3.

General Malkov was retired. He could have continued his career since no doors had been closed for him per se, but on many levels he had had enough. Now he spent his days taking care of his estate: he had gotten ample fields as a reward for his years of service and plenty of slaves to boot. The soil was fertile, and he had been able to produce plenty of surplus wheat to sell, growing far richer than he had previously thought possible. In the mornings Malkov took care of the vast paperwork that was required in administering his holdings, but once the hottest time of the day passed, he had no problem in taking part of whatever job was underway at the time. At first, many of his servants and even family members had looked at his undignified toil with uneasiness, but as Malkov saw it, just sitting around would drive him crazy and if all this area truly was his property, it was his responsibility to work. No job was beneath him, and he could be found swinging a hoe on his field, fixing a broken roof or a fence, and even nursing the sick slaves back to health. His previously injured left arm did not allow him to work at full capacity, two fingers were missing, and he had little strength in general left in that limb, but he worked around it and wasn't embarrassed or afraid of asking for help in whatever he was doing. Back in service he had felt a certain need to mask his weaknesses and was happy that he could be free at home and do as he damn well pleased, despite the disapproval of his family. On the home front he was blessed as well: he had a very good relationship with his wife who had been there for him through thick and thin, his two daughters were well raised, and one was successfully married to an important noble family in the capital and the other was looking for an esteemed suitor at this very moment. Malkov was sure that there would be no problems in arranging another successful marriage as well. Only his son had caused some grievance: he had obviously pushed Anton to go for a military career like he had in the past, but the young man had no intention and no character suitable for such an vocation. He had constantly been part of drunken escapades to no end and gambled away vast sums he had sent to support him in the military academy, and apparently, he had on purpose behaved in such an awful way that anybody else - besides the son of the esteemed general Malkov – would have been kicked out long before Malkov got a tentative letter from the dean about the issue. After a huge fight with Anton and an impressive sum paid to the academy's coffers as an thank you for the dean's discreetness towards Anton, his own flesh and blood, had joined a merchant convoy traveling far to the west and Malkov had not seen his son for two years. Working as a lowly trader was not positive for the family honor, and Malkov was not happy about waiting what other embarrassments and troubles his son would a mass on these travels all around the foreign kingdoms. Strangely enough, it seemed that Malkov had been very wrong and Anton very right: he had shown very shrewd business sense and had come back with a respectable profit and cultivated connections to some important traders in the west. In his freedom, Anton had matured and could think rationally and in long term in business dealings, something that Malkov hadn't anticipated. He noticed the numerable concubines his son had gathered in the manner of the western barbarians and saw the rapidly growing gut caused by abundant eating and drinking, but those were very minor issues compared to how things had been before, so Malkov could feel relieved and accept how things stood for now. Anton had even pressured his father to use at least some of his land to grow tobacco, and once Malkov had given these plans a go-ahead, he saw himself getting even wealthier. The family still saw it necessary to be hush hush about what profession Anton had ended up in: money was a good thing, but face was everything.

Then there was a change. A messenger from the king arrived in the last days of the summer, telling Malkov that the eminent ruler still had tasks for him to do. Malkov sighed and groaned: he had not parted from under the young king in mutual acceptance. The new sovereign, Fredrik was his name, hadn't inherited much of his father's good qualities and in the classic malady of monarchies a brilliant leader was going to be followed by – at best – a very mediocre one. Malkov had sensed what was to come when Fredrik was crowned after the death of king Gustav, and he retired soon after. Malkov had possessed his share of ambition thorough his life, but that flame had started to fade away in his old age: most of Malkov's fellow generals and statesmen kept climbing and hustling towards ever greater power and glory and such was their nature, but in all honesty Malkov just didn't have the heart to see all the things decay that he worked and sacrificed so much for. It had been a true rush to serve under Gustav, no, to serve for Gustav, a king who could plan so far ahead and take so many details into consideration that Malkov often felt himself inadequate. Many times, he had doubted the outcomes of the king's foreign adventures, only to be proven doubly wrong in the face of resounding successes. It was as if Gustav was playing chess and Malkov checkers. Once Malkov had given up on his doubts and embraced the monarchy wholeheartedly, his career had really started to take off. He had been very proud of his position, but it pricked Malkov's ego that he most likely had ended there only because he had followed a superior man's plans to the T, and there was very little that had actually come from himself.

And now Fredrik was there. Petty, prideful, dogged and simple, he had one hundred percent belief of being on the same level as his father, facts be damned. Malkov knew that Fredrik had sensed his lack of belief in him, and Fredrik had taken Malkov's retirement as a direct insult, especially since Malkov wasn't nearly as old as the oldest military personnel still left serving. What was to come was most likely going to be payback from the perceived slight. Avoiding his orders would bring all kinds of problems and Malkov saw no way to dodge what was to come. It was time to pack his bags and travel to the capital.

The good thing was that Malkov wouldn't have to fear for his or his family's well-being. Fredrik was stupid but he wasn't insane, and even if he didn't realize that attacking Malkov would bring the military as an whole against the monarch his ministers would, and they would fight to tooth and nail against such irresponsible decisions. Another good thing was that Malkov could take Stefanos with him: Stefanos was an educated slave Malkov had obtained many years ago traveling in the newly conquered estates in the war against the eastern realms. Stefanos's main duty was to homeschool Malkov's children, but it hadn't taken long for the whole family to take an extreme liking to the servant. Patient and cultured, his well-meaning manner and ability to recite long stretches of famous poetry and drama made Stefanos a desirable companion. Soon Malkov added to Stefanos's tasks more and more important clerical work and his position as a slave started to fade away. Stefanos was as much part of the family as anybody with actual blood ties. Malkov had had a frank discussion with Stefanos about making him a free man, but Stefanos had shrugged the topic off and said that this was where he was supposed to be anyway. Such loyalty had moved Malkov's heart deeply.

Malkov's formal uniform and other assorted and required regalia were fetched from storage. Upon inspection it was realized that a couple of medals were missing. Malkov's wife gave the servants a thorough bashing, and the household was turned upside down in the search of the stolen or lost property. Malkov couldn't find himself to care and organized the departure quickly: his mood caused his wife to worry, since it wasn't like him at all to be lax about issues of discipline. When everything had been packed onto the carriage, Malkov bade farewell to his family and traveling in the wobbly coach he gazed at his fields and the shoddy shacks of his slaves. Stefanos, sitting next to him and looking at the same views as his master, pondered once again how contradictory Malkov's character was: on a personal level he was a good husband, a caring father, fair in the everyday dealings with his servants and charitable between friends and neighbors, taking financially care of the widows and children of his fallen officer comrades and warm and cordial towards Stefanos himself, but on a grander scale, be it his estates, military campaigns or the affairs of state, he was hard to the point of being draconian. His slaves lived so miserably that Stefanos had seen many of a esteemed guest lift his or her eyebrows even when they were slave owners themselves. Malkov didn't allow any of the slaves to marry outside of the hamlets the slaves were assigned to, even though the slaves worked every day alongside with the slaves from other hamlets and all of them were owned by him anyway. Nor did he allow the slaves to try to supplement their meager rations by trying to grow small gardens of their own or fish in the many streams and lakes located on Malkov's lands, even though this would have resulted in a stronger and healthier workforce. The only thing he did for them was to supply them with relatively good quality clothing, maybe in order to show a good face to the outsiders. Being in Malkov's circle, you were golden, but being outside or, even worse, underneath it, evoked in him no sense of duty or responsibility whatsoever. What he saw were numbers and resources, and having those numbers become ever greater was very pleasing for him. Stefanos realized that Malkov's traits answered quite clearly why the world functioned like it did.

There was no fanfare or ceremony at the capital when they arrived. The palace looked once again flashy and prosperous now that Fredrik was in power: all the furniture followed the new popular styles and from the looks of it the amount of the servants had most likely doubled. Gustav had been a frugal man and among the first things he had done once he had become the ruler was to kick out almost all the various entertainers and musicians infesting the royal grounds and the micromanagement had reached even the level of replacing the fancy tableware with cheaper choices. Most of the aristocrats were disgruntled when the palace had become just a boring place of business but now their annoyance was just a thing of the past: Malkov saw the ballrooms bursting and music could be heard all through the palace, as if the musicians were all in competition with each other and the scents of decadent and exotic dishes wafted past him when the servants rushed along the corridors carrying great silver plates.

Malkov met Fredrik in a small office, the same one where Gustav had often locked himself in in order to crunch through the endless amounts of reports and documents his reign had produced. Malkov was certain that Fredrik did not use much of his time to read in or outside of this office and meeting him here, unofficially in the most sacred place of the palace, just increased his annoyance. Present were also generals Henrik and Armand, who had in tandem obtained the highest military positions once Malkov had left. Then there also was someone he didn't know and whose uniform he didn't recognize. It reminded them of their own wardrobe but only vaguely, and all of the medals on the front of it weren't familiar either.

"You've arrived." Fredrik said, slumped in his chair when Malkov saluted him. There was about three seconds of silence while Fredrik sized him up, barely containing a smug smile. Malkov could see that Fredrik had awaited this moment for a long time. "Here it comes, '' Malkov thought, and he braced himself for an earful, making a mental note of keeping his cool. "Not many military men were valued by my father, blessed be his name, in the same way as you were. There were even serious talks of making a statue of you for the Eastern Square once you left, can you imagine? Well, I couldn't." Malkov kept his gaze in a painting hanging behind Fredrik, depicting a hunting party leaving the city gates with their dogs. "As I see it, statues are reserved for the servants of the crown who actually deliver, actually make a difference. Not for frauds who paint failures as victories. Wouldn't you agree?" Malkov paid special attention to the tone of his own voice. "Of course, Your Highness. If you are referring to the eastern front, then taking in account the big picture..." he started. "Big picture!" Fredrik spat out, cutting Malkov off. "You and your big picture, what a pretty picture it was! The only picture here is the fact that you advanced and acquired a great deal of territory, then you just stopped, just like that, packed your bags and went home, all the while patting yourself on the back. You could have conquered twice as much, and you instantly left when you finally had a master who would have called you out on your hot air! Instead of serving the nation you served your image and self-importance! How's that for a big picture?" Fredrik roared, working himself up with every sentence. Malkov stayed quiet.

But a big picture question it was, wholly and truly. All continental nations were locked in a zero-sum game with each other since everybody wanted as big a piece of the pie as possible. Arkansia's eastern neighbor, Curanda, was a vast nation stuck in a now decades old civil war, its glory days long gone, and the mentality of Arkansian leadership was focused on getting a buffer zone of the northern parts of Curanda against the other hungry competitor, Ushya. Gustav had gotten there first and Malkov had managed to defeat the Ushyan forces, mostly through the fact that Ushya had been forced to call the campaign quits since it needed to answer a call to arms on the other parts of the continent: Ushya had made defensive pacts with several smaller nations on its own eastern border and once a war broke out between them, the decision was made to honor these agreements and prioritize these interests over the Curandan issue for now. Gustav had anticipated this to happen and had decided to gamble, the strategy being that Malkov would not need to actually defeat the powerful Ushya but to hold on just long enough until the situation in the far east would explode and the defensive pacts would come into effect. Gustav's gambit had paid off and the northern Curanda was quickly conquered, the competing factions inside the fragmented nation unable to muster a strong enough counterattack. Thus, Arkansia had seemingly arrived in a new golden age and risen from a meek regional power to something more formidable.

But the real reason for victory, the exploitation of these Ushyan defensive agreements, had not either reached or been understood by most of the leadership. Megalomania had invaded the Arkansian minds, and everything seemed possible. Why had the invasion of Curanda stopped short when it was theirs to take? Why not go all the way and then, by the Sun, go for Ushya and even beyond! The sense of victory had in a few short years turned into bitterness, and many felt that the Manifest Destiny of Arkansia had begun. Even those who genuinely understood politics had given in to the seduction of grand delusions and engaged in thorough mental gymnastics in order to find reasons and justify further invasion of Curanda. But the truth was that Gustav had stopped where he had for a reason: Curanda was an enormously vast country and conquering more of it still wouldn't bring the whole nation under their rule and it only increased the risk of creating a unified enemy of all the Curandan factions when they would start to perceive Arkansia as their number one threat. Ending up in this mess would only generate more costs than profits and take away forces from the all-important defensive line constructed against Ushya. The other reason was that Curanda still was the number one trade partner of Arkansia and all these factions still bought what Arkansia was exporting, future invasions would just make them buy what they needed elsewhere and who would Arkansia sell to then? There was nothing to be gained from another war in the current political situation Arkansia found itself in. But this wasn't what most people wanted to hear. Especially not Fredrik.

"But now, things are different. We want real results, and we are progressing towards our goals as we speak." Fredrik continued. "A new campaign has started against Curanda as you probably have heard. The enemy has folded, and our territory increases, just as easily as it could have been when you were leading the charge with your cold feet. You are to go to the front as a military analyst: write a report on our progress. The future generations will have to know what made us the great power we are today." Fredrik smirked. "And why we failed in the past. You are dismissed."

Malkov's face was as red as a beet, and he could feel it too. Outside the office he barely knew what to do with himself since he couldn't vent publicly but the anger had to go somewhere. He started to walk very fast through the endless hallways and corridors of the palace without a clear destination and people quickly dived out of his way when they encountered him: many must have thought that something must have happened if such an important looking figure were storming through without a nod or adherence to the etiquette, so nobody took an exception towards his behavior. After a while the worst of it had passed and he stopped, realizing that he ended in front of an open door to another salon filled with guests enjoying themselves. A buffet table was filled with delicacies of all sorts and even a few chefs could be seen through a hole in the wall that revealed the kitchen, this too apparently a part of some new fad of the modern internal decoration and design. Apparently, the ventilation didn't work as well as it should have and the mouth-watering scents emanating from the kitchen were the reason why he had stopped here without realizing it. He started to walk towards the buffet but was stopped by a familiar voice.

Maria, the late Gustav's wife and mother of Fredrik was there, and she had noticed him. Malkov cursed in his mind his bad luck. He never had figured out why such an exceptional person had ended up with that horse of a woman. Maria gestured to Malkov to come to her and when Malkov arrived and had bowed, she tapped an open spot next to her on the sofa she was sitting on and Malkov sat down. "Lisa said that, she is now here with her brother, that in the academy…" she started and Malkov braced himself in his mind yet again. Malkov had known Maria for decades and not once had he understood what she was talking about. Lisa and his brother could literally be anybody and most likely they were people that he wouldn't know and have no desire to know about. She started her stories somewhere from the middle and automatically assumed that the listener would know exactly what she was talking, so the big process in the conversations with her would be trying to figure out what the topic was and then parsing out if this was actually something important or, more often than not, meaningless and endless gossip of the aristocratic socialites. Many important men of the state had been subjected to this ordeal constantly since they couldn't brush her off because of her exceedingly important status and for some reason Gustav had never told her not to bother serious officials and military members with her blabbering. And when it was about something else than idle tattle, she often was trying to fix up a marriage for somebody in her circle, but the pros and cons of her arrangements were usually so poorly thought out that many didn't want to commit to them. It turned out that this was the case now too: some duchess from one or another minor province had ended up into her good graces and after a good twenty minutes of tedious deduction Malkov discovered that Anton was supposed to be the willing husband. It made absolutely no sense for anybody in Malkov's social stature to marry into such an insignificant family but in Maria's mind it made perfect sense. His patience was running thin but there was no choice but to listen and try to weasel out of the discussion as fast as possible, which really couldn't happen quickly enough. Malkov could not imagine the good Gustav listening to this drivel years on end every evening at the dinner table when he had been home in the capital, but so it had been and as far as he could tell Gustav never had been unfaithful to her. Apparently, Gustav had just wanted to have a family and when that had been arranged then that was that, no matter the personality of the bride. There had been no passion but neither had he smirked from his role as a husband and a father: if part of that meant that he had been supposed to tolerate this nonsense then he had accepted it. Despite his annoyed and agitated state Malkov could feel gratitude towards his own wife and the support he could always find in his own home.

Malkov's attention was starting to drift, and he found other points of irritation walking about in the crowd around him. Fredrik's two brothers were present there too: Carl was already quite drunk as one would expect, and Algot was playing bridge yet again which wasn't any sort of surprise either. Gustav truly had been the one shining star of brilliance in a sea of below-average mediocrity. The passing of the power had been extraordinarily peaceful since only Fredrik of the three brothers had possessed any semblance of ambition: both Carl and Algot had probably been kissing Fredrik's feet from sheer relieve since both of them had been shaking in their boots from the fear of having to do some actual work in their lives. When Carl wasn't drinking, he was hunting, and last year he had been chasing foxes, bears, deer, ducks and beavers on over two hundred days of the calendar year. The last remaining hundred days he had spent very comfortably in the bottom of the beer mug, so he was quite content with his existence. Algot was more peculiar but at the same time very similar to his brother: he practically spent all his waking hours playing poker, bridge, billiards, chess and draughts and when he was done with one game, he started another. It was as if he could not grasp anything meaningful from actual reality and could only exist in the pondering moments of the next move or turn of an abstract game. And these ponderings took a long time: a single game could take from ten in the morning to seven in the evening and he drove his opponents to tears by this imprisonment. But him being part of the royal family meant that Algot always had somebody to play with, so he also was quite content with his life. With Carl Malkov could imagine him attending at least some kind of a post if the push came to shove but he had no idea what kind of tasks Algot could possibly attend to in real life. What especially irked Malkov's diligent character was that both of these loafers were appreciated as some kind of heroes in the socialite circles of the salons: Carl was manly for his hunting and fun for his constant partying and Algot was obviously very good at these games he endlessly obsessed over, so other fools with similar fixations arrived from all over the aristocratic world to challenge him and so far, Algot had reigned supreme over these other jokers. Again, Malkov started to experience more quiet and warm feelings of gratitude in the back of his head towards Anton: they had had their disputes and obviously Malkov didn't agree with everything Anton had done, but the boy had inherited his industriousness and was shrewd and skilled once he had found the area where he was good at, even though it wasn't quite what Malkov had hoped for him. Malkov reminded himself to give Anton a break.

Finally, Maria was distracted by other guests who most likely brought her more ingredients to cook silly schemes with and Malkov took the chance to slip away towards the buffet table. Once there he let himself go and took two plates: one was filled with ham, premium sausages, smoked salmon, meatballs, fried potatoes and slapped together with a steak that was big enough to cover whatever else was present on the dish and the second one got a large piece of cherry pie slathered with vanilla sauce and was accompanied with three balls of vanilla ice cream. Malkov never had been much for drinking, gambling or other classical vices, but eating was the one thing he could derive true hedonistic pleasure from. He usually ate within the normal boundaries but once stressed he gravitated towards tasty things for comfort. Even on the field he had always kept storages of sweet and savory treats with him for the most demanding of situations and sometimes he had to keep his habit hidden when his men had been close to starvation because the supply lines had been cut. Looking back at it this had led into some comical situations but when they had actually happened the bitterness the underlings had felt towards their epicure leader had been deep and real. Now, in the present moment, Malkov realized that he couldn't carry both these heavy plates with his bum arm, and he pointed at a servant who had surreptitiously been observing the ex-general's gluttony. The servant came to him promptly and Malkov pointed at the dessert plate still on the table and then went to look for a seat, the servant obediently right behind him, carrying the sweets with dignity.

He found a good place at the end of the room next to the wall and he sat down and started eating. After a while he realized that he could recognize no flavors and every bite in his mouth had the same meaty, salty and stale texture. The pleasure of food wasn't enough to alter his foul mood. But he didn't stop though: it was as if he was trying to force the enjoyment out and he wasn't going to take a no for an answer. He noticed that the pie had become cold and soggy under the melted ice cream.

"I see you're back, general." somebody said to him and Malkov looked up. It was Kajetan, one of the professors from the military academy. Malkov gestured towards the chair on the opposite side of the table and Kajetan sat down. "I take it that His Highness had something planned for you?" he asked. Malkov could yet again feel the red returning to his face, and he squeezed the knife and the work tighter. Kajetan had a chuckle and he called for a servant and ordered a cup of coffee. "He sent me out with homework like some badly behaved schoolboy, just to harass me. He can't do anything serious because of my reputation and connections so he has settled with petty attempts to embarrass me and waste my time. I can't complain and make a scene since it's such a small and stupid thing but I'm sure he will not stop jerking me around anywhere in the near future." Malkov stuffed more food into his mouth with a faster space. "He's supposed to lead our kingdom in a war, and this is how he uses his time and energy. What a fucking joke." Kajetan's coffee had arrived, and he had been waiting for it to cool while Malkov talked. Kajetan took a small testing sip from the cup to check the temperature, was satisfied and drank some. Malkov could hear the clatter of the coffee cup even though there was quite a lot of noise in the salon. "Yes, well, a leopard can't change his spots now, can he? Such is the character of our ruler: it hasn't changed since you left. Many other things have changed around here, however." Kajetan tilted his head towards the other guests of the salon. Malkov wasn't sure what he meant and started to look around. He was at loss at first but then he noticed how many of the guests he knew and how bad of a sign it was that they were there. "Isn't that Lieutenant-Colonel Jurek? And those two behind him major Jeremi and colonel Iwo? What are they doing here? Why aren't they on the front?" Then he frowned. "And why were they invited? They're not high enough rank to be in the palace's parties." Kajetan was rubbing his fingers along the edge of the coffee cup. He always needed to do something with his hands. "They are all lieutenant generals now. Gone are the days of king Gustav now: no one gets demoted anymore." Malkov felt the wave of disappointment, though he was not surprised. When the invasion of Curanda had started the first time, Gustav had been extremely strict about who he allowed to lead his troops in the war, so he demoted everybody who didn't meet his criteria. The military wasn't that big, so he had pretty much known everybody on a personal basis and as an excellent judge of character he had known what he wanted. The thing was that people were demoted, not fired: if you reflected on your mistakes and got back on your horse, your career was not over, and many had climbed back to the top once they had figured out what they had been doing wrong. However, these three men before Malkov's eyes hadn't been those capable ones. "It's a tour-based system now. Like you very well know, back in your day, you only got home when the war was over. Now they serve six months each and come home. It's the assignment you have to complete to get ahead in your career." Kajetan explained. "I didn't expect the culture of the military to change so much in a few short years. One of my students opened up to me a while back and told how he had been advised as a second lieutenant: step in with your commander and be well liked in your peer group. Do not make waves and do not get separated from the herd. If you get one outstanding result from an exam but one bad one, you're done, but with average results all the way, you can become a lieutenant colonel." Kajatan's voice had a beaten tone in it, just slightly. "It is kind of funny, really. I've dedicated my whole life to the academy and to the improvement of our military capabilities, but I'm seriously starting to doubt how much all of this matters in the big picture. Obviously, it needed to be done and the new personnel needs to get an proper education, but at the end of the day somebody can clear the program with the best possible marks and be praised as a borderline genius but when he is actually supposed to make decisions in the real world we have no guarantee of any kind of competence. We are mistaking memorization for intelligence: as long as you can remember the given texts, mathematical formulas and the ways you are supposed to write your reports and essays, you are in. But when the situation is such that you can't apply that formula in its given form and you have to adapt, those best of the best aren't necessarily any good at all." Kajetan had stopped fiddling the cup. "This change of rule seems to prove to me that institutions can only be as good as the level of the leadership. It's like the bottom of my beliefs has fallen off: I took pride in our past victories and attributed too much of that success to my beloved academy, but how much does education matter if you end up with this kind of situation anyway? I'm worried that our system actually leaves a lot of truly talented people out just because they aren't that good at memorizing trivial details but would be superior in real life situations and I'm not sure that we actually can test people for this. We have masses of people and only a few positions, so the whole affair just seems to be about standardization and memorization being the only way we have come up with to separate a handful of people from thousands of applicants. Then we call these people "the elite material" and pat each other on the back. All of them know the classics of strategy and warfare backwards and forwards but then they get fuddled in the basic questions of what are we doing, why we are doing it and what there is to gain from it? So much of philosophy and higher level of thinking is focused on the definition of different words and terms, what do they truly mean, and this is where we fall: is more actually better? What actually is "better" for us, right now? What is "success" for us, in this particular situation we are in right now? And if a man can go through the academy as the star pupil and never learn how to ask and think about questions like that, what was the point of the academy?"

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

Malkov had stopped eating while listening to all this. He had not expected to hear such talk in the capital and in the palace no less. They had known each other for decades but never been actual friends in the true sense of the world, even though they had been more than just acquaintances. "I see that I'm not the only one worried about where things are going. Didn't really expect anybody to come to me with this, especially not you." Malkov said. Kajetan smiled slightly. "I've come to realize that you did the only rational solution when you retired. I should have done the same, but I didn't see how it was until quite recently and I have to admit that my ego could not take leaving. I've worked so hard for all this and have nothing else. I'm not even married. I do the futile and embarrassing homework too, but you stood for your principles in the end, unlike me. But it seems that neither of us can escape it." Kajatan started to get up and leave. "Thank you for listening. Just grit your teeth and go through with it. You are wealthy and I'm sure you can leave Arkansia when and if things get truly bad." Malkov looked at him to leave but then something popped into his mind. "Besides me and the king, Henrik and Armand were there, but then there was somebody with a weird uniform I didn't recognize. Do you happen to know who that was?" he asked. Kajatan smiled sadly. "Just another symptom of our leadership. You'll see." Kajatan answered. Then he walked away.

Malkov had no desire to leave for the front, but he didn't want to linger in the capital any longer than he had to. He wrote a letter home where he explained what he had been tasked to do and made a list for all the different items and clothes he would need later on and wanted them to be sent straight to the military base where he was supposed to go. What he needed on the way he needed to borrow from the barracks or buy with his own money. He was supposed to stay with the fighting forces for several months, compile his report and then present it orally to Fredrik. Including the time needed for traveling Malkov calculated that he would not be home within a year and the though made him sulky and sour. He conversed very little with his servants when the journey started, and they tried to avoid him as much as they could since his dark mood was so plain to see. Only Stefanos kept him company, but he let Malkov have his space. They would talk when Malkov was ready to do so.

Weather was horrible for two weeks straight and three times the carriages got stuck in the mud. The drivers were young and inexperienced and had a hard time getting the convoy to move again the first time, so Malkov lost his temper and had to organize the affair himself and he cut the rations of the drivers to half until they reached the base as a punishment. Behind his back, however, the cook took pity on the drivers and made sure they didn't have to starve. Then the carriage that carried all of Malkov's and Stefanos's clothes proved to be leaky, and all of their garments became soaked and there was no place to dry them off. They had to dress in the clothes of the servants and Malkov was glad that they were traveling by themselves and were not supposed to meet any officials or aristocrats on the way. Once the weather cleared and it looked like it was going to be better for a longer while, Malkov immediately ordered the convoy to halt, had a big fire built and had his clothes dried off.

After six more weeks they already started to arrive in the areas where battles had been fought. Bodies lied here and there, some enemies and some of their own troops. Malkov started to notice a very peculiar feature on the relatively fresh battlefields: some areas were spotted by black craters about the size of their own carriages. Sometimes there were only a few of them but other times there were over a dozen in a relatively small area. In these places a sickly smell filled the air, clearly rotten but not in a normal and natural way. After a while of these views Malkov decided to investigate and had the carriages stopped.

He stepped out and started to walk towards one of the craters closest to them. The nearer he got the stronger the smell, so he covered his face with his handkerchief. Malkov stopped at the edge of the crater, not daring to go any further. The outer rim was clearly burned, but the center of it contained some sort of a black sludge, wet like mud even though it hadn't rained on this area for quite a while and the surface of the ground was dry everywhere else except in these craters. Malkov looked around and a small, pathetic and starved tree stood next to him, trying to defy the death surrounding it. Malkov broke a branch off from it, the longest one he could find, and stuck the end of it into the black sludge, getting some of it to the end of the branch and pulling it closer for inspection. The smell was overwhelming this close and after just a few seconds the part of the branch covered in the muck dropped completely off, leaving only part of the stick in Malkov's hand. Malkov tossed it away and noticed Stefanos standing behind him.

"Nothing will grow from the ground like this. What is this? Does the enemy have some new sort of version of the salted ground tactic? But it must be some sort of a weapon, otherwise why would it be spotted around like this?" Malkov said. "The latter guess must be correct, sir. I checked around and there are body parts all over that are either charred or rotten in a non-natural way. Maybe it depends on where you are inside the blast radius, you get burned closer and farther away you get hit by whatever that is." Stefanos said and pointed at the sludge. "It can't be from a cannon since we haven't seen any, there should be at least a few abandoned broken ones, but we have nothing. This thing obviously is very potent, but it looks like the enemy doesn't really have the hang of it: the bodies with these marks can be found on both sides pretty equally. Maybe it's just this battlefield and it's not like this elsewhere but we'll see." Malkov was quiet and kept looking at the crater still holding the handkerchief on his face. The wind was rising, and it blew the rotten smell towards him even stronger. "Let's get out of here. We can think this through once we hear what has happened in the fortress." They walked bag to the carriages and the convoy started once again, but the foul air was now more or less their constant companion. Many of the servants lost their appetites and had headaches.

After a few more days of traveling, they finally started to reach their destination. They saw a bunch of soldiers supervising Curandan prisoners digging a mass grave, and rows of bodies were waiting near them for their final destination. Then they saw another similar operation happening a few kilometers further, but this time the finished grave had been set on fire and the prisoners heaved body after body into the flames. Stefanos noticed that everyone had their faces covered and the prisoners were in a sorry state, barely having the strength to perform their task. A soldier kept hitting a prisoner with a stick to force him to continue, but it wasn't helping. The guard exchanged a few words with another soldier who then finished the man off with his spear and the prisoners left standing rolled the body into the hot pit like they had done with others numerous times before. Malkov's convoy neared the gates of the fortress where soldiers checked their papers and let them in.

Malkov was instructed to go to the big tents at the center of the fortress on the top of a hill. He wondered why none of the commanding officers had come to meet and welcome him and instead he had to go and seek them: he could immediately sense the rock bottom morale of the place and a certain tenseness floating in the air. It felt like nobody could be distracted with the regular ceremony and convention, like something grave was there to supersede anything that was deemed unnecessary. Malkov started to walk up the hill with Stefanos. He got halfway when a huge explosion shook the earth and pieces of debris flew into the air from the other side of the hill: everybody in Malkov's company hit the ground, shocked and terrified, but Malkov had remained in a crouching position. Had the enemy attacked? Malkov commanded everybody to move towards the tent but his servants, young and inexperienced as they were, didn't respond in their fear and didn't move an inch. Malkov and Stefanos had to motivate them with kicks and pull them by their clothes towards the right direction. Stumbling, the young men started to rush towards the commander's tent, their masters behind them, as a farce to the loyalty Malkov had been used to from his previous servants at the time of his active service. Malkov felt annoyed but concentrated on the situation at hand and advanced towards the top of the hill with big leaps.

The servants ran into the tent like the rats they were and only Malkov and Stefanos stayed outside to see what was happening. The view was very good and they couldn't see any troops in formation outside the wooden fortress walls and no cannon could fire from so long of a distance that the weapon and its operators couldn't be seen with a naked eye. Then Malkov looked at what was happening inside the walls, and instead of seeing men hurrying around like the ants in a disturbed nest, the movement of the soldiers was sullen and fed up, nobody being in a hurry to check the damages or help the wounded and dying screaming under the debris. The only ones actually running were the soldiers putting out the starting fires in a few spots that had been hit by burning pieces from the explosion. Then Malkov noticed the site of the explosion and his eyebrows shot up as far as his forehead permitted.

There was a pen of monsters, sizes of carriages, consisting of material that seemed like stone, screeching and yelling restlessly, the crater from the explosion being in one corner of the pen, now busted open by the blast. The creatures did have heads, small ones, with no visible eyes that could be seen from this distance and their arms and legs were like tree trunks. They vaguely reminded Malkov of the drawings of big apes he had seen in a book written by an explorer who had been traveling in the jungles far in the south, but these beasts were huge and not organic, immediately seeming more mindless than even cows or sheep. A gust of wind blew towards Malkov and Stefanos and brought the same familiar stench from the contaminated fields of battle they had driven through for weeks, but now it was even stronger. Malkov could hear Stefanos retching behind him and Malkov suppressed his reflex to vomit too. A little lower where they stood an officer, a captain, looking at the same site of devastation, his jacket only half-tucked into his trousers and his hands in his pockets. He noticed someone standing behind him, glancing over his shoulder, then doing a second take when he realized that these people were somebody new. At first, he saw Malkov's rank insignia, and he frowned, then he started to realize who was wearing them and there was a flash of anger and resentment in his face, and the captain made a half hearted salute with one hand without taking the other one out of his pocket, without standing in attention.

"What the hell is this? What is going on in this unit? Where are your superiors, captain?" Malkov demanded from the officer. "I think we're better to go inside, general." the officer answered and gestured towards the commander's tent. Malkov shot a look at Stefanos who looked back, his face anticipating problems. They went ahead, and the captain followed.

"Well?" Malkov pressured inside. The captain stood silent for a second or two, apparently trying to form the best way to say what he wanted to say without betraying his apparent frustration and anger. "Sir, I know how much the new strategy emphasized the use of the golems, but we have had trouble with them from day one. Significant problems. You must have noticed the how the ground looked and air smelled when you traveled here and have put two and two together, but before you sack me or Sun forbid court martial me, I must stress that there has been nothing that we could have done on our end to fix this: I put the handlers of the golems through a ringer but they keep saying that their training gave them nothing to deal with this level of malfunctioning. Besides these sudden detonations they sometimes stop and do nothing, go the wrong way or move slower than they were supposed to. I have written multiple reports about these incidents and have received no answer and I'll resign, if need be, but with the utmost respect you'll have to understand that there's nothing me or my subordinates could have done to fix the defective weapon." The captain's tone was monotone, seemingly pushing the words through his teeth he was biting together. Malkov lifted his healthy arm and made calming motions with his palm open. "Son, I'm not here to court martial or sack anybody and even if I wanted to, I have no authority for that anymore. I have not been shown any official plans and know nothing of how things were supposedly going here besides the regular public propaganda. Today is the first I've seen of these… golems. I'm just supposed to write an analysis about the effectiveness of this campaign." The captain seemed to relax a little, his anger subsiding. He also seemed to be surprised of how he wasn't currently being reprimanded even though he had been waiting for it for months now. "Again, where are your superiors, captain? Also where are your cannons? I can't believe that I have gotten that blind to not see any of them." Malkov said. "Well, sir, about the cannons, we really don't have any. Apparently, we are supposed to be supplied some when we reach some of the bigger cities and even then, only if absolutely needed: so much was banked on these golems and, truth be told, sir, I suspect that a lot of the funds originally meant for those cannons went to these new weapons instead." The captain sighed. "And as for my superiors, again in complete honesty even though I don't have any proof of it, they must have seen how things were going and didn't want to risk their hides for a folly like this. They have various excuses, but they mostly stay in the capital or in the various fortresses back in Arkansia, only showing up when need be. I and few others are in actual charge over here." The captain started to open up and apparently took Malkov for his word and viewed him as impartial to this military fiasco.

Malkov rubbed his bearded chin and thought about the situation. He didn't doubt at all that things wouldn't be how the good captain had told him. He remembered seeing quite many high-ranking officers living it up in the party where he had been talking with Kajatan, not at all a good sign during active military operations. He lifted his gaze back to the captain. "You have copies of your reports, yes? Give me a tent to stay in and have those reports brought to my assistant here." he gestured towards Stefanos. "Besides those, bring me all the possible files concerning these golems, like the instructions given to the handlers, account books about the costs of this war, everything possible. Go." The captain saluted him, now properly, happy to now reach at least one sympathetic ear, and went to fulfill his orders. Sun was going to set soon, but today it hadn't given too much illumination to begin with.

Malkov went through the paperwork deep into the night, drinking coffee and eating sweet biscuits for energy, but the pervasive bad smell took the sense of taste with it. He was too focused into reading to taste anything anyway, his face becoming more stony after each document. After one o'clock Stefanos came in to check how his master was doing, finding Malkov leaning against the back of his chair, arms crossed and staring into the ceiling. "I'm willing to guess that this isn't becoming any better, sir?" he said. "No. No, it isn't." came the anticipated answer. There had never been much use of magical weapons or much magic in general in the Arkansian army and the same was true for most of the states across the world, some exceptions existing but those too had been very fast to learn from their experiences. It wasn't that this mysterious power wasn't insanely powerful and amazing things couldn't be done with it, but it was as if there was no rhyme or reason to it: one person could do this and not that but it was vice versa for the fellow next to him, and if you thought that if somebody was able to do something very impressive he also must be able to do other lesser feats you usually were wrong again. Some things could be taught to others if they had the potential but not all. You could find relatively many people who had the gift and could do at least something, but the really talented individuals were extremely rare. The church of the Sun and other religions had been trying to claim these powers as an product of their faith for an long time and the church collected able people into their monasteries to underline their own importance, even trying to render their mage's services into an more standardized manner, but for the most part they hadn't succeeded. All of it was too unstable and too unreliable. "As seen here." Malkov thought to himself.

"Our beloved Fredrik just got duped. Somebody had been waiting for his crowning, probably salivating and rubbing his hands together, and then displayed shiny toys to Fredrik and he took the bait hook, line and sinker. Maybe one of them was that man who I didn't recognize in Gustav's office." Malkov explained to Stefanos. Malkov leaned towards the table and tapped with his finger some documents open in front of him. "These golems are either insanely expensive or somebody is skimming money off this completely shamelessly. I'm honestly not surprised that Fredrik is the one to fall for this stupidity but the fact that seemingly nobody fought against him about any of this is the worse part. I think the captain here is only half right about why the commanding officers aren't here: they must be in on this scheme and are getting paid, having known very well that none of this is going to actually work." He stayed silent for a moment. "They must think that since the conquering of Curanda in their minds is a given anyway then this is a wonderful opportunity to make some money off the newly crowned idiot. If they would actually be serious about the war, they would not undermine our fighting force like this." Stefanos had sat down on a chair at the end of the table. The many lanterns inside the tent were quite good and there was plenty of light. The ground had been covered with thick, red carpets and the atmosphere would have been homely and warm if the circumstances hadn't been so grave.

"This is really bad, Stefanos. This Curanda business is already a doomed effort but if our corruption has already reached the level where we sacrifice blood and treasure this casually the end is going to come much sooner than I anticipated: spies of Ushya report what they see, and our resources aren't endless. What we are losing here is going to hurt us in the future and we aren't going to get much out of what little we gain if all of that is going to be spent on holding the new territory. Especially if part of that is poisoned ground." Malkov frowned. "We don't know if just the craters of the explosions are ruined or if the damage reaches much deeper underground, maybe the groundwater is polluted, or the soil is otherwise compromised on a much larger area. Time will tell. We absolutely should have people out there digging the worst parts of it out anyway. But this isn't even our first priority right now, as things stand." He pointed at a small pile of empty paper sheets. "Now, if I'm going to write about what actually is going on here, the same things the captain has already written, what would happen? I'm not paranoid enough to think that this trip was an elaborate plot to get me trapped, no, this is just one of Fredrik's whims, but if I start complaining and the corrupted officials and officers see that, I have a whole list of new enemies waiting back home. If this is the level of loyalty towards our own military, I can't expect much to be left for me. Then an actual plot to get rid of me is right around the corner. And, even despite all that," Malkov said and straightened up in his chair, the gravity of the situation becoming clearer with every word uttered. "... how many years or decades can we wait before Ushya or some other enemy state licks their lips and deems that the time is nigh? The possibility of Arkansia being in somebody's pocket isn't far-fetched anymore. And my land and property? Confiscated for the war effort, my family bowing to an Ushyaan champion, my son serving as an impoverished vassal, his new masters, the glory of our name a distant memory? I didn't fight for that."

They stayed quiet for a long while. The walls of the tent fluttered a bit when a strong gust of wind blew outside. The candle lights inside the lanterns flickered and the lighting of the tent danced around for and second or two. "Maybe the solution we are left with it just to leave, sir." Stefanos said. Malkov was resting his cheek in his fist, and he looked at Stefanos without changing his posture, in anticipation of what was being suggested here. "And I don't mean just this place, I mean the whole Arkansia. To be blunt, young master Anton never cared about your family estate and your daughters are living or are going to live with their husbands anyway. If we pack our bags quietly and sell the fields in secret, piece by piece, preferably to foreigners so the word doesn't spread too quickly in Arkansia, we can get out of the danger's way soon enough. Your daughters we can take with us when the time is right, ask them to visit and then just have them stay permanently. If we do that when the situation in Arkansia is bad enough then nobody will have time to look for them. If nothing else, this is the only route that leaves us with our dignity, if that counts for anything." Stefanos shrugged. "And, well, if master Anton would not be there anyway to tend the estate after the time has left you, may that be far in the future, who would there even be to look after your land and property?" Malkov lifted his right eyebrow, like being slightly surprised at something very obvious and mundane. "You, of course. Did you think that I haven't thought through this problem of succession that I have?" Now it was Stefanos's turn to be surprised, but much more so than his master had been. His cheeks started to redden like a small boy's. Malkov barely noticed, his mind focused on what the future would hold for him and his family. Leave? He had on some deep level ended up on the same solution as Stefanos had, but Malkov had needed somebody else to say it out loud for him. Another question was where should they go? It would need to be far enough to get out of the harm’s way and they would need to be subtle about the whole process. There was no immediate hurry, and he could take his time writing the reports. Anton's connections possibly could prove valuable right now. Maybe the first thing he should do right away would be to leave for home to get things started and delegate the report writing to Stefanos at the last possible minute. Many practical problems waited for their solutions.

Malkov remembered the old academic debate about the effect of the great figures in history versus the structures of societies determining how the events unfold. Gustav had truly been something great, a statesman sparsely seen on the stage of the world. It had been so easy to believe in the first theory when he had been around but now, after he had been gone, Malkov realized that he was starting to learn much more on the second one. Gustav had been able to do what he had done because the time had been right and he had been able to see it, but if there had not been anything to see, what could have he done, despite his brilliance? It somehow felt that the stupidity of the generation after him was also part of those societal structures, an inevitable consequence of hubris from success, people who had not been able to taste victory before collectively becoming too drunk to think straight, destined to lose their way. Malkov thought that it was like a beggar receiving a fortune and him spending it away, but the more apt comparison would have been giving a huge loan to a beggar, not actual wealth. These thoughts made Malkov's ego hurt, like it had sometimes aches when he had served under Gustav, always beneath a superior man, but Gustav didn't now seem to have been any better off if his achievements were so readily eating themselves inside out. Malkov had been in a key position, an active agent in almost everything relating to true power, his ambition truly fed, but little had that all meant now that he was sitting in this tent midst the foul air of poison. He wasn't that old, his body still possessing vigor despite the war wounds, but his spirit was now old. At the end of the day the only thing he had gathered was money, and Anton had already done the same thing without any pretense of a higher cause or glory. The idea of running away and setting up somewhere new wasn't that bad to him, not even unpleasant, but his life spent trying to set up a ghost of an empire gnawed at him. An august pursuit turned hollow, an endgame foiled.

At least Anton would be happy.