Chapter 24 – Politics

Soldier Don P.O.V

Don was exhausted and sweaty when he finally arrived at the camp of his tribune. At first the guards didn’t even want to admit him inside of the camp, but when he told them he had important information from the wall for the tribune, they finally granted him entrance.

At the headquarters he once again had trouble getting past the guards. Right now he was having the same trouble that the ‘real’ soldiers stationed at the wall were having with some of their superiors.

“Let me through! I have information from the wall that’s important for Tribune Bourbon.”

“Whatever a wall soldier have that would interest the good tribune?”

“You idiot, I’m no wall soldier. I’m a soldier under Centurion Pike in Honor. I have been assigned as the guide for those recruits from Veritas.”

“Right, and that’s why you look like this?”

“Hell no, they actually made me fight on the wall. As soon as I could I got out of there to bring my information to the tribune. Now move aside so I can inform him!”

Just then a strong voice called from inside.

“Just let him in, I tire of your little discussion.”

“Yes, sir.”

After the guards acknowledged the order they immediately let Don inside the building. Inside the building he entered a room that took up almost half the building. There the tribune was seated on a comfortable chair, reading some papers.

“Sir, I have some important information for you.”

“Yes, I heard you tell my guards. I also heard your tell your name and all the other stupid things. Now report!”

Immediately Don stood at attention.

“Sir, as the guide, it was my task to bring the a squad of recruits of the fourth legion under former centurion Quincy to the wall.”

“Ah yes, the disgraced centurion. He set back our plans by a decade. Go on.”

“Yes sir, as ordered I brought them to eight century. The idea was to get rid of them as quickly as possible, even though that was a long shot with trainer Quincy in charge of them. Unfortunately right after we arrived in the camp, the alarm was sounded. We were ordered to follow the century to the wall, where the centurion of seventh century took charge. He ordered the squad, with both their trainer and me to hold a position on the wall. When the recruits had to take a break, the trainer jumped into the hordes and told me to hold the wall by myself. Instead I got out of there to inform you about him and his recruits, as well as the situation on the wall.”

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“I appreciate the information about the former centurion, but that’s not important enough to expose yourself. Explain!”

“You’re right sir, the more important thing is the reason that eight century was called to the wall. There was an increase of at least a factor of two with the activity of the wall. This piqued my interest, so I paid extra attention.”

“Yes?”

“There were a total of zero elites in the hordes. My conclusion is that a legendary undead is about to make an appearance, a year earlier than expected.”

Immediately the tribune sat upright.

“Repeat that!”

“The legendary undead will be a year early, sir. Your plans will need to be adjusted.”

The tribune stood up and started to pace. Meanwhile he was mumbling to himself to help him think.

“Right, I will inform all the parties on the adjusted timeline. Damnit, a year early is way too soon. We a deviation of at most three months. As for now, I’ll appoint you a squad to take care of centurion Quincy and his squad. The man himself will be a problem, but those recruits should pose no danger. The squad leader is about to be promoted to centurion, so you should be able to take down Quincy and his recruits without a problem.”

“Yes sir, we’ll make sure that he won’t pose a problem anymore.”

Don left that moment, while the tribune ordered one of his guards to get the squad that had trained for exactly such a task.

While he was waiting Don thought about all the things in the plan that had to be adjusted. Like the tribune, he was originally from the city-state of Nanthgarth. It was the only other state in the north, and for a long time they had been eying the lands controlled by the legions. A decennia long plan was in place to replace key members of the legions, and thus convert them into armies controlled by Nanthgarth. Nine years ago one of the plans to replace the legate of the fourth legion was foiled by centurion Quincy, when he managed to keep the wall from being breached. This time nothing was allowed to stand in the way of them taking control of the fifth legion.

A short while later the squad arrived. This squad looked pretty ominous, as the members were all extremely bulky men. The huge soldiers were all at least a head taller than Don, and they were armed to the teeth. They had the standard short sword and shield, several pila, and also about a dozen throwing knives. Several of them showed signs of having mage attributes on them, and here and there he saw bows and arrows sticking from the backs. Their armor was also not regular, even though they did look like it from a distance.

“You Don?” The lead soldier asked.

“Yes sir, I’m Don.”

“Right, then let’s go. We need to finish this mission as soon as we can, since our services will be needed here.”

Don saluted once more, and together with the squad leader he left in front of the squad. Since this was the camp of the Tribune, they first had to move out towards the reserve century’s camp, which would take several hours. After that it would take another hour or so to get to eight century’s camp near the wall.

Luckily they wouldn’t need to go that far, as the tribune wanted no witnesses of the assassination. Thus they would go to the reserve camp, as that one was completely in the hands of men loyal to Nanthgarth. From there they were to take a position on the road towards Veritas, as there was no way that the recruits would be allowed to stay on the wall for long. Only during the initial increased undead offensive was it allowed to conscript them to hold the wall. Soon they would be sent back with this information to warn the legions in Veritas.

With the other legions being too late to support the fifth legion, the wall would be breached, which would take the legate to take it back. Until that time though, Tribune Bourbon would be the person holding back the breaching undead. This would make him the hero, and the legate would be discredited. Tribune Bourbon was decently strong for a tribune, thus he would be the one replacing the legate of the fifth legion.

They would still need to find a way to get rid of the retiring legate, but when the man was out of sight there would certainly be several death squads from the government of Nanthgarth sent to take care of that.

Meanwhile Don and the squad were rushing towards their goal, and late in the evening they arrived at the position where they could ambush the recruits and their trainer. They set lookouts while the rest of them set up a camp nearby, as the squad would only arrive the next morning at the earliest. They didn’t take any chances, thus the lookouts that were dispatched to watch the road.

All that was left to do was wait.