Chapter 33: Eyes of the convoy

After that incident in the tavern, I need to know the root cause of those fanatics.

Dagger and gun, staff and bag of coins, these are my weapons against them.

Dagger, simple and direct, is the best tool to reap some pests. Gun is the fear monger. Staff is to block or capture. Coins are the way to buy information from other mouths.

I don't need to tell this to Alira because she doesn't support nor against this group. I am sure she will understand after I show their heads on spike, hang their limbs on the gallows and let one barely alive bleed profusely to death under the scorching sun. The scene seems to satisfy my anger. Jarek doesn't care about these fanatics but Hiwan and Dasmuth do. After all, if this is a show, then Jarek would love to flaunt all the corpses for the spectators.

"Old man, what makes you bring those weapons?" Alira just happens to pass by

"I need to clean up"

"Count me out of this"

"This is my personal grudge. You don't need to take part"

"Remember not to hang those mutilated corpses at the gallows please. I don't want to witness them at all. Just please dump all of them into the sewer like assassins do"

"Can't promise you that"

"Whatever" She leaves the scene with her spear in her hand.

****

At night, I stalk a certain member of the fanatical group. My appearance is now another human being that is not recognizable by others in this town. I stalk him until he is at the place.

Church.

It is supposed to be the place where every life is equal but ironic. He is going down under.

A secret lair where many fanatics gather. I take my chance to go beneath.

"Those lowly non humans are getting more and more influencing on our kingdom" An elderly voice

"We, humans, are better than those things. Why should we be at peace with them?" Another murky voice

"Tonight, we are discussing how we are going to capture that drake king and make them all obey to our orders to wage war on other low lives. Drakes are very powerful beings that can help our cause to wipe those non-human. Once we are done, we clear the drake problem and the entire Rethanal continent is ours then this world beyond the sea"

Quite an interesting plan there but I must admit that is a foolish dream. If their king is captured, the prince shall lead the rescue and this kingdom might be in trouble. I don't mind this plan. Let them do their foolish work then. But for now, I don't think a small vendetta can do damage. Perhaps, I should drop them a hint. A better plan for my bigger scheme to bring this Nortus down to ruin and set these fanatics on loose.

I shoot my gun to the ceiling.

A big bang can be heard.

"Who is there?"

"Well, I am just being here curious and heard a bit of your plan."

"Haiz, you are just a stranger not from here. What can you do for us?"

"A bit of secret I heard from those drakes you planning to do something"

"We are all ears"

"If you just capture the drake king, they would hunt you down until the last of your men along with the royal. However, if you happen to keep their most important child, wouldn't that be better?"

"Make sense"

"God speed"

If they capture the prince, then I secretly kill the prince and send his head to the drake king with a taunting message along with the writing of the current head of the Nortus knights. Then the king of Nortus shall execute the head of the knights first, then he has to deal with the rage of the drake king in the distant future. After all, a drake king is patient and deadlier than normal drakes. He will strike the whole human kingdom down to rubble if he sees the chance.

I leave the church. I use my money to buy out some mouths to spin rumours. Eventually, the head of the knight will be pressured to go to the border where he may have some pressure with drakes sentries.

The plan is forming. When the drake king arrives at the capital with his Flame Guards, an elite royal army of top tier drake warriors, the negotiation is going to be very stressful. Along there is a prince of drake who is the drake king's favorite son and the heir. The prince is Gashaw Hodus, a young energetic sky drake who is a born genius of spear fighter.

From what I know, this prince can single handedly take down a human bataliation in any terrain, even if the terrain is bad for him. The weakness of the drakes is their own strength, their size. If one can manage to shove enough sleeping substance, a drake can be captured.

****

I am learning the writing of that head of the knights, Walner Tafar. His writing is quite unique. When he is angry or in a bad mood, he tends to make quite deep marks on the paper, usually darker ink. When he wants to taunt someone, he tends to write very slow and it is quite visible to me that he makes the letters bigger because the ink tends to spread on slower writing. It sparks me some curiosity. Why bother changing the speed of writing when you can write as many drafts as you like? Perhaps, he wants to show off his intellect by consistently writing and using almost no draft. A clever way to boost morale of the soldiers at the front.

The way that I obtain such writing is through looking at his announcement in the past.

I forge a taunting letter with his way of writing and the way he would write to taunt the enemy. Walner is also a close tie to human fanatics but many others besides humans don't know this. It is easy to frame someone for killing a royal or sparking a war.

****

At night, as I expected. There are many figures moving in shadows, I feel their eyes are on the convoy. First stop for drakes to the human capital is Nakitel. It is expected to be less tension between drakes and humans. I stand in front of the prince's eyes to catch his attention.

He notices something is wrong and attempts to hunt me down.

I try to lure him somewhere empty and far enough.

Moments later, I see the fanatic capture him in a flash. I follow them, they must have some guards

****

Under the church as usual, they put where the prince is. More than twice the human size, he is being carried by few people. I use sleeping gas that I had traded from desert elves. It is quite effective for normal being. They are all asleep now.

I seize the chance, decapitate the prince and finally, memory alter scrolls from those black robes who gave me a few weeks earlier as a payback for my favor.

Initially, I planned to use these scrolls to alter some memories of those fanatic survivors.

But this would be more effective when they can only tell that Walner killed the prince instead of not knowing who.

****

Days later, Walner Tafar is being escorted to the capital for the trial. Now, the drake is in rage that humans dare to let this such fanatic group exist without being punished. Not only that, the drake king is going full war against humanity. Other races than humans, they will not stay at the capital any more. Some villages and towns are paving paths for drake army to march in.

Now, I will make things more chaotic than before. The body of Slived that I control revolts to rally some rebellion for the fourth prince of Nortus. It is time for a bit of chaos time for Nortus. People are smuggling weapons and guards are glaring at each others as they doubt who is the rebel and who is loyal to the crown.

I want to make a cup of tea and take a sip for the dawn of chaos time.