The World Dragon's Heir

Chapter 697: Spread The News

Duke Staptondon looked upward at the Royal Quarters, then turned back to Dominic.

"You know, the King is here right now, meeting with the King of Cygnia to help solidify his position. They worked together during the siege of Albroles by the undead, so it appears that they are strong allies.

But I don’t know if he is going to try to get foreign assistance to maintain unity.

You see, he would only share a small border with Cygnia if we separated, and I would have a large amount of mostly useless land with an equally large border.

If he pressures the King to back him, we might be right back to the civil war, but without the sly tricks and theatrics."

Dominic nodded. "I can see how that would go. But the whole nation is in ruins, so at this point there is an argument to be made in any direction about what is the best way for it to move forward.

However, I think that your position might actually hold weight here.

You see, prior to the disaster, Dagos had a larger population, and a strong military, and that led to multiple invasions. It would generally be in the interests of the nearby powers to break the nation up to stop their aggressive tendencies."

"That’s my hope as well.

Now, I know that you’re in a unique position here, but if you could voice your opinion among the other higher Nobles, I would appreciate your support." Duke Staptondon suggested.

"I think that might be possible. Now, I really should go rescue my Stansia Province Nobles from the wolves. They’re all newly promoted, and you know how the old blood can be about testing those who have just gained their titles."

The two Dukes separated, and Dominic noticed that his presence had caused many of the others to want to know what the Dagos Noble had to say.

If he could have a productive conversation with Dominic Wavemates, of all people, it must be something important that was not obviously detrimental to Cygnia. If it was, things would have gone much differently.

"Earl Lympsbury, how are things going?" Dominic asked as he joined the others.

"Other than the fact that I have been called Baron at least twenty times in the last two hours? Not terribly. We’ve got a long road ahead of us with most of the Nobles. However, we did find a few friendly faces in the group.

Kilksey and Skipington are both amenable to joining an airship route between Wistover and the Capital for weekly deliveries.

Then there are the eastern seaports.

Rumour is that they want to buy a bunch of their own airships to cut out the middleman and move goods straight from Stansia Province to the ports. Strangely, the Nobles who are affiliated with the Merchants’ Guild don’t seem too mad about that.

It’s cutting them out, but they’re not fussed.

Dominic laughed. "That’s because it only cuts them out of the shipping across Cygnia. They’re still the largest buyer and broker at the other end. If the two ports can take the stress off their caravans, it’s good for them.

Moving things for export is a strain on the Merchants.

If the ports are doing it themselves, the Merchants can focus on the internal shipments, mostly the localized ground movement of goods. That’s where the best money is, and no airship can replace a full caravan from a major city to the Barony markets.

That’s not the big news of the day, have you heard about the Dagos issues?"

The group of Stansia Province Nobles all nodded.

"If you’re going to try to fight for Kinewen Province, or even the majority of it, we will back you. As you likely already know, the population of the region is so incredibly low now that even reassigning a few Barons to oversee the surviving farms will likely do it." Earl Causter noted.

Dominic smiled. "My first thought is to obtain the territory, but then, I was thinking of holding titles for the next generation. Instead of appointing Lords to empty lands, and trying to convince enough of the farms and villagers to move back, it would be better to just oversee the area loosely as a protectorate, and having the army keep it from turning into a bandit playground."

The Earl considered the option, then shook his head. "You will need to move Nobles there as overseers, even if their titles are temporary. A few military outposts, some roaming patrols both by the highway and the river, and you could take care of it with two battalions of soldiers.

Then, the farm towns might feel safe to move back.

There weren’t any major cities except Kinewen, but the whole region used to be perfectly suited to farming, and nearly all of the northern region was worked.

At least a few thousand farmers will want to move back, no matter who is in charge."

Dominic nodded. "And we can’t forget the Wavemates factor. Once they find out that I’m in charge, there will be some who want to come back to the region, simply to be back in Wavemates territory.

The old Capital apparently is in worse shape than expected, and is unlikely to be able to be rebuilt.

I will go see that for myself, though. Once I find a chance to speak with the King of Dagos, I will know more, and I will pass it on to you."

"What do you need from us?" Earl Causter asked.

"Nothing yet. However, I suspect that the deal to obtain Kinewen County will require ongoing payments in the form of food and materials to Dagos. Rebuilding support. That sort of thing.

So, I might ask you all to set up mage training academies in your cities in the near future. Good ones, on par with the Royal Academies in eastern Cygnia. We will need them to support the progression of the Province.

Wistover is doing exceptionally well with its factories, but there are a lot of customers in the world."

The Earl smiled. "If you think that you can convince the mages to come out of hiding and set up factories, we would all be grateful. There are plenty of rumours of mages and witches hidden in the cities, but even after the change in leadership, most of them haven’t opened businesses or made their powers public.

But we don’t really know how to convince them that it’s safe to do so."

"Well, I could send you some Trolls. Once they see that the Trolls support you, they do tend to be a bit more open."