Herald of Steel

Camius was in fact much happier with what his new job entitled, as he much enjoyed snooping around and collecting intel than leading the city guards, which would likely be monotonous and involve more paperwork.

‘God, I hate paperwork,’ Camius ruefully remarked.

While Camius assumed he had escaped the dredges of paperwork, Alexander filled his spymaster on his duty.

“The NIA will start with fifty men. And you have till tomorrow evening to recruit them.” Alexander gave Camius a deadline.

“Okay, that’s easy,” Camius certainly knew fifty competent men he could turn to decent spies.

“Choose carefully. You will have to train and turn these people into spies that serve our interests. So they must be competent and loyal, not just people you get along with well,” Alexander warned the man about his cavalier attitude.

“…I will take notice,” Camius sobered up a bit after Alexander’s warning and slowly nodded.

“Umm, I trust in your ability,” Alexander said taking a sip of the wine.

And then he gave the NIA’s first task, “Tomorrow night you will lead an attack on the temple and…..well you understand,”

Alexander didn’t bother speaking the whole thing out.

“That…okay,” Camius seemed like he wanted to say something but ultimately swallowed it.

But Alexander was interested to hear what he had to say and urged, “Say it. Say what you were going to say.”

“It’s nothing. I had a question and found the answer myself,” Camius shrugged his shoulders.

“Okay, then. Perform it well and I will officially declare you as a shordar (Baron),” Alexander flashed a smile at Camius.

This naturally motivated the former street tout and pickpocket, who kneeled and vowed, “I swear to serve you with my heart and soul,”

“Haha, get up, get up. There’s no need for such formalities among friends,” Alexander chortled and gestured for Camius to return to his lunch.

Then he started, “The existence of the NIA will not be known to outsiders. Officially you will be the deputy chief of the police force. Unofficially you will lead the NIA and be my eyes and ears,” Alexander gave Camius his cover story.

“Deputy… of the police force?” Camius repeated the name of his new post, thinking about who will be the chief then.

After all, if he had a superior, that person would want to know where his immediate sub-ordinate was, which could be problematic. 𝗼𝘃𝗹.𝗼𝐫𝗴

Alexander had already thought of that and gave Camius his answer, “The Police Force will be led by Cambyses, with Bartholomew as her right-hand man. So, one will question your absence.”

“Me?” Cambyses yelped in astonishment before anyone could say anything.

She was feeling a bit let down after losing to Ophenia on the priestess position and so Alexander’s announcement came as a bit of a shock to her.

She had assumed Alexander wanted her in the house to manage his harem, but that didn’t seem to be the case.

“Yes, you,” Alexander confirmed, adding, “Originally I wanted you to be the chief judge. But from today, you will lead the new city guards- the Police Force. And not only the Zanzan police force, once we expand our territory, all our police force in all our cities!”

Cambyses was a bit taken aback at the amount of promised power and stared at Alexander a bit goggle-eyed.

Even by her lowest estimates, just Zanzan would have a hundred men, and likely much more.

Multiplying that with more cities that she had no doubt they would conquer, she estimated she could wield a small army.

This realization wiped away the small dissatisfaction she had with Alexander’s appointment and she sent a coy smile toward Alexander.

‘I will reward you later,’ Her mirthful eyes seemed to say.

“Congratulations sister. I have no doubt our lands will be the safest in all of Adhania under your command,” Ophenia was the first to chirp her goodwill.

“Haha, Your Grace, please go easy on this poor sub-ordinate,” Camius chuckled a joke about his official posting.

“Hehe, but Shordar Camius, as my deputy I need you 24/7,” Cambyses too joined in on the fun with a light smirk.

“It’s good that all of you are eager,” Alexander smiled.

Then ordered, “Cam, have Bartholomew pick two hundred good, obedient men from my mercenary group. After tomorrow Camius does his thing, you will need to lead these men the morning after to capture all the gangs in the city.”

“Okay,” Cambyses succinctly replied.

After Cambyses finished, Ophenia spoke the words that were in all three’s minds, “Master, what to do with the temple after its priests are kil…gone?”

This was a dilemma, which was why he opposed doing any harm to the priests when Theocles eluded to it.

But the situation had changed now and Alexander managed to come up with a patched solution, “Until replacement priests can be found, the temple will be run by volunteers and led by the saintesses Azira and Azura.”

“This…but the princesses have been excommunicated..that’s..” Ophenia was hesitating to openly say the exact word, as it would make his master look bad for suggesting it.

And that exact word was- blasphemy.

Letting anyone who’s been excommunicated into the temple, let alone have them lead it was blasphemy.

And Alexander knew this, which is why he hadn’t thought of it before.

But hard times called for hard choices.

“If they have been excommunicated, they can be un-excommunicated,” Alexander waved his hand to blow away Ophenia’s concerns.

And added, “These people don’t know that they have been excommunicated. And they don’t need to. They will be told that the saintesses have come to Zanzan to preach and that’s that.”

Alexander finished the sentence with an air of finality to it and Ophenia could only nod and agree.

But not everyone was meek like the blonde bombshell.

Like Cambyses, who loudly voiced her concern, “Even if we decided to reappoint the twins as priestess without Ptolomy’s knowledge, will Azira and Azura agree? They seemed to be pretty sticklers for the rules, especially the religious ones.”

This was a concern for Alexander as well, which is why he didn’t want to do this.

Even if he could reinstate them into the temple, the amount of time he would need to write a letter, sent it to Ptolomy, and get a reply would have been too long, much longer than the two days time limit of Camius.

And Alexander didn’t want to wait for a second longer to stomp out the snake that was already spewing its venom.

“I will convince them….somehow,” Alexander said slowly, his sentence lacking the same level of confidence and strength that it would usually have.

“Well, anyway, we will do it when we do it,” Alexander then instantly perked up, not bothering to wreck his head with anxiety, and changed the topic.

“Camius, do you remember the information you read about Zanzan?” Alexander asked.

“Yes, according to the records in the royal library, there are four major cities around Zanzan, ruled by their individual nobles.” Camius quickly endeavored to answer the question.

“To the north is the nearest city, Jabel, about thirty kilometers from us and ruled by Talukder (Viscount) Kisham. It’s a small city, less than ten thousand, and that was before the drought. I talked to some of the natives and they say that now it might not even have two thousand inhabitants,” Camius flaunted his homework.

And it worked as Alexander was pleased by this additional information.

Camius then continued, “East to us lies a lot of farmland, marshes, and forest. There are a lot of scattered villages, hamlets, and small manors and towns. that’s all Pasha Muazz’s personal lands, i.e- all ours. We don’t know exactly who’s in charge of them but I can do it in a week. The nearest city west is Bashana, two hundred kilometers away and ruled by Matbar (Marquiss) Uhmek.”

“And last of all, there are two large cities to the west, one northwest about seventy kilometers, called Harki, under a Jamider (Earl) Yuusiq and another a bit south, eighty kilometers from us called Kquem, also under a Jamider(Earl) Tikba.” Camius finally stopped reciting his memorization.

“Umm, good,” Alexander was pleased with Camius’s display of mental acuity, a vital skill for any spy.

Then gave him his medium-term goal, “I want you to find everything about these places. Their population, their defenses, their army, their trade produces, their alliances, everything,”

“Yes, pasha,” Camius easily accepted.

“Umm, okay, that’s it for now I guess,” Alexander slowly stood up from his chair, announcing the end of the meeting.

And along with his rise, the others did too.

“Cam, you go to Bartholomew and start recruiting,” Alexander handed out some last-minute orders.

“Okay, see you later then,” Cambyses then waved and simply turned and headed towards the barracks.

“Camius, you start too,” Alexander dismissed his spymaster.

“Umm, look forward to tomorrow,” Camius promised.

“And Tayin, come with me so I can show you the prayer and ablution rituals” Alexander gestured Ophenia towards the house.

“Yes, master,” The girl followed.