Chapter 5: The Advent of Anarchy

Alexander finally returns home to find Aztlan under attack and is told Tatsu has also been attacked. The threat of war forces Alexander to take charge of his council. Each decision is critical.

         “After visiting Viki, I traveled to Aesir last night; I met with Lord Gallow,” Alexander stated.

         “Splendid,” Lord Dartmouth replied, “how is the young fellow?”

         “He’s well, but he didn’t take kindly to my visit. Of all our provinces, his is in the worst shape unfortunately. I could fix the problems in Ouardia and Viki with a few aid and building suggestions, but Aesir is just underdeveloped. We don’t benefit from their allegiance at the moment, and that has to change.”

         “He’s too young to lead; that’s the problem. He’s even younger than you, and that’s no good. How is Aztlan?”

         “We’ll be fine once I complete commerce with Ouardia and get our military whipped back into shape. During my father’s illness before he died, the Aztlan council ran things on their own for a while; now, I’m stuck with the aftermath.”

         “How unfortunate.”

         “Quite. You seem rather prosperous here, though.”

         “Yes, to be honest, you couldn’t have picked a finer time for evaluations. Cuzco is in its golden days right now, both literally and figuratively. We’ve expanded to enlarge our territory, bolstered our military, reinforced it with basic magic, and amassed half a billion pounds of gold.”

         “Half a billion?! I had no idea you had such wealth.”

         “Yes, we want for nothing really. If our other provinces need aid, you be sure to point me in their direction; I’d be glad to help where I can.”

         “Good to know. I’d better head back to Aztlan. I’ve visited each province now, so I have much more detailed information on the state of the kingdom than my idiotic councilmen. I’ll be in touch, Uncle Dart.”

         “Absolutely, best of luck to you, King Alexander.”

         Alexander and his men, including his new prisoner, Shugoryū, who wasn’t much of a prisoner at all since he walked freely with them, made their short journey back to Aztlan. Cuzco was the only other human province besides Aztlan, and they seemed to be the most prosperous province of all Macedon at the moment. Aesir was one of two Dwarven provinces, the other being Viki, but Aesir was apparently in shambles.

         When finally returning to Aztlan, Alexander and his men stirred nervously on their horses as they bore witness to their province besieged by nature itself; a violent storm was ravaging their lands, wreaking indiscriminate havoc. They rode briskly through the peasant streets of their many acres and took note of several emblazoned buildings that had been struck by lightning. Alexander stood slightly and leaned forward on his horse, as did each of his men as they urged their steeds to move as swiftly as possible. With heroic celerity, Alexander and his cadre of militants raced through the sopping wet, muddy streets of Aztlan. A vivid cerise hue was cast upon the streets and the advancing company due to the fires of various buildings, and the corner of a building fell directly into their path; everyone pulled back, yet Alexander boldly spurred his horse into acceleration. “King, stop!” one shouted, but Alexander narrowly beat the falling structure and continued on toward the palace; his men rode through an alley to reach another street that would take them to meet him there, pending their survival in this fiery, urban maelstrom.

         As Alexander walked into his palace, his guards returned to their posts and attempted to help their comrades restore order to the streets, and Shugoryū accompanied Alexander to the throne room as a sort of personal guard. His head advisor, Theodore, who said, “You’ve been gone too long,” quickly met Alexander and Shugoryū in the throne room. “This storm has been ravaging our province for days now, and it’s no ordinary storm.”

         “No s**t,” Alexander replied. “Lightning doesn’t just target buildings repeatedly. It’s a spell.”

         “Exactly, and our mages are incapable of retaliating because our rune reserves are barely above the Minimum Resource Cap; however, they’ve managed to figure out who’s responsible. They traced the mana signature of this wicked magic back to the coordinates 4:3.”

         “Where’s 4:3?”

         “Kingdom four is a slightly smaller kingdom known as Gargon. They’ve won their last five consecutive wars, and those victories have made their provinces immensely prosperous. They’ve grown significantly over the last two years and are currently rivaling our size. Now, it seems they want to take on the big fish.”

         “Smart move on their part,” Alexander replied as he sat on his thrown and rubbed his eyes with his palms, clearly burdened with stress.

         “How can you say that, your highness?”
         “We’re weaker than we look! The only reason it took them this long is because our size and stature are still intimidating, but we have significantly weakened over the last couple of months. Need I remind you we don’t even have a Sacrodragon? We’re in big trouble if they have one because they might be attempting to start a war, especially if your reports are right about their winning streak and growth over the last few years.”

         “Then, I regret to inform you… They likely are declaring war. We received a letter from Lord Ryūjin.”

         “What? Tatsu?”

         “They were attacked.”

         “No way! A Gargonian state was bold enough to attack our strongest province?”

         “What happened to my home?” Shugoryū asked in a booming voice.

         “They weren’t attacked directly,” Theodore said. “Lord Ryūjin reports that they sent thieves to attempt assassinations in secret, but the thieves were caught.”

         “How many losses?” Alexander asked with his hand on his forehead.

         “A hundred fourteen soldiers, my lord.”

         “Damn it! Tatsu’s defense is supposed to be extremely vigilant and observant. How’d the b******s even get in unnoticed?”

         “Tatsu captured thirty-two thieves and interrogated them, and the interrogation bore much fruit. Apparently, eighty thieves were sent from the coordinates 4:5. They were all aided by a spell known as ‘Invisibility,’ which camouflaged the thieves in darkness. The problem was that the thieves were humans.”

         “What? Humans? How could humans master such complex magic?”

         “Lord Ryūjin says that he has already deciphered that mystery. 4:5 is a province of Fairies.”

         “Fairies?”

         “They trained human POWs to be thieves on their behalf and sent them out on missions like these so that, even if they were caught, no one would suspect a Fairy province. Fortunately for us, prisoners don’t make loyal subjects, so they ratted out the province quickly to save their own lives. Now, they’re Tatsu’s prisoners.”

         “Still a very smart tactic,” said Enoch, the military advisor. “It’s almost ingenious when you think about it. Recycling POWs as spies and cloaking them with high-level magic…”

         “Alright, so what are these provinces’ names?” Alexander asked.

         “4:3 is a an Elven province known as Smyrna,” Theodore answered, “and 4:5 is a Fairy province known as Elza; both provinces are of the kingdom of Gargon. Two deliberate attacks--that’s a declaration of war in and of itself.”

         “Elves and Fairies--that’s a tough combination magically, and Elves tend to have high Joule Grades much like the warrior races.”

         “My lord,” said an old man with a gray afro.

         “Who are you?”

         “I’m your Mystics Advisor, Myendore. We all have suggestions on what you should be doing next, but few of us actually agree, which means we’ll need your final word. I am proposing that you strike back against Smyrna with a spell of our own. We do have some powerful retaliation options that could feasibly rival this storm. All we would need is for you to sign off on the waiver to temporarily remove the Minimum Resource Cap for our rune reserves, which you can legally do in the case of an emergency. This is, in fact, an emergency, so…”

         “I get the picture. We’re not doing that.”

         “Sire.”

         “It’s too short-sighted. That’s a law meant to serve as a safety net, but it needs to be reworked. Are you aware that, should a province waive mandatory minimums, they have one year to recover back to the cap?”

         “A year is plenty of time,” said Namon, economics advisor. “Twelve months should suffice. Three hundred sixty-five days…”

         “What’d I tell you about repeating yourself, Namon? It’s not enough! Do you know why? It’s because there’s another law passed earlier than that of mandatory minimums that says any province within the bottom ten percent of a resource quantity relative to the amount held exactly two years prior that day forfeits eligibility to aid. That means, if we are within the last remaining ten percent of the amount of runes we had two years ago today, which we will be if we dip below the cap, then we won’t be able to use aid to climb back up to the minimum; that forces us to earn it back the hard way: rune cultivation. One year? And that’s an unrelated law passed long before mandatory minimums, but there’s also an amendment to the MRC (Minimum Resource Cap) that was passed while my father was ill; it says that, after use of the MRC as the ‘safety net’ that I just told you it’s not, a province’s cap is raised by five percent, and it returns to its original level after one year. We would have an even harder time getting our heads above water on that one at that point, as if it were not already impossible.”

         Everyone looked to the political advisor, Token, who sheepishly nodded in agreement. “Actually,” he said, “I believe he’s right about that. I can recall knowledge of the Five-Point Safeguard Amendment to MRC as well as the Economic Negligibility Act meant to restrict aid for provinces that deplete a resource in two years’ time; the latter's purpose was to keep a province of severe debt from dragging the rest of the kingdom with it via aid. He’s right.”

         “Of course, I’m right. MRC needs to be reworked before anyone can even consider relying on it.”

         “Sire,” Theodore said, “it was your father who passed MRC.”

         “My father was wrong.”

         “…”

         “Who else has a solution?”

         “King Alexander,” Enoch said, stepping forward, “I recommend a more sure course of action. Smyrna is a province of Elves; they may have a powerful Mystics Department, but their military is bound to be weak. I propose we…”

         “Just attack?”

         “… We use Crystal Ball on Smyrna, which is a spell we can afford without dealing with the Minimum Resource Cap. That’ll give us a fairly accurate assessment of what we’re up against militarily, and we can perform a calculated strike against their defenses on their own homeland.”

         “Weren’t you the one who told me just a few days ago that we’re short on military personnel? That we needed to increase the draft and bolster our numbers?”

         “And I was right. Look at us now, sire. We’re five minutes from stepping into the war room.”

         “Shugoryū, what are your numbers?”

         “King Alexander,” Shugoryū said in a booming voice, “we have a hundred thousand total soldiers in our military. Thirty-six thousand are defensive personnel, fifty-eight thousand are offensive, and six thousand are standard troops of no special training. Of our defensive personnel, we have seven thousand archers, fourteen thousand axemen, and fifteen thousand swordsmen. In full-scale battle as in the hypothetical case in which Aztlan were under siege, the most important form of resistance is long-range, yet our archers are the fewest in number.”

         “… Who the hell is this?” Enoch asked indignantly.

         “My apologies,” King Alexander said, “this is your new Minister of Defense. His name is General Shugoryū, and he will be replacing General Cassius. He is a Dragonoid whom I acquired from Tatsu’s elite defensive forces.”

         “I had already paired down candidates for the position. I have three men waiting to hear that they’re being promoted.”

         “And wait they shall.”

         “Sire, you cannot appoint high-ranking officials without consulting your council of advisors! It’s the law!”

         “It’s not a law. It’s a courtesy, and I’m not feeling courteous.”

         Everyone looked to Token once again, and he simply nodded sheepishly as before. Alexander continued, “I’ve had Shugoryū studying our numbers for two days while we were out visiting the other provinces. We’re not going to attack yet; instead, we’re going to focus all military efforts on training up our defensive units. War is not yet certain, but it’s probable, which means we need to use this time to prepare by training unspecialized soldiers into defensive specialists--Shugoryū will add them all to specifically our archery units--and drafting faster to increase numbers in training.” Shugoryū nodded in agreement, and Enoch simply stood there fuming yet clearly holding his tongue for the moment.

         “Alright,” Theodore said, “let me take this time to add another item to the list of issues on the table here--a diplomatic matter really. Typically, this is the time when the kings of two kingdoms between whom tensions have risen must confirm the immanence of war and, pending that, determine the rules of war. How this works is, King Alexander, you’ll sit down with the political and chief advisors, so that’s Token and myself. The three of us will draft a letter to be sent to King Rio of Gargon. He’s human, as is his province, Rivulet. We’ll…”

         “All we need to say is that I want him to meet me in the Jakobe Desert to negotiate the terms of war.”

         “Sire, we have yet to even confirm war.”

         “Two attacks are our confirmation. If it wasn’t his initial intention, if his knights attacked of their own accord, then I’ll know when I feel him out, and I’ll chastise him but call off the war. More than likely, though, that won’t happen, and either way, I prefer to negotiate in person. Diplomacy is more effective in person; my father taught me that.”

         “For the record,” Token said, “I would actually like to affirm that notion.”

         “Token!” Theodore shouted.

         “This is my opportunity to bluff him,” Alexander said. “He needs to know we mean business, and he needs to be afraid of us.”

         “King, won’t fear simply make him do whatever it takes to win? Would we not rather he feel overconfident?”

         “Actually,” Token interjected, “bluffing during negotiations has an incredible psychological effect if done properly, and this is coming from Prince Aleuch’s book, Cerebral Warfare, and the latest studies on the psychology of war; it’s a science. Also, King Nubet of Memph wrote a revolution manifesto about using Prince Aleuch’s principles in the process of seceding from Nybre. I haven’t read it yet, but obviously, Memph is an Independent now. It must work. Prince Aleuch said all the time in his book that it’s just good politics.”

         “Aleuch is a radical, and everyone knows it! To this day, it’s the reason he isn’t King of Zephyr.”

         “Actually…”

         “Stop with the ‘actually’ for crying out loud!”

         “They say King Naphtali doesn’t hand over the crown to Aleuch because of the negative attention Aleuch has brought to himself. Other monarchs wouldn’t deal with him. From what I understand, though, as far as politics go, Naphtali has been practicing Aleuch’s theories for years now.”

         “He has,” Alexander said.

         “You?” Theodore said. “You’re one of these subscribers to Aleuch’s radical philosophies?”

         “His position on government policy is what gets him a bum rap--all that anti-monarch propaganda. Cerebral Warfare is a good book, though. I’m more glad that you brought up Memph, though, Token.”

         “Memph?” Token asked.

         “Brace yourselves, everyone. What I’m about to say is going to send you all over the deep end.”

         “Oh god,” Theodore said.

         “I’m considering--just considering, mind you--making Nubet a knight of Macedon.”

         “What the hell?!”

         “That’s outrageous!” Enoch shouted.

         “NO!” Myendore exclaimed.

         “What’d he say?” Namon asked.

         “Sire,” Token said, “even I don’t agree with this.”

         “That’s okay,” Alexander said. “I don’t expect any of you to side with me. The entire council isn’t here right now, only those whose positions are pertinent to the threat of war; however, I’m sure Ibn and the others will be just as outraged as you all are. Like it or not, I’m strongly considering it.”

         “They’re Halflings, my liege!” Theodore said in rage. “They cannot be trusted! They lie, they cheat, and they steal. No doubt, whatever dispute drove them from Nybre was their fault, and they’ll…”

         “Look, all the stereotypes are foolishness. Think about it. Three of the most powerful kingdoms today were originally one invincible nation. Two Halfling brothers--councilmen like yourselves, I might add--were responsible for what amounts to the liquidation of Britannia, splitting it into Xylon, Zephyr, and Macedon. Generations later, any man or woman born of parents from any two different races lives under the burden of racial discrimination for something that has nothing to do with them. Nybre was thought to be such a merciful kingdom just for having a Halfling province because no kingdom does that, and it was short-lived anyway. What? Two generations? And in that time Memph became their strongest, as evidenced by the successful secession. Now, our options are few. Wartime is upon us. If there’s anything we need to preserve the existence of Macedon that we won’t have and it causes us to lose, that will NOT be a result of petty inhibitions based on nothing. It will NOT be because we didn’t try. Now, I don’t care what the Prophet said that didn’t pan out; I will drag Macedon into her destiny if it KILLS me! If one of the costs is having Halflings among us and the reputation that comes with that, that’s not even a cost.”

         “… What do you want to do then, King Alexander?” Theodore asked, expecting the new king to be at a loss for words, being in such dire straits for the first time.

         “We have to act quickly, and we have a lot to accomplish in the next twenty-four hours; scribe, take note of everything I say carefully because there’ll be a lot of numbers. I want messengers headed to each of our five other provinces to notify them that the kingdom’s stance is officially switching from Normal to Aggressive; also, let them know that I am about to enter negotiations with Gargon’s monarch. Some of our messengers need to be accompanied with aid wagons. Send 1,000,000 gold coins and 670,000 bushels of food to Ouardia, and add an extra note to the messenger you send there. Let Lady Mila know that Lord Balder of Viki will purchase 200,000 bushels and 100,000 runes from her for another 302,000 gold coins. As well, ask her if offensive storm spells like the one we’re in now are setups for any other types of spells or attacks; we need to know if anything else is coming our way.”

         “I’m… impressed, King Alexander.”

         “Just make sure you get all this. In the letter to Cuzco, add that I want Lord Dartmouth to send 100,000 pounds of gold to each of our provinces, and make it 200,000 for Tatsu and Aztlan to help us recover from these strikes as quickly as possible. Meanwhile, we’ll send 50,000 bushels to Viki as well, and ask each of our knights to send back detailed military reports. I want to know how many soldiers they have, how many are elites, offensive or defensive, how many thieves they have, what their draft rates are, what their military wages are… all of that. I don’t want to waste Lady Mila’s mana level on all our kingdom’s spells, so get Tatsu to use the following basic spells on Gargon: Crystal Eye on the whole kingdom and Crystal Ball on Elza. Likewise, get Viki to use their Crystal Ball on Smyrna, and get both to send copies of their mages’ reports to us. We need to know what we’re dealing with. Have Ouardia put their skills to good use and cast a spell against Smyrna since we can’t retaliate at the moment. Get everything the scribe wrote down and accomplish those tasks as soon as humanly possible.”

         “Yes, my lord.”

         Half the council dealt with carrying out the king’s orders already given while the other half dealt with the orders that Alexander gave for specifically Aztlan. He said, “As for us, we need to whether this storm, no pun intended. You,” he said as he pointed to Enoch, “raise the draft rate to eighty-five percent. For now, only train defensive specialists; I want soldiers trained to become Archers in large numbers. Make sure you’re consulting with Shugoryū. I want him to organize most of the training for our troops.”

         “Yes, sire.”

         The strategies went into action immediately, and every province of Macedon was busy for the next few days. Lord Ryūjin managed to replace his lost soldiers quickly, thanks to the monetary aid sent from Cuzco, and he increased his military’s draft rate to ninety-five percent, an extreme that only a true warrior would even attempt. He had his mages cast the “Crystal Eye” spell on Gargon and focus their Crystal Ball on the province that attacked them: Elza. The spells were both successful in revealing to them a wealth of information on the kingdom via the former and Elza via the latter, and he sent copies of these reports to Aztlan as requested. Crystal Ball had given him detailed information on Elza’s total gold, food, runes, population, acreage, number of soldiers, specialists of defense or offense, elites, prisoners, warhorses, and even how much of their land was settled.

         Lady Mila of Ouardia had her mages cast a spell on Smyrna: “Drought”--retaliation on Aztlan’s behalf. Food would soon be in short supply in Smyrna as crops would quickly died. She engaged Lord Balder of Viki in commerce after receiving mass amounts of money and food from Aztlan. She sent the extra food to Viki with runes as well in exchange for more gold. To answer the side-note question in King Alexander’s message, her response letter informed him that, from a strategic standpoint, the “Storm” spell was, indeed, a typical precursor to military attack. With this message, she also sent a large sum of runes to Aztlan as King Alexander had requested when they met. Macedon was steadily fortifying itself and accounting for all weaknesses.

Author's Note

This is a long chapter, but it's mostly dialogue, which means more spaces/indentations than words really. The objective here was pretty basic: advancing the plot. Most things (not everything) start tying together. Also, readers should have a better grasp of council personalities after this chapter.

Reviews

[JR Darewood]

Well, you weren't just advancing the plot, you're also building character: this is the first time Alexander started growing on me. i didn't dislike him per se, but i didn't really feel anything for him either.
His perfunctory urgency makes a lot more sense here, and he seems to have a handle on politics and policy in a way that feels more natural than in previous chapters. I like his conflict with his advisers, again your dialogue is entertaining to read.