Chapter Twenty-Eight

Tressa was bored. It had been nearly a week now since everyone else had left. She'd been left in charge of what she susspected the military would call 'supplies aquisition and relocation'. It was essentially just figuring out which houses no longer had owners and then ransacking them for anything that could be useful; then putting that stuff in neat little piles in the mansion's various open areas. Their was a cellar underneath of the gymnasium facilities that had been refrigerated. Tressa couldn't imagine why any one would want a large floor made of ice, but it made food storage much easier. The gymnasium itself was now occupied by several hundred large boxes of clothing. It had held several hundred and one boxes, but there were a few rather attractive dresses that she expected would fit her rather nicely when this was all over.

She would have felt worse about it, but she'd already noticed quite a bit of carefully hidden loot in various parts of the mansion. She had even put a few things off to the side for her aunt and Miss Kiera.
After all, it's not like this war would last forever, might as well be ready for when things improved.

The market was host to a few score of new recruits, mostly younger men and a couple of the rowdier women. They spent the day training with the variety of axes, spears, and swords that had been gathered from across town. There weren't enough to defend the town, even with the defenses that she'd helped set up around the mansion. There were barely enough people to fill all of it's rooms. She hoped that Miss Kiera would bring back more survivors. If the other towns had as few survivors as this one then none of them would stand a chance on their own.

"Miss. We found some bedding and more arrows in the Hoskins' place out on the edge of town. Where should we put them?"
"Put the arrows in the gallery. The bedding you can take over to the bath house for processing."
"Thank you miss."

It felt good to be in charge. All those years being at the bottom rung of the household were over. Now she could give the orders. It was a lot of responsibility, but a sharp glance and a hint of a curse and nobody would challenge her. It didn't even have to be a real curse; the locals had never actually had a witch. She could see now how Aunt Allistari had never had any problems arbitrating; a witches word was final for the arguement or a witches word would be final for the arguer.
It was little wonder there were so many stories about magic users going bad; this kind of power was amazing. She could really see how easy it would be to just, take over the whole town. Only thing holding her back was the knowledge that there were more important things to be done.
It didn't hurt that she knew how quickly Daniel would have lept at the oppurtunity to put her down either. It was one thing to be a magic user in a town of suspicous and frighten people; it was a whole 'nother one to challenge the most powerful Nielda on the planet. Although he'd never do anything unless either it made him happy, or he stood to gain from it. She couldn't imagine what Miss Kiera must have had to offer him to get him so zealous about following her orders.
She suspected it was one of those things Aunt Allistari insisted she'd understand when she was older.