Interlude:

Empires grow, or they wither. Fabi Ursa learned this first from her father, the grand strategist Vel Desticius Velius, general of the armies of the late great Emperor Clarus. Her childhood was spent at his side since before she could talk. She grew up in tents, compounds, palaces, wherever her father was as he marched and commanded armies in the Emperor's name across rivers and mountains, expanding the empire in all directions. He had her tutored in the wisdom of the greatest minds of history by teachers and scholars from every nation of the Empire. She learned to fight, bargain, debate and when she came of age, stood at his side.

Ursa watched the tears in his eyes as their beloved Emperor passed. That was the day that the Empire also died. Not at once, not by a catastrophic disaster or defeat. It was the kind of death you see when a man is broken, when the spirit dies before the body. The body would soon shrivel, consumed by atrophy before finally expiring altogether and being consumed by maggots. What made the Empire what it was, vanished the day his successor ascended.

The so-called Empress was the ruler now. Beloved for her generosity, her acceptance of outsiders, and her desire to make peace with the Empire’s enemies. Peace is the antithesis of what an Empire is by its very nature. Empires grow, or they wither. The Empress hadn’t marched with armies or sailed on the decks of conquering ships. She never felt the sacrifices of thousands that lived before her, forging the steel of the nation she now dared to lead. She only turned her back on their legacies. Ursa wondered if Empress Claudia Fidelis had the benefit of her upbringing; she would believe such twisted nonsense. The Empress was never taught the one lesson that she needed to have. Strength needs to be used, or it is lost.

Fabia Ursa no longer stood by the side of her father, but she executed his will, nonetheless. In the months that followed the Festival of Coronation, the misguided path the Empire was to take became clear; her father and those who served the Empire loyally could see where that path led. Maybe not this year or the next, but eventually, everything they had built would come crumbling down. Action had to be taken. Not the brash action of the sword but the subtle action of a scalpel. The Empire was falling asleep, its strength weakening before her very eyes, and it needed to be slapped before it succumbed to the spell. The best way to cure a patient of an illness is to raise the fever as high as possible without killing him. And if the patient was to die anyway, than the risk was negligible.

So, Fabia Ursa stood on the balcony of an inn in the border town of Adha, watching not a grand army of the Empire but a collection of thugs, killers, and mercenaries. Cage after cage of enslaved citizens rolled by, like a parade of misery. Each of these people, whom she had sworn an oath to protect, were being sent to a life of sorrow in the Kingdom of Brikru, one of the Empire’s greatest enemies.

The town was a staging area for the operation, the local residents having been shipped off months ago. The place was theirs, and anyone who wandered too close was also conveniently snatched up. They would gather captives from The Imperial Highway here, and then strip them of everything before sending them to the markets, where the life of an Imperial citizen went for a premium.

Ursa had learned to downgrade her expectations when dealing with the riffraff of mercenaries that she had to employ to meet her goals. Men who fought and died for something greater than themselves deserved respect, regardless of rank or even ability. Fighting for coin over country was still an acceptable goal, but she found her respect for them waning day after day.

She considered the fact that while these beasts with swords terrorized the citizens of The Empire, they were unwittingly fighting for the Empire’s future. Criminals or not. As useful as these ruffians were, they were not worthy to live in the new nation they were unwittingly building, and when the Empire was strong again, these would be the first necks on the block. She smiled silently to herself as she imagined the view of thousands of rolling heads, with the look of shock on their grizzled faces.

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Her time in the field with her father, and her time in the muck with these men, helped Ursa recognize that soldiers and criminals had the same basic needs, and, like her father, she would not begrudge them their brutal pleasures. The cries that came out of the tents at night were sounds that she was long used to, both from her time here, and in her time in the fields of conquest. Men who fight, have a cruelty about them. She knew to feed those demons, lest they take over. As a woman, she found it repulsive, but as an officer, and later, an employer, she allowed it and found that it kept the men focused when needed and distracted when they were listless.

“We lost one.”

Ursa didn’t turn to look at Wesley. The last of the carts was rolling by just as the sun was setting.

“Where?” she asked.

“Twin Boulder pass.”

“What happened.”

“When Kaeso came to the camp. He said that everyone was killed, stuffed in the carts and burned.”

Ursa raised her eyebrows; she would have loved to have seen that happen. “No big loss, we will have another group stake out the area before the end of Tenglin, then we will keep the harvest going.”

“Aren’t you worried about what happened?”

“What do you think happened?”

“Kaseo had captured a mage earlier. He forced him to reconstruct the events.”

“How did Kaseo force the mage to do that?”

“He had the mage’s daughter as a hostage.”

Ursa silently sighed. These brutes. These vicious creatures, she only wished she had the axe in hand to kill them all herself. “And what did he find out?”

“A single assassin killed nine in their sleep and slit the throats of two others. The rest fell by magic, arrows and mace.” Wesley stood next to her, looking at her with a worried look. “They were stripped naked, and all their possessions were seized. Do you think it was a rival gang?”

“No,” Ursa said, turning to go back inside. “They just captured the wrong people and paid the price.”

“What will we do about it?”

“Nothing.” Ursa said turning back to him. “If you’re stupid, you deserve to die.”

She entered the small suite she called home and poured herself a tall glass of wine before resting on the bed. It was lumpy, full of straw and not at all good. Anyone of her station would have brought one from home, but she and her father were used to living in camps and sleeping on cots and ground alike, the gift of toughness was something she appreciated from her upbringing.

The loss was not a big one. She knew this would happen from time to time. This was a criminal enterprise, but it was more than that. There were better ways to make money, but money was not the goal. The money was only necessary to keep the operation going as long as possible.

The real goal was fear. Citizens of the Empire needed to fear something. If the Imperial Highway was not safe, then trust in the Empress would wane. That trust is hard to get back when lost. The mere idea that agents of Kingdom of Brikru were openly taking people from deep in the Empire’s territory and enslaving them was unheard of just a few short years ago.

The Empire was weak. Kidnapping on the Imperial Highway was just the beginning. Her father and his allies were ready to unleash assaults on the realm that would expose every weakness their beloved Empress had allowed to fester. Those weaknesses will be pressed, boarders will be overrun, countries will mutiny, and the citizens will call for a new Emperor, one that knows how to command armies.

She sipped her wine and let her thoughts linger on what Wesley had said. Nine killed in their sleep, and two more with their throats slit. This was a detail she wanted to look into later. An assassin, someone who killed with cunning and calculated precision, was the kind of person that needed to be monitored, perhaps recruited.

Before she turned in for the evening, she called for a scribe.