessive. As he had foreseen, at the next day’s meeting the councilors, still each holding to their own views, spent the whole morning arguing without reaching any consensus. If no interruption had occurred, the quarrel would have continued in this way until both sides were exhausted, or until attention was diverted by some new and controversial issue.

Whether by fortune or misfortune, just as the dignitaries of Derin Town were voicing their opinions on the transfer of power within the lizardfolk tribe, a lizardfolk envoy from the Great Swamp appeared in the council chamber that afternoon and brought the assembled men an utterly unexpected piece of news, thereby bringing the dispute to an end.

This visitor claimed to be the fully authorized envoy of “Lord Kotal, the new chieftain of the Cold-Blooded Tribe.” When intercepted by the guards at the town gate, he had haughtily declared that he had “an urgent matter and must see the person in Derin Town who had the most say.” Once the guards brought the envoy into the council chamber, the noisy hall fell silent at once, and the mayor, Jason Tyndall, together with all the councilors, turned their attention to the lizardfolk.

The lizardfolk envoy seemed to relish this feeling of being the center of attention. He strode grandly up to Mayor Tyndall, who was presiding over the meeting, offered a slight, perfunctory bow of respect, then produced a scroll made of snakeskin, unrolled it with unhurried composure, and began to read aloud in an affected, theatrical voice.

...Embarrassingly, with the exception of Guillaume Tail and Flint Anvil, none of those present could understand what the envoy was saying, and they thumped the table in anger, demanding that he use a language everyone could comprehend instead.

Amid a chorus of jeers, the lizardfolk envoy stopped reading, cast a disdainful glance around the hall, and expressed deep regret that these shallow, scaleless creatures did not understand Dragon Tongue, the official language of the lizardfolk. He then said with sardonic politeness that this was hardly surprising, since everyone present was human, and it would be far too much to ask humans to use the refined Dragon Tongue, given the “stupid, un-split tongue” in their mouths.

After the mocking was done, the lizardfolk envoy had no choice but to deign to read the document again in the “common speech” humans could understand. This time the councilors finally made sense of it. It turned out to be an open letter from Kotal, the newly appointed lord of the Cold-Blooded Tribe, to all the residents of Derin Town—or perhaps “a demand for surrender” would be a more fitting description.

In this open letter, the new lizardfolk ruler, Kotal, first issued a threat-laden warning to the people of Derin Town: “Two roads lie before you: submission or destruction!”

If the people of Derin Town were wise enough to make the choice most beneficial to them, they were to accept the following four terms:

First, hand over the fugitive Vesh and the murderer of Keon and Chud.

Second, the townspeople of Derin accept the protection of the Cold-Blooded Tribe, acknowledge Kotal as their lord, and pay him one-fifth of their personal income as tribute.

Third, dissolve the Derin Town Council, and appoint a mayor designated by Kotal to take its place.

Fourth, the Derin Town militia and guard force shall swear immediate loyalty to Lord Kotal and be obliged to take part in the lizardfolk’s wars of conquest against neighboring human villages and towns.

As soon as the lizardfolk envoy finished reading the open letter, the councilors’ fury erupted beyond restraint. The curse words nearly lifted the roof off the council chamber. Several especially hot-tempered councilors, led by the old dwarf Flint, overturned tables and charged forward, seized the deeply insulting document from the envoy’s hands and tore it to pieces, then beat him with fists and kicks until the envoy was driven out of the council hall.