A knock on the door interrupted our conversation.

" Come in"

I answered and the door swung inwards revealing that Bjorn was back. Accompanying him was a man who I assumed were Marcus. He looked to be around forty-five with medium long dark brown hair, with streaks of grey in it. He looked tired with dark circles under his eyes. As he entered the room it seemed like he was trying to straighten but thought better of it and just saluted. Bjorn gave the man a look of disapproval, still he waved at him.

" My Lord, let me introduce to you the leader of the city guard, Captain Marcus. Marcus this is the new lord, Lord Eric Silveraxe"

Marcus gave a tired wave with his hand in greeting, then pointed to one of the chairs and looked at me in question. I nodded and he took a seat and closed his eyes with a loud sigh of relief.

"Greetings Marcus, late night?"

I was not sure what to think about the man, tired and haggard as he was. But I decided to give him the benefits of the doubt for now. He looked up and gave me a small smile.

" You could say that my Lord. We were tracking some people we believe are part of the local thieves guild, trying to find the guild's hideout. But as has been the case for the last few years, we came up empty handed."

That was probably why he looked so tired, and from the half crazed look in his eyes, it was probably not the first and definitely not the last time he would pull a late nighter to get them.

" Are they that hard to catch?"

I had heard a bit about this thieves guild, but nothing concrete. Maybe Marcus could shed some light on the situation. But the man himself just started to laugh like I had told him the best joke in the world.

" Are they hard to catch, you ask?"

He was now leaning back in his chair, while laughing like a madman. The rest of us just looked on in stund stupor. The man had snapped, or so we thought but suddenly he started to try to get some air as he laughed and slowly it started to die down. Still out of breath from the laughter he pointed at me accusingly.

"Sorry for that my Lord, but years of frustration about this situation just came bubbling up. And to answer your question, it's both yes and no."

He fell silent and the rest of us waited for him to continue, but he just sat there as if in deep thoughts. Well at least the man had calmed down.

"Sorry I mean nothing ill with my questions. I'm just trying to understand the situation. So please explain yes and no"

"I was about to, just give me a moment to gather my thoughts."

He was silent for moment and none of us dared interrupted him. Even as we sent each other questioning looks, the man sure was eccentric.

"So… as I said yes and no. And with that I mean no some of them are easy to find, the lower rung of the guild. The pickpockets, beggars and thugs, but they have almost no information and when we track them and are successful they always lead us back to a small safehouse. If we are lucky we find someone in charge there. The problem is that the real leadership of the guild is never caught, and from the information we have gathered they call themselves the hand. Five guild officers who only answer to the guild master, and they are the go between the safehouse leaders and the guild master delivering his orders. They are the yes to your question."

I think I started to see the problem.

" And with the core of the guild free they just recruit more people?"

" Exactly, and from the information we have managed to gather over the years. We come to believe that the hand is made up of tier two individuals with extremely high stealth. We have no idea about the guild master himself but rumors suggest he is tier three. But I find that hard to believe."

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I was inclined to believe him, because tier three people were not your everyday thug. And why would someone like that become a guild master for the thieves here in Kevin's harbor, it was just hard to phantom. Sure if it was the guild in the capital then maybe.

" Yes, I think I understand what you mean. So we need to find some way to follow or track them. Have you tried magic?"

He gave me an condescending look.

"And we're would we get the money to hire a wizard? Or budget just cover our salary, everything else we have to seek approval for. And without anyone to approve anything..."

He left his words hanging, and I could understand his frustration. But I was starting to get irritated by the system in this city. How could anything get done if they had to ask about everything?

"Yes I understand your problem, and you are not alone in telling me about this. So from now on the city guards will get a hundred gold every year for extra expenses. Such as outside help, bounty for criminals and healing for guards wounded in the line of duty. There is probably more you need it for so feel free to use it. But I want a receipt for the expenses. Anything else you will have to ask for."

He nood with wide smile on his face, and I could easily see that he was eager to use the money. And the city would have no problem covering it.

"Anyway the reason we called you over was to let you know that I'm temporarily in charge of the county, and to have you informed that I'm about to go over to the chapel dedicated to Ledis. There we will try to reach an agreement that I hope will make your work easier. We will have them act as judges, so in the future when you capture someone who is guilty of more than a simple fine, you are to throw them in prison where they will await judgement. If the criminal is especially notorious, or a personal threat to me and the county I want to be informed. "

Marcus looked surprised for a moment, then nodded in acceptance.

"That would be a most welcome change, Lord Elric. You have no idea how much time and work not to say danger that will lower for us in the guard. But I do have some questions."

He took that better than I believed he would, so answering some questions was the least I could do.

"Sure captain, go ahead."

"First, are you going to invest in new gear for the guards? What we have today is old and in dire need of repairs. Second, we are badly understaffed, are there any plans for recruiting more city guards?"

" Captain, I'm glad to inform you that yes you are getting new gear as soon as I figure out if we will be ordering from the local smiths or the dwarfs, same goes for the castle guards. And to answer your second question, you will also be getting more men this also includes you Bjorn. I have orders from the royal family to strengthen the city guard to at least two hundred men. So I have been thinking that since we also need to raise two companies of soldiers, then we might as well recruit for both the city and the castle guards at the same time."

I hadn't told Anders about my great idea, so I got to see some surprise on all three captains in the room.

" I was thinking that we could hold the recruiting outside the city, where we test the people who are interested."

I could see how Anders was about to speak up, but I held up my hand to signal him to wait.

" Please let me finish, I was thinking that we anonce to the people that there have been a change in the city's leadership. And that we are going to make some changes, like the part were the church of Ledis steps in to act as judges. We also inform them that we will be recruiting soldiers and guards. Then we hold some kind of competition outside the city with some small prices, were we the thin down the number of recruits to maybe a fifthen hundred people. Then we start to train them, three months later we once again thin them down to the numbers we want. "

I nodded to Anders that I had finished speaking.

He looked at me with troubled look.

" Eric… um the idea is good but you do understand that this won't be cheap, right? You just gave the city guard a hundred gold and training gear for that many people will not be easy to acquire, and you will need people to help them train, not to mention feed them all. And what kind of competition are we going to hold?"

"Well I understand that it won't be cheap, but let's think about it. A soldier earns what? a silver every ten day and food is free? So let's give the recruits half a silver and food. That should cost us around two silver a ten day for eight silver a month. So thirty-six thousand silver or three hundred and sixty gold for fifteen hundred men for three months. So let's say a thousand gold for everything just to be sure. Do you think that would be enough?"

"Yes, that should cover everything with money to spare, but who is going to organize everything?"

I smiled and pointed at him.

"That would be you Commander, you are to be the leader of our forces. So the recruitment naturally falls to you and of course that comes with an official title and rise. Let's say half a gold every ten day, what do you say?"

It took a moment for everything to sink in. When it did, he stod upp and gave me a small bow, and you could see he was happy about the news. All the problems with the recruitment were forgotten for a moment. The two captains of the guards didn't seem to be surprised about the news. I was only making what they probably already had figured out official. But they smiled and gave Anders congratulations.

" I will endeavor to make our future soldiers something to be proud of Lord Elric."

" Perfect, now if you and Marcus could please join me at castle gates in about thirty minutes so we can make our way over to the chapel, to see what they say about my proposal. Oh, and Bjorn, could you please give me an estimate about how many soldiers the castle would need to be effectively defended and how many we have right now. "

"That's easy my Lord, we currently have fifty seven guards and the castle needs a hundred and fifty to two hundred guards to be properly defended."

" We will make that two hundred and fifty, the same for the city. So if we need to leave for war with the empire the county will have five hundred men ready to defend it. The cost will be taken from my income since it's absurd that fifty percent of all generated money goes to the lord or governor."

When I had skimmed through the accounts yesterday I had been surprised to find that half of the county's earnings had gone to the Kevin's family treasure. Which gave them around six thousand gold every year. And now with the trade tax from the dark elves that had only become more. So it was no wonder they had gathered a fortune over the years.

With that ending the meeting, they all rose and gave a salute before exiting the room. And as the door closed I slowly let out a sigh as I sat down for a minute. I had been somewhat nervous before, but overall it had gone the way I wanted.