The next morning, Hajin balanced on the stable roof, hammer in fist, when six wagons rolled through the gate.
Silk banners snapped in the wind above a line of armed outriders, every one of them wearing scales. Their eyes tracked him on the roof with the slow, unblinking patience of snakes watching a small mouse.
"Eighteen outriders and one very expensive chair, Baron," Sable called from the watchtower, her bow already half drawn, "I count the chair as the dangerous one."
"Hold your arrow, they paid the toll," he called back, sliding down the ladder with the hammer swinging from his belt.
Marrick scurried across the yard with his registry hugged to his chest, ink-stained fingers trembling.
"My lord, that is the crest of the Red Matriarch, her serpent clan controls half the caravan roads in the south," he gasped.
"Is that good or bad?"
"It is... expensive, my lord, in every sense I can think of."
