K'rar was in his den with his cell, now 41 of them. They had recently arrived, with Tahwan the giant. They had expertly smuggled him in by laying him down flat on open wagons and covering him with lots of things. They had themselves got into the city with the simple disguise of loggers, traders. Of course, K'rar had kept him hidden from the populace, as he wanted to employ him as a surprise, so while all Tahwan's human comrades had visited the city, he had stayed put at the safe house.
As he read through the correspondence a falcon had just delivered from Moon Province, K'rar was with only a few of his knights in the parlor, who were discussing their adventures in the city. In just three days, Bartle Frere's battalion had successfully shredded Goldoran armies in Moon Province and liberated the kingdom, the letter said. Bartle Frere had himself met with King Elkaan of Province and informed him of K'rar's existence. But the reoccupation of the captured lands by Moon Province had been stalled in order to successfully continue the cutting off of all correspondence to Goldora, so Tao still knew absolutely nothing of what was happening to his armies in Moon Province. This would have been impossible if the population had been allowed to leave Aquillah and return to their homes. The letter also included the details of how exactly they had swarmed all over the Goldorans like an infestation of locusts. The decisive move had been a brilliant show of deception.
The Goldorans had figured that they were under attack on the second day, but Bartle Frere had already planned for this. He had then employed a trick from K'rar's playbook, by planting in a field an empty camp of just tents and fires. With this, he had managed to completely fool the Goldorans, who had taken the bait and prepared to attack the sleeping camp. Bartle Frere had then massacred more than 8,000 men by surrounding them in a pocket and bombarding them, killing any who tried to get away. But there was even an icing on the cake. They had captured the one called Amavi, whose identity as a Goldoran prince was made known to them, and had kept him alive. This was not according to the instruction, which was to exterminate all Goldoran soldiers and spare only the civilians. Bartle Frere had kept him alive upon considering that perhaps he would be useful to K'rar in the next phase.
K'rar set down that letter and then opened another one, while Shaniz took the first one. The second letter was from the Behemoths at Tyrne. Today was the second night of their presence there, and Tao had, as predicted, been incredulous and stubborn, even though his son was in critical condition. Goldoran denizens in the port of Tyrne, who knew of the prince's condition, had thrown projectiles at the ships in protest, and were showing signs of turning that into a skirmish. Of course, the ships were secure. However, it had also been observed that there was heavy troop deployment along the walls of Tyrne and in the port, so perhaps Tao had believed the part of the ultimatum he got that involved flattening Tyrne, but he had rubbished the talk of K'rar's being alive, obviously.
'We sail for Tyrne tonight,' K'rar said, rising, as soon as he finished perusing through the second letter, 'but now it's time to clean out a rat's nest.'
The rat's nest K'rar meant was the group calling themselves the Children that was responsible for the circulation of counterfeits. His plan to surveil them had succeeded, but he had held back from shutting them down because he had discovered that the so called Children were more than just a string of disruptive Goldorans. They were an organized cabal of wealthy Goldorans with the objective to cause as much distress in Chaldea as possible, and this wasn't limited to economic disruption. The Children could also use violence when needed. K'rar had decided to collect more extensive intelligence about them, and had unearthed shocking truths. The foremost of these truths was that the Patriarch, their leader, was the Minister of Goldoran Affairs. The Patriarch was such a mysterious figure, K'rar learned, that only about two or three of his "Children" actually knew his identity. He was a shadow to the government too. According to Yorgi, who had turned government informant for K'rar, the government had failed miserably every time they tried to identify or capture him, for obvious reasons. The Patriarch met with his cabal occasionally, but was always shrouded behind a mask.
K'rar was proud of himself and his knights for their excellent work in identifying him. They were manifesting their ability to behave as more than just soldiers. His surveillance operation had achieved what Garrera had failed in many years, and had been so successful that K'rar even knew when Minister Sentien went to take a shit or when he sneezed. He knew all the top officials that the Children controlled, whether by assimilation or by threats and intimidation. These, such as Garrera's Minister for Security in Chaldea, had led him to the Patriarch. The Minister for Trade and the Treasury, Ishkeniaz, had also been of help even though he knew nothing of it. The knights had recently saved him from an assassination attempt by the Children in the same circumstances as they had saved a citizen from Yorgi's gang. When they had asked him, disguised simply as good Samaritans who had saved his neck, Ishkeniaz gladly mentioned the Minister for Goldoran Affairs among the many suspects. They had then asked why, and Ishkeniaz had explained that he had moved the king, Garrera, to remove the tax cuts that Goldoran businessmen had been enjoying. This move, according to Ishkeniaz, had pitched him head first into a full-blown conflict with Sentien, worsening the already delicate relationship between them. Then K'rar had asked when this decision had been made, and found that it was the day before counterfeits were first reported in the markets. K'rar had immediately turned all his might on Sentien, and confirmed his fears.
He assembled his entire team in the hall, including Yorgi. Yorgi had to be present at such meetings so that he could tell how any decisions made by K'rar related to any government decisions and policies. K'rar had thus dropped the idea to pretend that Yorgi had died in the fire. Instead, the dead one was Maldab's son, Mensha'ad, whom K'rar was keeping as prisoner here for future use. Yorgi's role was important, and K'rar had vetted him as someone he could rely on. He had however had to allow him continue his job as head of the Iron Whippers under Lankh, so K'rar had allowed that gang's unacceptable activities to temporarily continue. He considered it collateral damage for the greater good. Yorgi easily obtained information because he was free to even attend some of the meetings held in the palace, as he was Lankh's understudy. Yorgi's first job had been to make a shortlist of Garrera's most loyal dogs and to show K'rar's knights the location of their residences in the capital. Yorgi had also helped in throwing the scent off K'rar's cell as the perpetrators of the destruction of the house on Abishec rivulet. Yorgi had told Lankh that the Children had taken responsibility for that action, by specifically mentioning it to him during the attack. It was easy to use the recent tax situation as motive. Nonetheless, K'rar's cell was still being hunted by Lankh for the seditious banners planted in the city. That had of course been fruitless, and Lankh had resorted to making mass indiscriminate arrests, for example the owners or occupants of the buildings on which K'rar's knights had plastered the seditious messages. K'rar had not showed up physically again in the city since, but he knew that the seeds of his actions were already sprouting, especially the seed he had planted with the seamstress. The whole city was now seriously contemplating the slightest possibility that he was still alive, and was on the lookout for him. The seamstress and many other witnesses, many of whom had already been arrested, had told friends of her encounter with a young man who called himself K'rar von Caspar, the same young man who had helped to flush out the city's counterfeit currency, by selling grain and meat for counterfeit, on the same day that that young man had asked her to find paintings of the boy K'rar von Caspar. Now, K'rar had learned from his contacts, there was an unprecedented circulation of paintings of K'rar's 13 or 14-year-old self, including many duplicated ones. The seamstress and her friends had caused this new city obsession to find him, having cracked, correctly, the meaning of K'rar's words "The Sea Gave Up Its Dead". The Sea, where K'rar had died, had given him up, and he was thus back again, alive and kicking. Now, K'rar would instantly be recognized if he showed up in the city, so even on the second day he had promised to return and exchange counterfeit directly, K'rar had stayed away and instead sent Shaniz and two others, who struggled to say nothing of him. Besides, Lankh also now knew of these words, and it had become extremely important to catch K'rar, whom Garrera obviously considered just a troublesome, but also very dangerous rebel. As he had hoped, the Children had fallen into his trap and brought large amounts of counterfeit for exchange, to trigger K'rar's massive surveillance operation. This late afternoon, K'rar would show his face, briefly. He was saying to his cell in the hall,
'Operation Dagon has been moved up. We will execute it today, right now.' The Dagon operation was the plan to attack, and punish, the Children. A large section of them was based in the new Goldoran Temple of Dagon, including some of their operational leaders. K'rar went on, 'those I assigned to dig into the palace tunnel, on your feet.'
The knights were sitting down on the ground on mats, including Yorgi and Kanga. So twelve knights arose and stood on their feet upon that command.
'What are your instructions?' K'rar asked the leader of that operation, one of the recent arrivals called Franzian, a gunner in Milshkin's Artillery Division.
'To block the tunnel, sir,' came the reply.
'Start work early tomorrow. At ease,' the knight acknowledged, and then he and his team resumed their positions on the ground. K'rar went on,
'Kanga, you will also execute your instructions early. Go now.'
'Yes, sire,' said Kanga, rising from his mat to leave immediately. Kanga was the only one who didn't address K'rar as Commandant or sir, because K'rar was neither of those things to him, but was first and foremost, the king. Once he left, K'rar went on,
'We have a 30-man hit list. Fifteen will die today, including the minister, and we can give the rest to Garrera as a gift.'
They would indeed be a gift to the government, to Garrera, even temporarily as K'rar stalled his ultimate plan to overthrow him. K'rar was himself wanted of course, but he was also serving Garrera's interests to some extent, for instance with the counterfeit operation. The prices of things, though, had not dropped as he had hoped. They had fallen only by a negligible amount. Kanga had explained that although removing the counterfeits was in the long run beneficial, K'rar's exchanged real money had simply replaced the counterfeits, but had not reduced circulation of money whether real or fake, so the prices had remained unchanged. K'rar had then smiled at himself for lacking in economics.
The day's operation was also meant to reimburse the money he had given to the Children's operatives in exchange for the counterfeits, and K'rar knew that much of it was hidden at Minister Sentien's estate.
To launch the operation, K'rar divided his cell into smaller units, because it involved simultaneous attacks on more than one location. Apart from the temple, K'rar was to attack at least five other locations, including three brothels and the minister's home. The largest subdivision was assigned to the temple, and this one would also raid the minister's home. K'rar led this group himself.
They were 38 when they left the gates of K'rar's house on horseback. They were all arrayed for battle in full uniform, something bound to excite Chaldea. They would attract no attention at first near the home base, because it was a quiet suburb neighborhood, hidden away from the buzz, so they could get away easily, even on horses. In about four minutes they were descending into the first relatively dense section. Chaldea was prepping for the upcoming Festival, due in just days, and was now more congested than usual. So the horses rushing through at full pelt, mounted by these particular horsemen, would certainly draw more than the usual attention, but K'rar's plan involved exactly this. The moment the knights burst into the open, only a few people needed to see them to alert anyone in possession of K'rar's painting, so that everywhere in the city, someone was ready to try and be first person to confirm that the boy in the picture and the enigmatic rich young man who had been in the market a few days prior were the same person, the King, K'rar von Caspar. It was easy to join the dots in the same manner as the merchant Langerak had done, by estimating that this K'rar was exactly the age that the K'rar in the picture would be if he had lived.
But someone else would also be ready for K'rar with more malign intentions: Lankh. He had put all the authorities in Chaldea on alert, including two squads of Goldoran soldiers. Lankh knew that K'rar's impersonator, that is, K'rar himself, had with him a highly trained gang of fighters. There was both living and dead proof of this from the night of the prison break, by way of injured or dead prison guards, and a number of Iron Whippers whom K'rar's cell had injured on the same night.
Lankh, meanwhile, was himself at the palace with Garrera, about to discover something shocking. He was just explaining to Garrera how he was currently interrogating some of his prisoners from the city concerning the whereabouts of the new rabble-rouser, when a palace guard opened the door of the throne room and let in the chief palace physician, Gavril. Lankh was just completing a sentence involving charging the prisoners with inciting rebellion, something that could lead to the gallows. When Gavril walked in and stood at the end of the hall, Lankh beckoned him forward, and Garrera asked him,
'What is it, Gavril?'
'The prisons officer I was charged to diagnose, my lord. He has regained his speech, and he wants an audience with my lord.'
It was the officer whom Hazael had poisoned on the night of the prison break. It had been intended merely as a show of the cell's various methods, to frighten K'rar's enemies. But there had been no expectation that the man would end up in the palace. Even Garrera had forgotten all about him.
'What prisons officer?' he was saying.
'My lord,' said Gavril, 'the man whom Superintendent Duda brought the other day. You asked me to take care of him.'
Suddenly an opportunity for more concrete intelligence about the boy king's impersonators had just appeared. Lankh and Garrera stared at each other.
'Well what are you standing there for? Bring him here now,' Lankh said.
'My lord. He is still unable to move himself. He only regained his speech.'
Lankh stepped away from Garrera to go to the man himself. On the way he asked Gavril,
'What was wrong with him?'
'I still don't know, sir. We only gave him some potions to calm him down, and they worked. But we know nothing of what he was forced to drink. Seems like an exotic poison.'
'He looked like shit when he came.'
'He did. I thought he would die. But he says the breakers said that the poison wouldn't kill him, so it has only worn off since.
The man was sitting up on his bed in the infirmary leaning against the wall, where a maidservant was feeding him by shoving lumps of food into his mouth. He was completely wrapped in the bedcovers except his head. When Lankh and Gavril came in, everyone else left the room, and Lankh said immediately,
'I suppose what you want to say involves the rebels.'
The man swallowed a mound of food, and nodded,
'Yes my lord. I saw them, sir. They are not just royalist rebels, sir. It was the boy king, sir. He is alive.' The warden had learned from Lankh what the rebels were doing now and about the operation to catch them, so he knew that the working theory among security officials was that the gang was made up of simply disruptive individuals.
'That's why I came all this way to see you?' Lankh's face crumbled in anger, which happened more often than not.
'Sir, please. You must believe me. I saw him with my own eyes. The prisoners he was breaking out were his men. They knew him. They all immediately recognized him as K'rar von Caspar, swore their allegiance and bent their knee to him. This was before anyone said anything about the boy king.'
Lankh's complexion again transformed into that of a man who had just seen a spirit. The warden added,
'How likely is it that all three mistook him?'
'Not likely at all', said Lankh quickly. The three prisoners Ederin, Ossus and Pliny couldn't have mistaken someone else to be K'rar, even eleven years after his death. It was known that these prisoners had been K'rar's closest companions. They knew him inside-out. Why, even the Chaldeans would recognize the boy, and they might have.
'The sea gave up its dead,' Lankh said to himself, 'son of a bitch! That's what it means!' He was late, but the words made a lot more sense now. He said aloud to the warden, 'who was with him?'
'An entire unit, my lord. The one who poisoned me was a woman. He's got female fighters.'
The man had just conclusively proven that this was the same group that bought out counterfeits in the whole city. Just then, by an incredible stoke of coincidence, one of Lankh's men stormed into the infirmary and informed him that a group of military-clad individuals was currently carrying out a raid in the city. And they weren't Yorgi's Whippers. Lankh immediately stormed out, and once he gathered his men, a unit of Korazite soldiers from Major Alain's Royal Forces, raced down from the high steps of the palace onto the King's Road.
The whole city was out on the streets. Hundreds of them had amassed outside Minister Sentien's house like a human wave, and more were drifting there in droves. The gate had been forced open, but not by the crowd, because it stayed outside the minister's compound. Two guards had been downed, and replaced by their subjugators, the knights Damaris and Damaris. Lankh quickly asked someone what was going on, and he was told by the man nearest to him,
'The Children, those confounded counterfeiters! They have been found, and it turns out the Goldoran Minister is their leader. These new guys tracked him down in just days when you couldn't do it in years.'
The man's last words represented the greatest threat to Lankh and his master, and he knew it. Whereas it was true that this new gang had greatly helped Garrera's cause if they had indeed cracked down the Patriarch and the Children, they were not working for Garrera. They were in fact working against him, because they were led by the true king of Korazin, K'rar von Caspar, who would obviously set his sights on Garrera next. So whereas Lankh did not dare try and break up the party, he stuck around. He wanted to see K'rar von Caspar for himself if he was here, to confirm it himself.
K'rar was present. His knights had completed the raids on all the other locations. He had them bring to this estate all the Children that hadn't been killed or managed to escape, 21 of them. And, he had cornered Minister Sentien in his private chambers, but was still fighting off eight Goldoran soldiers in his security detail. He, with eleven knights, was facing them in the corridor in front of his bedroom door, and was issuing a last warning.
'Stand aside or die,' he was saying, 'we've surrounded the entire house, so act wisely, and step aside.'
They responded by doing the opposite, and lunging forward to attack. Before they even came near, the door they were defending opened when someone kicked it out, and all stopped to turn around. Suchy and Bekka had used the window of his private chambers to get in, and now Suchy had his knife by Sentien's neck, arresting from behind. He said to him,
'Tell them to lay down their arms. Tell them!'
Sentien's arms were also being held behind his back, so he gave this order by nodding. The men attempted to refuse, so K'rar's eleven knights launched, and shut down five men in an instant. The three remaining surrendered and threw their swords on the floor of the corridor. These were spared, but the knights put them to sleep anyway, and now K'rar was face to face with Minister Sentien, who, as soon as he was released from Suchy's grip, quickly said,
'Who are you? Who do you think you are, storming into my home and accusing me of this travesty?'
K'rar remained silent and let the man rant all he could. Sentien said all sorts of things, and ended with the threat,
'There are 2,000 Goldoran soldiers in this city. What do you think they'll do to your city if anything happens to me?'
K'rar proceeded to answer a few of the relevant questions and taunts, starting with the accusation that Sentien was the Patriarch. One of the knights behind him, as well as Bekka, flashed a few documents in the man's face. K'rar said,
'There is crippling evidence in these ledgers, Minister. You cannot hide anymore. As for your 2,000 Goldorans, well, they're welcome to try something stupid.' He pointed with his palm to the Goldoran soldiers already in the room with them, lying useless at his feet.
K'rar then took the man to the balcony on the second floor of the building, which overlooked a large assembly point in his compound, as well as the gate. The Goldoran minister was one of the few who lived within the crowded city bounds rather than the Minister's Villa where men and women of his feather lived. This residence had only been turned into one, but was previously some kind of administrative office. The balcony where K'rar took Minister Sentien to parade him before the populace had no parapet, and when they got there, the rest of the knights were already parading the rest of the Children there on their knees, some being held very close to the edge, and others bleeding. There was a good drop to the earth below, and if someone fell they were bound to break more than a few bones. K'rar waved to the two Damaris knights to allow the crowd in. They were more than eager to oblige, because each one of them wanted to see him. Almost all of them had looked at the painting, whether original or just a duplicate ink portrayal. The latter was in large supply, and even Lankh hadn't been able to stop its circulation. He also pushed through the crowd with eight of his men, but also as spectators. When K'rar took one of the incriminating ledgers in his hand and raised it, the excited crowd fell silent, and he began to speak.
'People of Korazin,' he said, 'your deliverance has approached!'
The crowd resumed their rapturous excitement instantly after these words, and then fell silent again. Then a band of Goldoran soldiers, led by General Kaputska, suddenly appeared on the scene, and pushed all the way through to the front, the only ones wearing very angry or very frightened looks. K'rar knew Kaputska. He remembered him vividly from Mahideen when he had tried to kill him. Now, Kaputska was the commander of the southerner battalions here in Chaldea, which was posing as a force under Garrera's command although it was clear that they were occupation forces, ready to strike at the command of his real master. Kaputska saw Lankh and his men, who were just watching, and he decided to confront them first.
'What are you doing? What is this?'
Lankh cast a look at the General, but said nothing. Unlike Kaputska, he recognized K'rar easily, and was so utterly shocked he hadn't said a single thing since setting his sights on him. But K'rar answered Kaputska's question for him,
'This man is responsible for a host of crimes for which he cannot be forgiven. This ledger documents the plans to disrupt our economy, and this one,' K'rar took another book, 'the names of the men who died opposing him. This man will die here, today.'
'Under what authority are you doing this?' Kaputska bellowed at the top of his voice.
K'rar dropped the hand holding the ledger. A few seconds of silence passed as he created the reply to the question, a reply that, he knew, was awaited by both Kaputska and the Chaldeans. He strode forward, stood right on the edge, and said,
'Do you not remember?' he was addressing Kaputska, 'eleven years ago, in the city of Mahideen. You knew that your puppet in the palace would not kill me. And you, General Kaputska, planned to do it for him. You were also there at Magherita. But alas, here I am. I am not like you or your king or your puppet. I will offer you a way out. You, and all your colonists. Your time here is over. Pack your bags and return to the savage land from whence you came, because I will not hide my hand any longer. If you comply, you will return safely.'
K'rar then drew his sword, placed its sharp end on Sentien's throat, and killed him. He then pushed his body, oozing with blood, over the edge. It dropped at Kaputska's feet as the crowd became even more restless. Kaputska was aghast, even terrified, as he stared down at the man's corpse. He had hoped that K'rar wouldn't be as crazy as that. The crowd once more fell silent, because K'rar had turned his attention to Lankh and his men,
'You! Ensure to tell your master too. I am coming for him.'
Even without expressly stating so, K'rar had effectively reintroduced himself to his Chaldean subjects. Not one of the soldiers or constables among the crowd was crazy enough to try and arrest him, and by the time K'rar and his knights left the scene, both Lankh and Kaputska and their men had not moved, and the crowd, following K'rar and his knights on horseback, had left them there in the compound.
Kaputska knew. He couldn't confirm that that was K'rar von Caspar, but he knew the terrible implications of the king being alive, as he had known all those years ago and tried to change that state of affairs. Before Lankh and his men could make their way out, Kaputska impeded them, and he and Lankh engaged in staring down each other until the former said,
'Is it him? Is it the boy?'
'Yes. It is him.'
'How could this happen?'
'It has happened.' Lankh was intentionally austere in his tone. He, too, considered the Goldorans in Korazin as occupiers, but necessary ones if he and his master were to keep a foothold in the palace. But worse than that, Kaputska's forces were suddenly more essential, because the native soldiers in Korazin, if invited, were extremely likely to pledge their allegiances to K'rar. But this was only if K'rar had his own army or managed to gather for himself men, and Lankh had seen no such armies, only less than 50 gang members, some of them females. So Kaputska's forces were not needed immediately, but Lankh wagered to himself that it was impossible that K'rar was attempting to seize back his throne with just 40 soldiers. There were more.
'You going to do something?'
'Like what?' Lankh said before the other General finished talking, 'you heard him. You're not needed here, and he's right. We are more than capable of dealing with him ourselves without your help. You have overstayed your welcome here.'
Kaputska scoffed and let out a mocking chortle.
'Have you suddenly gone insane?'
'Perhaps. But you heard him. He wants you gone, and don't think it will be him who will enforce that eviction. The city is riled up now, so if I were you Goldorans, I would be preparing to leave here before being slaughtered like pigs. But you're welcome to stay.'
K'rar left Shaniz in the city, leaving only with Bekka and Suchy. Shaniz's objective was simple. To seize the palace, with just the 40 knights. The plan for this was already drawn, though K'rar had now pushed it forward because of the afternoon's actions. Shaniz was by night, hours after K'rar's departure, revising the plan with the knights. The afternoon's raids had had three objectives, including simply to cripple the Children and reimburse K'rar's funds from his counterfeit operation. The third objective was indirect, but more important. K'rar knew that by revealing himself, Garrera would panic. He and many of his officials. He would begin making preparations to consolidate himself by force, or in the worst case scenario, to escape. The mission objective for Shaniz and her knights was to force them into doing the latter. Starting tonight, she would raid and kidnap as many Korah officials as possible who were loyal as dogs to Garrera, as well as other significant ministers. This alone would be enough to elevate the threat the knights posed, and to then push Garrera against the wall. In a panicked response, Garrera would try and make mass arrests and raids, but the chaos K'rar had created in the public would cripple those efforts. Then, Shaniz would unleash Tahwan the giant to raid and destroy Goldoran bases in the city, and with the public against them, hope to push them out of Korazin, but Shaniz was to rally the natives not to attack Goldoran civilians. Then Shaniz would use Chief Constable Mershak to try and turn the native Korazite troops in the city except those directly protecting the king. The final piece in the jigsaw was to attack the palace, still with only forty knights other than their prospective new allies, and Yorgi's Whippers, who were already on his side. To do this, Shaniz was to instigate a protest around the palace and distract its defenders from the real danger in the escape tunnel under the palace. The Guard Squadron would be preparing to fight off attackers on the ground above, while Shaniz actually approached from underground. Only Tahwan and a unit of birds would be deployed above ground. A hundred men couldn't keep out Tahwan even if they tried, much less if he was backed up by the raptors and by civilians.
'I suppose you cannot get lost in the city now, can you? Good,' Shaniz was saying, 'get the top officials first. Can't miss Ishkeniaz. Is everything understood?'
'Yes sir!' they said.
Now it was time to use the son of Chief Administrator Maldab, as a pawn in their first attack for the night. They baited him with false information by staging two knights to discuss a hit for the night. Then by leaving the door of his prison open, they made him think they were careless, and allowed him to sneak out of the room. Knowing he would find his father and get him to gather lots of men to hunt them, they lay in ambush for them along the road.
This operation worked like clockwork. They sat down on rooftops and dark corners, and when they did return, blazing with knives and swords and bows, the knights made light work of them, killing all including Mensha'ad. They then took their armor from them, returned to Maldab's own house, which was now lightly guarded. This estate was not Maldab's own home, but he spent the working day there before returning to his estate outside the city. Nonetheless, he was there when they arrived, slaughtered any remaining opposition, and took him away, but not before roughing him up.
In only one night, they successfully kidnapped four Korah members other than him, as well as three ministers including Ishkeniaz the Trade Minister.
General Garrera heard none of this shocking news until the next morning when he called an emergency meeting with selected officials, including Maldab, Superintendent Duda and Major Alain of the Royal Guard Squadron, and those others in the business of city safety. Also, Kishra attended this meeting. She was the one who first expressed anguish at Maldab's absence. They were meeting in a crypt on the ground floor, six men in all except Garrera and Kishra. All were uneasy and jittery, infected by Garrera's own bad mood. They weren't even drinking from their teacups. The air was tense, silent and fiendish, so the fact that Maldab was nowhere to be seen of all people, and that the meeting wouldn't begin without him, flustered Kishra, causing her to snap,
'Where is that old man? Must he be slothful on such a day as this?'
There was no answer from any of the men in her company, until a minute after her words, when the approach of stamping feet broke the silence. It was a man of Duda's, a constable, rushing frantically through the corridor adjacent to the crypt. He stopped in the door, with bad news all over his face, so when he bowed his respects and failed to speak, his master, Duda, snapped at him,
'What's the matter? Speak up!'
'Sir. The Chief Administrator is missing. Also Master Ishkeniaz and Lord Guido of Rahmul District. They did not return home by night, and they are not in their offices.'
Duda stood up,
'What are you hollering about? Can't a man spend a night outside his home?'
'Sir, they came under attack, is what I'm saying. Lord Maldab's men were found dead or injured on the street, and so too were Guido's guards.'
Everyone was confused, but not about the identity of the attackers. Garrera was furious. He smashed the table with his fist, and, hollering like a hyena, arose from his chair. As he did so, he threw the table before him, and some of his guards on the steps had to move out of its way.
'Alain, Duda,' he ordered, 'take all your men and scour every corner of this city. Check every alley, stall and pigsty until you find them. God help you if you do not!'
Yet, another man came running down the corridor, with the report that a total of nine officials were missing, including three other Korah members. He was also carrying a message that Shaniz had left in the home of two of the Korah members, which he placed in Duda's hands. The Superintendent's eyes almost popped out of his eyes. Garrera snorted,
'What? What does it say?'
Duda proceeded to read it aloud,
'Surrender early enough. If we have to pay you a visit, the blood spilled will be on your hands. No fortress can keep me out, and no number of men can keep me out of my own gates.'