God Rising
Chapter 108
Written by: AtheistBasementDragon
Edited by: The Usual Gang of Drunken Perverted Idiots
AN: I hope you enjoy, also...a special shoutout to the six readers from the DnD group who used the escort mission with Tinamoc for their month long DnD campaign! Glad it provided so much entertainment, and yes, it's OK if you cried when Illyana died, it was meant to be emotionally impactful. :) Thanks for joining us for the rest of this story, it has been a wonderful experience writing it, and I hope everybody finds it worthwhile right up to the very last word. I'm going to miss this when it ends...but at least there is the audio project, and the illustrated ebook, and maybe a manga, depending on how many p a treon supporters are accrued to pay for the work to be done. (I can't draw for shit, need an artist for that). Now on with the show...
...Prart…
Neia was less than pleased to see the construction of the towers, but she was even more unhappy about how well protected the construction of it was. They had an entire company of mages and archers surrounding the construction areas, not to mention heavy infantry beyond that. It was a defense in depth put together by somebody who knew what the hell they were doing.
CZ approached her as Neia looked quietly out with troubled eyes.
"Problem?" The maid demon asked.
"Towers." Neia said.
"Towers?" The banal tone had the air of a question around it.
"They're mobile troop carriers, you build those big structures, then people file in behind them, go up ladders, and then a whole bunch of soldiers spill out onto the walls all at once, much harder to protect against than just a bunch of soldiers holding ladders. Can't just push them over and they're usually protected against fire." Neia explained.
"Solutions?" CZ asked.
"Enough fire usually takes them down anyway, and siege weapons can break them, when that happens, most of the people inside them die, usually painfully." Neia explained in her clipped, professional tone, she started to walk the wall and looked out over the enemy ranks. Probing attacks had become rare, but the city was completely surrounded and towers were being built on all sides.
"Congratulates on your wedding." CZ said. Neia smiled at the kind distraction.
"Thank you." Neia said softly, and broke her professional posture for a moment to embrace her companion, her bodyguard, her best… her first… friend.
"Cute." CZ said, and put a sticker on Neia's forehead. Neia rolled her eyes, but she missed the stickers.
"We can try to raid the construction areas, but we'll be outnumbered and we'd have to pass over open ground to do it, we'll also be badly outnumbered. I'd rather not give them local superiority." She said as a boulder passed over her head and smashed a building on the ground behind the wall.
Neia didn't flinch, nor did those manning the battlements, this was the new normal for them now. Boulders like that rarely hit anything, the fact that it smashed a house was unfortunate, but it was doubtful anyone was harmed, all noncombatants had been pulled well back from the fighting.
"Why are they doing that?" CZ asked and pointed to the large number of people who had begun to chip away at the rock and put the smaller stones in baskets.
"Ammunition, they give us one rock, we give them a lot back, we'll use it in the mangonels, and unlike them, we have targets that we won't easily miss. We're guaranteed to get a few hits in." She said with a smile as she thought about all the smashed in heads that would exist in a short while.
Skana approached from her segment of the wall. "CZ, do you think you could hit those crews building the towers?" She asked.
CZ walked up to the top of the gate tower and looked out over the field, she readied her weapon and took aim, people came sharply into focus as she calculated her range, wind direction, and her odds of success. She squeezed the trigger and watched a man simply drop where he stood. CZ's face was blank as she saw the panic ensue through the scope.
She looked down from the top of the tower to her friends a dozen feet below on the wall. "Yes."
"OK! Do more of that then!" Skana said with a laugh.
"I should have thought of that." Neia said wryly.
"Think nothing of it, my dear, you're probably still a little sore and it's affecting your ability to think." Skana said with a winsome, sweet smile. Neia still had it in her to blush while CZ targeted another of the work crew.
The commander and vice commander watched from the wall along with the other soldiers holding their position as chaos reigned over the construction site for that tower and those nearby. She could see the flags going up and communications flying back and forth as the alarm spread about the range capabilities of the defenders.
Neia was so engrossed in her satisfaction at the chaos and the rhythmic shooting of CZ on the tower, that she paid no mind to the appearance of the Queen behind her until she'd spoken.
"Won't they just pull back?" Calca asked, "Or at least put up some shield or something so they can't be seen to be hit?"
Neia didn't look away, her gaze remained fixed, but she answered anyway, "Very likely both, Your Majesty. Very likely both. However it'll take hours at best, and they will have to do it for every single one of them, plus some of those are skilled laborers. Wipe out a crew, and you can't just pull some random soldier out of uniform to do a job, they'll have to pull people from other tasks, all that slows them down, and time is on our side, even if they don't know it." Neia explained.
"I see." Queen Calca said.
She clearly did not see.
"Your Majesty, the soldiers out there all have to eat every day, they have to drink every day, they'll run through supplies on a regular basis. An army marches on its stomach, even though they don't fight every day, they still require daily supply. Gustav has been wreaking havoc on their southern supply lines, and we've been slowing them down at every step. They actually have to win this siege, take the city, and kill us. All we have to do to triumph, is not lose. As long as we hold, we will win." Neia explained.
She could feel the Queen's face light up behind her as understanding dawned. Now she saw.
Calca went along the length of the wall, visiting with the various soldiers, praising their courage, and what most pleased Neia and Skana as they watched, was that she made a point of making no distinction between human and demihuman.
This shift had the Sons of Iontariil manning the wall at the main gate, while Blood Miners manned the west, Vines manned the east, and city militia manned the south. However interspersed with the Sons of Iontariil, were Neia's hundred, the elites, the scripture breakers. She stopped to touch the shoulder of an orc and welcome him to her kingdom, she stopped at a goblin and praised his disciplined position and strong, thick muscles. She lingered longer at an elf whose ears had been cut, however.
"May I ask where you're from?" She asked politely.
The elf wore the armor of Neia's hundred, so she could probably guess, but she asked anyway. He gave the name of a place the Queen had never heard of, but it was a distinctly elven name.
"Captive of the Theocracy." She said gravely, she did not ask.
He nodded. "Make them pay for the mistake of enslaving an elf." She said gravely.
He gave her a predatory smile. "Yes, My Queen." He said.
As she walked away, it hit her, he was one of those who intended to settle in her kingdom. She descended from the wall and as her feet fell stone to echoing stone, she realized in a daze how different her kingdom was truly going to be after everything was said and done and the last sword sheathed.
"It'll be like the Sorcerous Kingdom is now…" She whispered to the soft echoing walls before she stepped out of the stairway and into the light of day. "How could I be so dense as to not realize this?" She muttered to herself. In the back of her mind she'd always pictured her kingdom coming full circle, when the fighting was over and she was on the throne, her nation would still be entirely human, even as a province, but that wasn't the case. The elf warrior's last two words informed her of her new reality. There would be elves, dwarves, orcs, goblins, vampires, demihumans, and who knew what else, all moving freely. The borders of old would be a thing of the past, she would rule a province adjacent to another province, sharing the same king and held by the same rules. Travel would flow freely from one place to the next.
She remembered Neia's promise, the pope hadn't said anything about ensuring 'humans' moved to her country, only that she would encourage her followers to move there and help them to do so. But Neia's followers now included many races, and she knew even without thinking about it, that Neia would not prohibit any race from settling where they wished.
Calca wanted quiet for a moment. She didn't get it, Tia and Tina stepped from hiding. Her evident shock had caused them concern, though she'd asked them to be discreet about guarding her, moments of distress seemed to be exceptions in their minds.
"Something wrong?" Tia asked.
"Something is wrong." Tina said.
The twins knelt in front of her, waiting on the Queen's response.
"I… I want to go back to my quarters." She said hastily, and they escorted her there, openly this time. She waved to the populace and accepted their praises with a smile, but as soon as she got to the manor she went to her private room and closed the door behind her.
A knock on the door a moment later, and she found herself admitting Lakyus into her private chamber.
"Majesty, Tia and Tina tell me something is wrong." Lakyus said with concern evident in her voice.
Queen Calca sat at a table and gestured for Lakyus to join her.
"Just… A realization that I hadn't thought of before, and I've been very uncomfortable with myself ever since." Calca said with a heavy sigh and a downward look.
"Care to tell me about it?" Lakyus asked.
She was quiet for a moment as she gathered her words. "I just realized there is still something awful about me is all. It is an ugly thing, to find something in yourself that you resent."
Lakyus put her hands in her own lap and clasped her hands together, she leaned forward slightly. "Your Majesty?" She asked gently.
The Queen did not meet her eyes. "Have you ever been to my kingdom before… well let's say before Jaldabaoth came to it?" She asked.
"No, I haven't, Your Majesty." Lakyus said reluctantly.
"But you know it was entirely made up of humans… well… they were the only ones we counted at least." She said, thinking bitterly about the elves who eked out a miserable existence in bondage, and those few demihumans who hid deep within the woods or migrated covertly.
"I have heard that, yes." Lakyus answered casually.
"I had…" Queen Calca wrung her hands together uncomfortably, "I grew up here. My kingdom has always been a certain way, and without realizing it, I just assumed that everything after the war was over, would go back to the way it was, well, not entirely, but close enough."
"And…?" Lakyus tried to draw out more, now quite lost.
"And it won't. The Sons of Iontariil are entirely made up of demihuman species, the elves of Wenmark may choose to stay as free citizens, the demihumans from the Abelion Hills can immigrate freely into my borders, I could have more races living in my kingdom than I even knew existed a few years ago." She said in a voice that was almost one of awe.
"Yes, things are changing." Lakyus said wryly, "Not that long ago I thought vampires were little better than animals to be put down, I didn't know I had one for a sister for years. I didn't ever think of them as having hopes, dreams, personalities beyond bloodlust. Now I know differently."
"I spent my whole life hating and fearing demihumans, I never gave a thought to elves since from here I could only be barely aware of their existence, but orcs, goblins, bafolk, zern, and so on… I… I was taught to either hate them or look down on them. Now there are a multitude of races on the wall protecting my life and I just noticed I still have my old attitude. Like they'd just go away after everything was done, back where they came from. But they may not, and what's more, I'm not supposed to want them to." Calca's voice was a little bit cracked as she finished speaking.
Lakyus let out a sigh of her own. "So, if I understand you right, you found an ugly attitude you didn't know was still part of you, and you found it because you were confronted with a reality you hadn't prepared yourself for. Do I have that right?" She asked.
Calca nodded numbly.
"Your Majesty, I told you a moment ago about how I felt about the undead, well, vampires in particular, but it wasn't exclusive to them, I felt similarly about most things… races… that aren't human, that aren't me." She said, and gave an embarrassed look at the Queen's face.
"My sisters and I would occasionally defend demihumans, but at the heart of our mission, we had a 'humans first' policy for ourselves, and I don't think we ever even tried talking to problem demihumans before we killed them. Not even once. If we had, maybe things would have been different in a lot of ways for all our lives, but we can't unlive our choices." Lakyus said softly and reached over, taking the Queen's hand.
"You were raised to think a certain way, live to defend your kingdom and fight a terrible enemy that always threatened to overrun your people. You can't banish those old ways of thinking overnight, I understand that it might bother you to some degree…" Lakyus bit her lip, "promise you will never repeat what I say next." She said, seriously.
"I swear it on my throne." Calca said seriously.
"Evileye and I are very close, not Neia and Skana close, but close. We've shared close proximity to one another in a hundred campsites or more, many nights she's clung to me while she slept and I've awakened to find her nestled against me. Before I knew what she was, I thought nothing of it. After… after her true nature was revealed, even now, this very morning, when I woke up and found her clinging to my arm, my first thought was… 'She wants my blood, she's a threat' and my heart would beat as if in battle until I forced myself to calm down. Fortunately I always wake early, if she saw the face I instinctively made every morning that I find her holding me… I would never forgive myself."
Calca listened intently, Lakyus's voice was rich with emotion, enough that it caused her body to shake just telling the story.
"She's my sister, I love her, I'd do anything for her, I even offered her my blood once, if she wanted it, but I grew up being taught she was an abomination, that the gods despised her kind, I learned for all the early years of my life, that anything not human was a threat, and even having to put down other humans, didn't lead me to realize that hypocrisy in myself or my attitude. I 'know' better now, but I can't help how I 'feel' instinctively. I don't think it goes away overnight." She said in a frustrated tone of voice.
"I want to purge those attitudes out, so that the vile thoughts I have sometimes, stop coming unbidden to the surface, and I think… I think you're feeling the same right now, aren't you?" Lakyus asked, and squeezed the Queen's hand.
"I am. There are orcs and goblins and elves on that wall who may die today so that human children will get to grow up. We share food, shelter, walls, danger, everything, and here I am wanting them to go away when the war is over? Wanting them to go back where they came from when I don't need them anymore? I've never hated myself until I recognized that feeling when an elf I'd just praised, called me 'My Queen', he intended to stay, to stay and serve me, my people. I have elf servants in this very manor dedicating themselves to my wellbeing. So, how can I call myself a good Queen if I don't want my own people around me?" She asked the question emphatically, Lakyus was not alone in shaking.
"I think… I think it is a start to ask that question. If we know 'what' we feel and acknowledge that it is wrong, we can choose to 'act' differently, and make conscious choices to be as fair and just as possible. Maybe those 'thoughts', those 'feelings' that we don't want anymore, will gradually disappear if we're aware that they're wrong and we don't give them the power to guide our choices. You can be a good Queen, even if you don't feel the way you think a good one should." Lakyus said with an inviting smile.
"Thank you Lakyus, I appreciate you taking the time to listen to me, it really helped." The Queen stood, as did Lakyus, and the monarch who had shorn her hair, impulsively embraced the surprised adventurer. "I think I'll do some reading for awhile, come see me in an hour or two, we'll visit the western wall together."
"I'll do that, Your Majesty." Lakyus said with a smile, then she bowed and walked out, behind her, Calca went and picked up a copy of the Book of Black Justice, and resumed reading where she'd left off.
After the Queen left the wall, Neia went back bout her duties, it took hours for the tower construction to be moved beyond CZ's range, and they spent a good portion of the day pulling the entire camp back so that she couldn't take pot shots at them.
For a short while, Neia thought that might be how this day would end, but it was not to be. Siege engines were rolled up, and again they started to batter the walls, most shots fell short however, and the few that hit, did not do tremendous damage as they lost most of their momentum by the time they hit. Down below where her own siege engines were waiting for use, the crews stood by patiently, she saw no reason to fire back, as there was minimal chance of hitting anything for now.
So she waited, and let the walls take the bombardment. Pacing got tiresome though, and danger grew dull. She paced the wall and stopped when she came to her wife. "Behold the banality of horror, eh?" She sighed out as a small stone impacted the wall a few feet below the top of it.
"I know." Skana said, "Amazing what we get used to. Makes me wish for an attack just for a change of pace." She said with some annoyance in her voice.
Several peasants appeared at the tower doorway bearing soup pots, they were all humans, all wearing the clothing that had become standard for members of Neia's organization. They weren't soldiers, they were too young for that. None of them could have been much into their teens. Nonetheless she didn't shoo them away, several carried bowls and ladled the meals in one after the other, going straight down the line. Behind them came others bearing water to refill the soldiers water skins, they were quick, efficient, and in Neia's eyes most importantly, they didn't show any favor to other humans to the exclusion of orc or goblin or anyone else.
They left as quickly as they'd come, and judging by how much they'd been sweating, they'd already gone to the other walls. "That was the future that just walked past us." Neia said to her wife.
"How do you mean?" Skana asked curiously.
"They gave to each of the soldiers, just what they were supposed to, they didn't penalize an orc for being an orc, or a goblin for being a goblin, nor did they give a human special exalted status for being a human. Most importantly, it didn't even seem to occur to them to do anything else." Neia said pointedly as a lucky stone managed to fly overhead and crash into a building behind them.
Neia paid it no mind. "I was always taught that every generation is worse than the one before it, but I don't think that's true anymore." She said thoughtfully. "I think if it were true, then the previous generation had to have been really shitty parents. If anything, every generation should do better than the one before it, shouldn't they?" She asked reflectively.
"Maybe." Skana said as they started to walk the wall again, looking out over the stones to see that a ram was being brought up and ladders were being handed out in the distance. "Ready arms!" Skana shouted. "I mean look at us, fear of the other was the norm before, and now here we are standing with the other, while those who look like us, come to kill us for it."
"I read in the Library of Ashurbanipal that the arrow of history arcs towards justice, but the arc is very, very long." Neia said as she took out her bow, at a glance, they had a little while yet.
"We're all saddled with fixing the mistakes of people like the rulers of the Slane Theocracy, or the evil consequences that came to us from Jaldabaoth, or even people who might have been good kings for their time, but if we do things right, we won't leave as many mistakes for those kids who were just here, to grow up and clean up after us."
"Well the mess is coming for us right now, what say we clean up a little bit for em?" Skana asked with her lips upturned and her teeth bared wolfishly.
"Bet I can get more than you today." Neia said with a wink.
"What's the bet?" Skana asked archly.
"Loser makes dinner for the winner." Neia said as the forces of the Theocracy came on.
"Fine, as long as the loser gets to have the winner for desert." Skana winked in turn.
Neia didn't even blush this time, she just said, "Deal!" with wicked, ravenous smile as she nocked an arrow.
A few minutes later, they called out "Loose!" and the started to count their kills.
...Astraka's Camp…
Vanysa went straight to Astraka's tent as soon as the darkness made it easiest to do. For this night's torment, she wanted to pick something different. Again she forced enough alcohol down his throat that he'd forget most of the previous night, and question his own sanity in the morning. She wondered if he'd wet himself. She snickered and got on top of him, she didn't have to do it this way, but part of her enjoyed it, like she was making his suffering more intimate. She pressed her forehead to his, and entered his dream.
Tonight he was dreaming of his coronation, but worst of all, attending the coronation and kneeling in front of him, was her God, her Saviour, His Majesty, the Sorcerer King. She felt a blazing anger that his mind would even dare dream such blasphemy. That could not be tolerated. So she selected from among her memories, some of the most casual humiliations he had inflicted on her, and some of the most intimate ones. She put him in her place, let him feel what it was like to be ogled at and afraid, chained up alone with him. Let him feel her hunger and desperation while he ate, and the fear that she'd be left to starve to death. She'd been hungry before, starvation was a slow and agonizing torture, so it was frighteningly real to just lay there chained up, hungry and inches from food, with someone who could and perhaps would withhold it if not pleased.
Then she selected the moments when she had to relieve herself, heeding nature's call, he didn't even give her privacy or let her loose, he held her beautiful hair like it was a damn leash, when he didn't outright use a chain, and made her go in front of him. She made him feel the shame wash over him, she'd sobbed the first few times it had happened, until she grew numb to the degradation. Part of her knew it was just practical to make sure she couldn't escape, but that did not make it better.
There were weeks of those moments, the occasional slap when she'd offended him, and sudden terrors that didn't go away when he reached out to touch her, always fearing if that was going to be what initiated her violation.
When she made the dream a repeating loop, she left his mind and dismounted from him. She looked at the man who would be king, and it was all she could do not to open an artery right then. Instead, she left, she had somewhere else to be.
That 'somewhere else' had her seeking out the paymaster's tent. The doppels knew where that was, fortunately. It was, unsurprisingly, heavily guarded. Almost as much so as Astraka himself was, which… for her meant it might as well not have been guarded at all.
When she was inside, caution was required. There were stacks and stacks of chests there, all filled with coins from copper to gold, meant to pay his army. They'd been marching for almost a month since being raised, and they were two days from Prart at most, she was fairly sure. Clever man that he was, that he'd timed it so that their pay would be on the eve of battle. It would remind them who paid them, and it would remind them who they fought for, which was the same thing.
She gingerly opened a chest and looked inside, she took a coin out and held it up. These were special, these were some of the first coins to bear Astraka's profile on them. She doubted they were in circulation anywhere else yet. There was one more village ahead, and tomorrow the soldiers would be able to take their pay and go buy booze and whores and feast to their heart's content. Or... they would have, were it not for herself.
The gate opened as soon as she called, and chest by chest she took them into Nazarick.
Demiurge was waiting for her when she arrived. "You've been busy." He said.
"Yes, I have been." She said happily as she set another box down on top of its mate.
"What do you have there?" He asked.
"All the pay for his soldiers." Vanysa said happily.
"I see." Demiurge said as a realization dawned, "So when they go to collect their pay, they'll find they've been robbed? Not bad, a little crude, but they'll be angry."
She shook her head. "No, no, they will get paid. But with these." She said and took out a coin from her pouch and handed it to him. He took the coin and looked at it, the weight was different, but the profile and appearance was the same.
"Scratch the surface." She said proudly, his demon claw scratched it, and then he smiled wickedly.
"This isn't real gold." He said with great amusement.
"Nor is the silver real silver, nor the copper real copper, I had enough fakes made to fill all these chests. The intelligence we gathered gave me the exact design of the originals, all I had to do was make the fake duplicates. Now I'll empty all these chests, refill them with the fakes, and put the chests back. When they collect their pay tomorrow and stop at a village to drink and whore themselves half to death, the doppels will make sure to 'check' the coins in the guise of merchants who stopped in the town, and they'll expose the fake coins, and then…" She clapped her hands together happily.
"They'll not get a drop of drink and those worthless coins with his face on them wouldn't buy a whore even if they had a mountain of them. He'll be lucky if they don't riot and walk away right there and then. Fitting that the only coins with his face on them be worthless trash." She said hatefully.
"Agreed." Demiurge said, and then he listened as Vanysa worked, swapping out the old coins with the 'new' coins. She spoke to him of all the ways she'd been avenging herself on him during his army's line of march, all the torture he was enduring without having a drop of blood shed, the way it was fraying at the mind of the man who would be king.
Perhaps it was that she held the form of an erinyes, a beautiful demonic body by any standards, or perhaps it was the utter gleeful sadism and torment she was so artfully inflicting on her former tormentor, but when she got to the part in her story about his dream, of their master kneeling to him, and replacing it with himself in a state of abject humiliation, he felt… very glad that she had been restored to life. He found himself enjoying the moment when she came back through the gate on yet another trip, putting false coins in place of real ones, and disliking it when she disappeared.
Finally, she put the last one in place, and came back through to find no chests left to move. She turned to him and said, "It's a pleasure to see you again Demiurge, after I've finished my… well it isn't really work if I love it, but after I've finished my… outside tasks, and I bring 'him' here, perhaps before we get back to research, we could arrange to play a song on this one 'together'...? It would be my way of making up for being unable to assist you lately." She said politely.
"That would be very welcome." He said, a sadistic smile passed between them, and she walked back through the gate, already contacting the doppels. She was efficient and wasted no time. Of that, he wholeheartedly approved.
The next morning in Astraka's camp, the pay was dispensed by a number of officers under heavy guard, and the King had ordered something a little 'extra' be given to each of them, a whole extra silver, which he hoped would help repair some of the damage to his reputation that had been done lately.
It seemed to work, and the soldiers were all very happy. The unused coins intended for the next month's pay were held under guard again, and when they reached the village, a largish place that was really closer to a town, he called a halt and gave his men one full day of leave to go within its borders.
Vanysa, for her part, walked through the town wearing a wig and makeup that changed her skin tone. With that and a very minor illusion scroll that she used to change the shape of her nose and her eye color, she looked like a whole other person.
The doppels had set up merchant stands and were selling the sorts of things soldiers loved to buy. Meat and booze, right in the center of the place, it took the soldiers only minutes to swarm the townsfolk's many businesses, and prices quickly skyrocketed as they intended to drain the soldiers dry of their newfound 'wealth'.
Vanysa simply took a seat on a bench and watched. A lot of useless coins were already spent and the town would be outraged at the fraud. However, she wasn't worried about the soldiers or the townsfolk, she was fairly sure she knew exactly where the blame would fall, and she could get them compensated for their losses later. This was a military operation for the betterment of Nazarick after all, even if it did have a personal element to it.
She smiled as one of the doppels cut into a coin after remarking that it was light. He cut into Astraka's face, that had been her 'personal touch' and however petty it might be, it made her smile.
The doppel merchant shouted in outrage, the other merchants began to do the same, and the shouting intensified, it was quite loud. The soldiers looked stunned, embarrassed, then incredibly angry.
Word spread like wildfire. Within an hour, soldiers were either being thrown out of taverns and brothels or they were being forced to work to repay what they'd already spent. It was one thing to make quite a mess in a brothel, it was another to clean it up. They were definitely… not… happy.
Vanysa however, laughed uproariously as soon as it was safe to do so, she could not hold it in from where she sat, so she stood quickly and walked down an alley, leaned against a wall, and just let all the laughter out.
Fights were breaking out, officers of the army were dragging their men back, and when they heard what was happening, shock and anger swept their faces as well. The doppels 'angrily closed up shop' and left the area, after their 'props' were stored, they assumed the guises of soldiers and went back to camp and spread the word about the fake coins. Thousands of knives came out and cut the faces of thousands of coins, but it was the thousands of shouts of utter outrage that got King Astraka's attention.
What he found when he left his tent, still reeking of alcohol, was a virtual riot waiting for him. However, he was not stupid, and he issued two things that saved him in that moment. The first was that he broke open the entirety of the supply wagon's alcohol stores, including his own private supply. The second thing he did was even more effective.
As the soldiers filtered back he called for an assembly, "I do not know what has happened, however you are my loyal soldiers! I will not see you left with nothing, therefore when Prart falls, I will let you plunder the town uninterrupted for five days, whatever you can seize, belongs to you!"
The promise had settled the tensions below the point of violence, though the soldiers were more than displeased still, and trust in their 'king' had plummeted.
The doppels however, were not done. "The king hoards the wealth for himself, he doesn't really intend to use the money to pay us at all. He's greedy to the extreme, he chose to pay us now so that he could take the money off our corpses when we die in battle."
"The town kicked us out for more reasons than just the coins, another child went missing."
"The king doesn't even have a single real coin to his name."
The rumors flew from doppel lips and flew through the camp like the breeze at their backs, in the end Astraka had to end the rest early and deprive them of the remainder of their leave. It was a sullen, angry army that marched towards Prart that afternoon, and the king wondered how long the head of the mint had been stealing from him. The torturous death that would befall that man would be told as a cautionary tale for generations about the danger of stealing from kings.
The only things he had to do, would be to take that city, kill that pope, and kill that Queen, and his problems would all but disappear.
In a small cabin in the woods, however, a beautiful demoness arched her back, tilted her head back as if to gaze at the sky, and laughed maniacally. "Oh Astraka... Astraka… Astraka… just wait until tomorrow." She said to the empty room.