Both Freetrick and Bloodbyrn rolled their eyes. "So I have to start the meeting?" "No one would be so foolish as to suggest my lord
has
to do anything."
"But everyone's been waiting for me all this time."
"Waiting in fiendish anticipation, my lord!"
Freetrick felt the panic rising, and quashed it mercilessly. "Well, then what are we waiting for?" Freetrick looked down at Bloodbyrn, who gave him a disgruntled look before bouncing off his lap with a movement that made him wish for protective padding. A bit bow-legged, Freetrick stood and surveyed his assembled minions. "Let's do some evil."
DeMacabre stood as his daughter kicked aside another noble to take her seat next to him. "Now prepare to shout, my lord, shout with all your might."
Freetrick clenched his diaphragm.
"If my lord would repeat after me. Arise minions."
"Arise minions." There was no discernible change in the reveling council.
"Louder, my lord!"
"Arise minions!" There was an exasperated grunt from the direction of Bloodbyrn.
"Louder still, my lord," hissed DeMacabre.
"ARISE
MINIONS!
" Freetrick screamed.
Rules of social awkwardness dictate that whenever a large crowd of people all fall silent at once, there will always be someone who doesn't notice and keeps talking. "So I said to her, that's no revenant,
that's my wife
—urk!"
Blood spattered the seats below. There was some polite applause and several Sangboise nobles leaped toward the corpse.
And then every eye in the room turned toward the Skull Throne of the Ultimate Fiend.
"Oh
hell
…" Freetrick squeaked.
"Speak these words, my lord," murmured DeMacabre, "Bestir yourselves and attend your master..."
"Excellent," said Bloodbyrn after Freetrick was done embarrassing himself. "Now you and I can spend some time in company."
"Well," said Freetrick, "I would appreciate it if...what the hell is your dad doing?"
"He is merely wetting his athame with his blood. Surely my lord does not expect him to simply
yell
at the assembled dark lords here as my lord did?"
Freetrick saw DeMacabre touch the blade of the athame to his own lips. The Duke flicked a finger of his left hand against the flat of the bloody blade. It went
ping.
It went
PING!
It went
PiiiiIIIING!
Freetrick put his hands over his ears, but still the horrible sound continued to rise.
—
IIIIIIIIGN—
"
Ahem. Let the orphans cry, for I declare these Sessions of the Council of Villainy open!"
DeMacabre's voice, metallic and magnified to cyclopean scale, rolled over the Audience Pit."Be seated!"
They sat.
"Thank you," rang DeMacabre's voice, "pleased I am to be part of this historic gathering, united with my comrades by our mutual hatred of all that is good, and our fear of the Ultimate Fiend."
There was some polite applause.
"Now, if the Dark Synod will be so kind as to consecrate these sessions?"
There was some atonal shrieking from a group of un-holy priests at the rim of the stadium.
"Good. Now for a review of old business. Paige?"
The last word was quieter, spoken to an emaciated servant who handed DeMacabre a roll of parchment. The duke's ridiculous top-hat tipped forward as his head bent to read it. "Strakhblargle Despot Dewmnor," he called, "the Skull Throne would hear your report of the farmer's rebellion in Dewmna Despotate. Your life be forfeit if you dare lie to us."
Bloodbyrn complained as Freetrick tired to peer past her to see the blocky, be-spined bulk of a heavily armored man rise from his seat a little below and to the left of DeMacabre.
There was the ping of another athame being activated, and then a new voice, a raspy, rising bellow like a street preacher's proclamation of the coming apocalypse: "nDeath-ah!"
Freetrick's brow went up as DeMacabre's bored voice pressed for details. "Your news, Dewmnor?"
"Ha!" the Despot bellowed into his athame, "Ha!
News
! A-ha! News of
death
! Yes, death and
death
and death! For we
kill
them! We
kill
the rebel scum! We
water
the
soil
with their
blood
-ah!"
There was a noise from DeMacabre that might have been a suppressed sigh, then a mumble from Strakhblargle as—Freetrick leaned forward and squinted—an advisor leaned down from his seat and whispered something at the Despot.
"The council!" shouted Strakhblargle, "is advised that we expect low crop yields this season."
"Noted," said DeMacabre. "Any new business?"
There was more whispering, then Strakhblargle's manic hollering again, "News! Yes, news and
news
.
Goblins
! A plaaaauge…" his voice trailed off into a wail of anguish.
"Of goblins?" DeMacabre suggested.
In Freetrick's lap, Bloodbyrn said, "again?"
"Never!" Strakhblargle roared. Freetrick saw the massive shoulders of Strakhblargle's armor swing about as the Despot turned to face his advisor. An arm like a tree-trunk came round to smash into the smaller man's face.
"Ha!" said Strakhblargle, who had apparently just fired his chief of staff. "That is for
you
! That is for your
plague
! There is no plague, fool! FOOL!" He leaped onto his seat and kicked at his advisor, sprawled before him.
"Despot Dewmnor?" DeMacabre asked, his voice bland. "
is
there a plague?"
"Never!" bellowed Strakhblargle again, still kicking. Another advisor held the amplifying athame in front of his face to catch his words.. "No plague! We
burned
the forests, and like cowards the goblins have
fled
. Fled! Ah-ha-ha!"
There was a sort of modulated groan from the floor and Despot Strakhblargle continued in a quieter voice. "I am advised that we expect negligible lumber exports this year."
"Ah, I must remember to choose old Strakhblargle first next time as well," DeMacabre commented, his hand over his athame, "it is ever well to begin the sessions on a light note, I say. Ah-ha. 'water the soil with their blood.' Priceless."
Freetrick put his hand to his face.
"Now for the record," DeMacabre continued, "the peasants of Ngakh despotate have again produced nothing this year. Am I correct?"
The voice cackled, "No peasants! To support the Covenant for the greater glory of the First God and the Maelstrom above, I have once again slaughtered all within my borders." The voice finished, proudly.
Freetrick sat back, stunned. He thought he had steeled himself against the nation's abysmal financial situation, but the king's heart sank as he realized just how deep that abyss was. He closed his eyes and moaned. Bloodbyrn shushed him.
***
And so the council session continued, with DeMacabre asking for news from the despots of places with names like Graghn and Nghakh and duly recording all the most recent plagues, mass-die-offs, and violent insurrections. Bloodbyrn settled herself into Freetrick's lap to listen, while he tried to think of ways to salvage his country.
He had planned to correct the nation's direction with carefully worded orders to the provincial lords, but as he actually heard those lords talk for the first time, Freetrick began to doubt the usefulness of orders. There really wasn't much he could tell them aside from, "stop being blithering morons and do your striking jobs," which he suspected wouldn't do much good.
No, the only order that would help this situation would be a bulk order of Rationalist explosives. Put them in the floor of the Audience Pit and he could solve half the problems of the Kingdoms of Evil in one step.
"Why is my lord smiling?" Bloodbyrn had turned around in his lap to look up into his face. On the other side of the arena a Sangboise Count was delivering news of his county in verse form. There were, Freetrick had learned, a lot of words that rhymed with 'ichor.' "Does he appreciate some jest of which I am not aware?"
Freetrick blinked. "No, I was just appreciating the…general ridiculousness of the situation."
"Ridiculous?" Bloodbyrn asked as a fight broke out between two Despots over who had the most fearsome glare, "I fail to comprehend my lord's point."
DeMacabre's voice boomed about them, asking Wrothnyth Despot Nghiffor to remove Wrothgoth Despot Itlixor's wrist from his mouth. This was neither the time nor the place.
Freetrick opened his mouth to reply, but he was distracted by the voice that replaced DeMacabre's. A new provincial lord was speaking, and this one actually sounded like a real person.
"Despot Necropolor, I humbly report a successful quelling of our minor rebellion. The rogue wendigos and their lizard man minions have been dealt with."
Freetrick removed his hand from his face. "Who's that?"
Bloodbyrn indicated a man standing across the curve of the stadium seats. "Bleergoth, South Ftaghor," she murmured. "Son of Sausgoth. Reports I hear of him have been…unusually positive."
Unlike most of the other nobles, Bleergoth did not dress like a tornado had just swept him through two graveyards and an experimental metallurgist's. His clothing consisted of a simple dark tunic and a pair of functional trousers, with the only slightly villainous addition of gleaming silver epaulets and white gloves. His words were directed at DeMacabre, but when he spoke his face pointed up at the Ultimate Fiend, himself.
Another lord was speaking, "…of the hated Naobelite scum, Bleergoth?"
Bleergoth's face did not turn away from Freetrick as he answered.
"There was one incursion of the Do-Gooders into Necromancer territory, and that was dealt with as well."
"Wow," said Freetrick. "He seems…" Freetrick wanted to say
not insane
. He decided on "effective."
"Indeed, my lord." Bloodbyrn's tone was dark, and her eyes were narrowed. "But effective at what, one wonders? Only one rebellion and one incursion? And no request for additional troops? I find myself wondering what 'dealt with' means, exactly. Ah. I see Despot North Ftaghor shares my disquiet."
"Huh?"
Bloodbyrn pointed at another man, taller and more heavily built than Bleergoth, more heavily ornamented, with a distinctive bush of white hair. "He asks further of the Naobelites. Has their cursed Paladin been as active in the southern Bulwarks as he has in the north."
"Not this year, my vile uncle," answered Bleergoth. "Though I am grieved to hear of such devastation wreaked by the Do-Gooders upon your Despotate."
"No more, I trust," snorted the white-haired man. He turned and addressed DeMacabre. "I wish to report nine major offensives of scum from the West this spring and summer, all of them obliterated. My ogre patrols have also uprooted five nests of rebels."
"Commendable," came DeMacabre's voice, "but then why do I see here registered an order…" his athame picked up sounds of rustling parchment, "for another monster battalion and three human squads as well?"
"Still the rebels multiply." Sausyarr answered. "The mountains are full of wild monsters and rebellious men, which sometimes attack my warriors. Worse, the wendigos—"
"That's no problem!" Another man jumped up from his seat.
"His Fiendishness Wrothnyth Despot Nghiffor," said Bloodbyrn as her father chuckled below them.
"Oh this
will
be good!"
"…if you simply impale the trouble-makers." Wrothnyth was saying, his voice high and razor-keen, "A nice double-line of corpses rotting on the road always scares some obedience into
my
lumpen peasants, by the tempest."