Chapter 92: Formulating A Plan

"So, what is the plan?" Lee asked.

The fire on which our calfeeth meat was cooking popped, throwing a scatter of sparks into the dark. Nobody answered right away.

Sera was the first to speak.

"We only have one option." Her voice was flat, the way it got when she had already decided. "We submit to Culex and make his hundred and fifty men part of our army. Then we start a war. When both sides are burning, we use his Pentagram and walk away."

I turned it over in my head. It was clean. It was efficient. It would probably even work.

But it also had one enormous problem.

’Sacrifice.’

I pictured a hundred and fifty frightened men and women marched into a slaughter, not for a cause, but so that five people could slip out the back door.

"Isn’t that kind of evil?" I asked.

Sera turned her head slowly. One eyebrow twitched, then the other.

"If you have a better plan, I am all ears."

I opened my mouth, then closed it.

’A trap. A well-made one.’ ℴ

I had nothing yet. So I let the question sink and followed a different thread, one that had been nagging me since we arrived.

’We only need to kill one beast a day to live here. That is hardly a problem for us. We would have to eat anyway. Which raises another question...’

I looked at Lee. He was staring into the flames.

"If you can kill a beast every day, why not just work under Culex?" I asked. "He would give you shelter too."

Lee let out a short, humorless breath.

"First," he said, lifting a finger, "I only hunt once every two days, and usually it is just a Feral creature. I can kill Beast level unorthodox creatures, but they travel in groups. One mistake and I am the meal.

"Second, I refuse to be a slave.

"Third, if I went near his temple, or even within sight of his men, they would kill me without a second thought."

’Fair enough.’

Painfully fair. But it gave me something. Lee was not the only one trapped by Culex’s rule. He was simply the one brave enough to say no.

I closed my eyes and laid out what I knew, piece by piece, the way I would sort loose stones before building a wall.

’One. Culex has almost a hundred and fifty followers. Two. They do not follow him out of loyalty. They follow him out of fear. Three. Sera’s plan only works if we become his men, and then it only works if those men die.’

I frowned.

’But a ruler who survives on fear has a weakness. Fear is not loyalty. It does not hold when a bigger fear shows up.’

I opened my eyes.

"Sera. Why do those men obey Culex?"

She frowned. "Because he will kill them if they do not."

"Exactly. Which means every one of them is obeying a threat, not a person. If a stronger threat stands in front of them, where does that obedience go?"

Her eyes narrowed. "Toward whoever scares them most?"

"Right. So here is what we do. We do not submit to Culex. We make those hundred and fifty fear us more than they fear him."

Theodore blinked. "How? We are five people."

"We do not need to be strong. We only need to look like more than we are." I picked up a twig and drew a line in the dirt. "First, we strike the ones who patrol and hunt alone, the weak-willed ones who run at the first sign of danger. We take nothing. We kill nothing we do not have to. We leave them alive, frightened, and talking."

"Why leave them alive?" Arthur asked.

"Because a dead man tells no stories, and a frightened one tells them to everyone." I drew a second line. "And we make sure the story is the right one. That a group from the Twilight Order is in this area. Not a high level team, but many of them."

Sera’s eyebrow rose. "Why not high level? That would terrify him more."

"It would terrify him into doing something drastic. If he believes a powerful team is here, he locks the temple, gathers every man, and waits. We cannot get past that." I tapped the twig against the ground. "But a large group of low level members is different. That is not a threat to fear. It is an insult to crush. Culex is proud. A man who rules by terror cannot afford to be seen hiding from weaklings."

Lee’s eyes sharpened. "So he sends his captains."

"Exactly! Not his frightened workers, who would rather run than fight. Not himself, because he would never risk it over a rumor. His captains. The people he trusts to do his killing."

I looked around the fire.

"And that is exactly who we want. Because when his captains come for us, we will not be where he thinks we would be. Rather, we would be in his temple or palace or whatever yoy may call it."

"Infiltartion?" Theodore said.

I did not answer his question because that was stupid as hell.

The fire crackled.

"At that moment, we are actually inside his palace."

Nobody moved.

"And the hundred and fifty?" Sera asked quietly. She was leaning forward now.

"By then, they will have heard the stories for days. They will look at us and see the thing that frightened them. But they will also see that Culex, the man who has held them down for months, had to send his best to bring us in, and still needed a full escort to do it." I smiled faintly. "Fear is a strange thing. Once people see it can be shaken, it breaks. They will still fear us, but they will hate him more. And all of them will share one target."

I let the name hang in the air.

"Culex."

"Now, I know this plan has holes," I said, rubbing the back of my neck. "It could fall apart if someone panics, or if he is stronger than we expect. That is why we keep the Pentagram in mind as our exit, and why we do this carefully. But it costs us risk, not a hundred and fifty lives. And if we burn them to keep ourselves safe, what is the difference between us and him?"

Sera stared at me.

I could see the argument forming behind her eyes, sharp and ready. She had an answer. She always had an answer.

Then she let it go. Her arms dropped, and she gave the smallest, most reluctant nod.

"...Fine. It is not stupid."

Coming from her, that was practically a standing ovation.

Arthur grinned so widely I thought his face might split. Theodore nodded once, firm and satisfied. Even Lee, who trusted nothing and no one, looked at me with something that was not quite doubt.

I turned to him.

"Lee. Do you know where the guys go? The ones who get scared easily, and whose stories will spread fastest?"

He did not hesitate.

"I do."

He stood, and the firelight threw his shadow long across the stones, stretching toward the dark where Culex’s temple waited.

"Then we do this," I said, getting to my feet, "as soon as possible."

Somewhere far away, inside a temple that believed itself untouchable, a king who fed on fear had no idea that the fear was about to turn around and look back at him.