It took until 13 o’clock till every mercenary was counted and organized into groups of five led by a group commander. After that, the structure continued, grouping them into collections of fifty men and doing that until every person was accounted for. Unfortunately, there were only 5000 men in the buildings who agreed to sign up, the other group of what seems to be 2000 men left as they didn’t agree or left before they could get organized. Looking at the mercenary rolls of the triad during the peak of the war, there were 700,000 mercenaries with 125,000 of them in the city.
Anson, Cyril, and Baldwyn debated how many of those men were still active as a new roll hadn’t been made since the end of the war. If there was enough still active and the Chairman convinced them, their small handful of mercenaries would be crushed. Anson tried to maintain the possibility of keeping the operation quiet with Baldwyn encouraging it, but Cyril pointed out reality. “The only way we can get this done by the end of the day and before Libo and Teoland find out is to go on a lighting offensive.” The young man took now glory in suggesting the idea as stopped there as he tripped over these words. “P-People will probably die as a result, but I don’t think we can convince a group of mercenaries to not kill anyone anyways.”
Anson shook his head as he tried to deny reality. “We can’t just send thousands of mercenaries running around the city, pointing spears and swords at people, demanding them handover their shares. The Sovans have thousands of men, and along with the government, we would be destroyed.” He then looked at the pile of shares that sat behind him and thought about the amount of time and effort it already took them to get to get that small of a share. “However, we have to do something.”
Standing up, Anson prepared to leave the office. “Cyril, you’re right, but we need to know where the shares are first. The Sovans have probably moved theirs, along with the Chairman and the Kadons. We need to scout them out first.” Anson then opened the door.
“Thank you,” Cyril responded. “But where are you going?”
“Can’t go on a little stroll?” Anson tried to joke, but even he didn’t like it, so he quickly gave Cyril and Baldwyn the correct answer. “Baldwyn, once Hera gets out of here, I will head back to Vasos and take full control of his stagecoaches. Baldwyn, you can come if you want, but I need someone to stay here to look after the shares and your daughter.”
“I’ll stay,” Baldwyn responded. “I’ve already had enough separation from her.”
Anson nodded and prepared to leave. Instructing the various groups to adhere by the new organization structure, he told the men who copied down names, to organize the groups of four into fifty, and then from thereon, five hundred. The groups of four would look for where the rest of the shares are and then report up the chain until they had found enough shares to get to 50%.
#
When they got back to Vasos, they entered through the back door and went immediately to Vasos’ office. The rest of the building seemed to be running normally, but before they entered the office, Anson saw the mercenaries he hired to find Deo enter from the front. Smirking to himself, it seemed that they would so have a nice little word before separating again as they went looking for a man Anson was begging to believe would not be found.
Reaching the office, Cyril opened the office with Anson taking a quick peak back at the mercenaries questioning random drivers. They didn’t seem to be having a grand old— “What the fuck!” Cyril exclaimed as the door swung open.
Anson swung his head back toward the door and found a man standing with a soaking wet duffel bag in one hand and a wooden beam in the other hand. Looking up from the man’s ruined feet he recognized who it was. “Deo?!” Anson asked in shock. Peaking at the desk, he found Vasos also looking at Deo, but with a laugh slowly forming. Throwing himself and Cyril into the office, Anson closed the door and tried to start a conversation. “Deo, where the hell did you go?”
The man was out of breath and placed the closed duffel bag on the desk. “How long has it been since we’ve seen each other?” Deo tried to ask in a steady voice. Turning around to find a chair, blood ran down the comrade’s back as he collapsed into a hard wooden seat.
“Where were you?” Anson asked.
“After we got separated,” Deo said. “I got a little bit lost and needed to find you again, but how? So, it seemed I only had one option: Run. But that is not what I did. Soon I stumbled upon a local Kadon Chapter that was scheduled for the operation, or at least originally, and I decided to do some catch up work.” Deo then pulled out a small rag from his pocket only to find it full of blood.
Anson could only think of one possibility from that information, but that couldn’t happen. It was impossible.
“Are you hurt?” Cyril asked.
“What?” Deo responded before shaking his head. “No, this is Kadon blood. They had a lot of men in there.”
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
“Deo,” Anson didn’t want to believe what Deo had implied. He tried to ask as nicely as possible while pointing to the bag. “What it is in there?”
But before he could answer, the door swung open and the mercenaries from earlier walked in. The one who threatened Anson earlier noticed Anson and said hello before turning to Vasos. “Do you know a Deo Illias Eparco?” There were five of them, hovering over Vasos before Anson to take a couple of steps back. Deo stayed quiet as he got up, gently pushing Cyril and a couple of the mercenaries aside, before reaching the door and closing it. He then watched from the door as the interrogation continued.
“What about this Deo?” Vasos asked.
“He’s wanted.”
“By whom?” Deo interrupted. The man who threatened Anson back at headquarters answered by pointing at Anson. “Okay, good then, I don’t have anything to worry about.” Deo joked.
The mercenaries stopped pestering Vasos and looked over to Deo, asking his name. Deo answered honestly before facing Anson. “So, you sent us on a manhunt for a person you already knew the location of?”
“We found him first,” Anson responded. “We were just lucky.”
“You hired mercenaries?” Deo asked. “How did you get away with that?”
“Hire would be a strong word.” Anson said.
Laughing the man who threatened Anson continued for the man. “Anson’s right, Deo. We made him pay us after he forced the entire mercenaries to go on a merry mission to overthrow the Lake Republic with any guarantee of money. Now, where’s our shares?”
Deo faced Anson and asked him what was going on. He responded by saying they would talk about after the mercenaries had left. “Oh, we’re not going anywhere,” one of them said. “This duffel bag looks full enough. I imagine there are shares inside them.” Then approaching it, one of them tried to unbuckle it, but before they could, Deo stepped forward, grabbing the beaten beam resting against the table. “That’s not yours,” Deo warned.
The mercenary ignored Deo, along with the other mercenaries, and the five mercenaries reached to unbuckle the duffel bag. They almost got it open before Deo turned and faced Anson, shrugging. In a calm, yet pretentious voice, Deo told Anson what he said from the beginning. “I’m sorry, Anson, but the rule has already been broken. The practically was too strong to ignore, and it is too strong to ignore here.”
Anson’s heart dropped as he came back away from the desk. Who was he kidding himself? You couldn’t rob a country without killing people, and even worse, he felt a wave of uncertainty go through his body as he knew the consequence of robbing and killing the Kadons. Now, in all likelihood the rule was going to be broke further later on. Deo picked up the wooden beam and slammed it against the mercenaries’ heads. Immediately dropping like flies, the men barely had time to react as Deo had brought them to the ground in a mere moment, with everyone else simply watching.
Blood spurt all over the office as they now knew how Deo got so much blood on his outfit. When he was finished, all the mercenaries were dead. “I won’t break the rule further if I don’t have to,” Deo said as he dropped the stick. “Now, why are you so concerned about the shares, I got them. We don’t have to rob them anymore.”
Anson took a moment to respond. First, he only tried coping with the fact that the men had died as a result of this operation. As a direct result of his actions. The only way he could not let it consume was by just restating the rule. No more deaths from this point on. No more deaths from this point on. No more deaths from this point on. You got that? Alright, now answer Deo. “I made a deal with them,” Anson finally admitted, wiping the mercenaries off his outfit “Or a partial deal. The point is that now you have broken a deal that kept this whole situation together, now I have to communicate to thousands of mercenaries that the two rules I expressly made are now pointless.” Now pacing back and forth through the room and swore as he wondered what he was going to do.
“Are we going to deal with the bleeding men on the ground,” asked Cyril.
“Yeah,” Anson snappishly responded.
“Thousands of mercenaries? You made a deal with the Kadons?” Deo asked.
“Yeah, or at least with an intermediate member named Osman. He promised to stay out of it and talk to the Kadon leadership for when we took the rest of the shares, now that’s gone.” Anson then explained what happened back at Mercenary Headquarters including that the Bandit was captive there. When Deo heard that, his mood immediately changed. Demanding to see the man, his voice became harsh when Anson didn’t immediately agree to go back.
“Hold on for a second!” Anson demanded. “Let me think!” He then continued to pace around the room, trying to think of the most optimal solution, and soon after, thought of one. “I can’t rob the Kadons as well, this whole operation will fall apart if it does.” Pointing at each member, he began to, once again, make another plan. “Cyril, you come with me to the Kadon Triad HQ, Deo, you head back Mercenary Headquarters and tell Baldwyn that where we are going. You can do what you want with the Bandit, but I beg you don’t kill him. Maybe we can hold the appearance of upholding the rule in front of the other mercenaries, and Vasos—”
“Before you order me like a dog,” Vasos interrupted. “Why did you come here?”
“To find Deo, of course,” Anson lied on the spot. Seeing that he didn’t believe it, Anson came up with another lie. “And to make sure you were still in line. Don’t worry, you’ll still get your shares if you stay in line. We are commandeering the entire stagecoach service to transport mercenaries, so after this, you will tell your men to gradually go to Mercenary HQ and transport them for free once I give the order. Okay?”
Vasos nodded and Anson once again faced Deo. “That brings up a good point. Why were you here?” he asked.
“To see if Vasos knew where Cyril was?” Deo responded. “Can I go now?” he asked. His muscles twitches as he waited for the moment that Anson told him to go to the Bandit, and once Anson did, Deo flew out of the door, grabbing the bloody duffel bag along the way. But before he made it all the way out, Anson asked how many shares were in the bag, “I’m not sure,” responded Deo. “If I had to estimate, it would be 20,000.”
Pleasantly surprised, he let Deo go. Turning to Vasos Anson reminded him to patch up the mercenaries, lock them up, and send them on a stagecoach to HQ to be held captive.
“Why doesn’t Deo do that?” he asked.
“If he did, he would drag them to their deaths,” Anson responded before he and Cyril left.