He'd had to sit like a lap dog and watch his bosses feast. They said he was too rebellious to join in. Once he calmed down, and became obedient again, then he could eat.
Rather than roll over, he'd decided to give up pet ownership. His sacrifice gave him food enough to keep going, which was important he supposed.
The old logic stated that armies ran on their stomachs, but that was only partially true. Food, weapons, training, the men themselves; that all took money. Haves destroyed have-nots, because passion and bread alone meant nothing.
He knew this, better than he cared to admit, and yet he had to go forward. They'd hired German mercenaries, recently. They were run off by the citizenry, but they were easily replicable. They'd be back with reinforcements soon enough. If there weren't weapons by that point…
Over the course of a meal he'd managed to gather, he looked up at the decaying fortress. Massive and out of date, it sat like a scab on his cityscape. It bled him of money, for little reason other than another excuse to tax.
Four old men sat inside of it, surrounded by guards to prevent an escape which was never going to come. Rather than feed himself more than stale bread, he was caring for prisoners which hardly needed to be watched…
There were also weapons stored there. That was important, exceedingly so, but it cheapened his indignation. The money wasted to secure so few people was so much more important. It was also much more romantic.
He milled through the crowd which grew more restless by the second. Negotiations for surrender weren't dragging in more than perception.
But they were louder, now. They grew more annoyed, more massive, as word spread through town. Dissatisfied mumbles evolved into roars of people who hardly remembered why, exactly, they were so angry anymore.
It broke in a tangle of limbs. They climbed over their fallen brethren and forced themselves to the symbol of excess. For romantic ideals, or just the weaponry to pursue romantic ideals, it didn't matter.
They'd take it because there was nothing else.
