Interns.

Lee's suffering ended sooner than expected. Most of the pain was alleviated the same evening when Alan smeared another stinky paste on his bottom. But when on the second day the expedition arrived at a mountainous area, the speed slowed down considerably and Lee's jumping in the saddle along with it.

The goal of the expedition was a town to the east of Sunwell, and it took them nine days to get there. Obviously the reason of deploying a whole cavalry regiment wasn't a simple visit to remote place like Elsdon.

According to the latest intelligence, an influential branch of The Hand of God, the religious rebel group Lee and his stepparents encountered in Maryport, was located there. General Strongheart volunteered to weed them out and unexpectedly, the place was the perfect spot to demonstrate his newly developed strategy.

The relatively large town was located next to a mountain, or rather – under a steep cliff, and it made the perfect target for a siege. General's idea was to get every last rebel residing there, and afterwards publicly hang them – half here and half in Sunwell. For that they would surround the place, and afterwards thoroughly comb, checking every street corner and outhouse.

To Lee the whole situation didn't make any sense. It was simply foolish for rebels to settle in a spot with no ways to retreat, but in the end he decided it was not his place to judge. He couldn't ask for people of this world to have his mindset of an ex-scammer.

Surprisingly, with how grand the expedition was, only a handful of people arrived at the cliff overlooking the town. Besides Lee's family there were the emperor, Farcry and his son, and Powel and his daughter.

Only now Lee realized why the other two members of the Imperial council tagged along. Powel, being the Minister of Works, besides the regular duties like construction and maintenance of roads and bridges, was responsible for overseeing the mining operations across the empire. And, looking at the town below, it became clear that the people generated large part of their income by working in the mines, several of which were actually dug into the cliff wall on top of which the group stood.

Clearly, mines alone were enough to make Elsdon an important place, but that wasn't all. The vast irrigated fields on the other side of the town fell under the supervision of Farcry, the Minister of Agriculture. It was amazing how rich the town turned out to be, and it was no wonder rebels had set their eyes on it.

"Alright! Looks like we have a bit of time." The Emperor slowly walked to the very edge of the cliff with hands behind his back, curiously looked down, and asked, "Your opinions, gentlemen?"

Further in the distance they could see that the town was already encircled by the cavalry, but the search hasn't began yet and the emperor was probably bored. Contrary to Lee's expectations, it was neither Powel nor Farcry who answered.

"Reporting to Your Imperial Majesty!" Hannah Powel slightly bowed, took out a small notebook, and read from it, "According to our data, the amount of mined iron ore has dropped by fifteen percent compared to last year. So far now we have discovered only one vein of silver in the region and have not mined it yet. The troubling part is the reduced amount of mined gold – it dropped almost by a half, to fifty four percent to be exact. This is what led us to believe there was a rebel branch here, and considering our losses and … ahem … well, their gains, it had to be considerably large. The moment we discovered this data, we informed Prime Minister Bates and … here we are."

"Good!" The Emperor nodded, but this was the first time Lee saw His Majesty's expression turn angry. His voice, however, remained still calm and friendly, but the flaring nostrils and clenched teeth showed he wasn't happy at all, "After we're done, you'll examine the documents we confiscate. I want to know how much resources they've acquired. Dale?"

"Reporting!" Dale Farcry stepped forth, and bowed like Hannah did earlier. He didn't need any notes though. He said, "The amount of grain brought with the last years tribute hasn't changed, but during the past ten years Elsdon has grown considerably."

Then he threw a quick smile at Hannah, and added, "The minister of agriculture lacks the hard evidence proving that rebels operate in this region, but there are subtle indications. We share the suspicions in our colleague's report and are ready to assist after the operation."

'So this is how it works!' Lee thought, 'The heirs are basically interns and practice under the watchful eyes of their parents! But the system shouldn't be half bad. The ruler's closest circle always remains unchanged, and the risk of mutiny is low. Probably the only flaw is them cross-marrying for the tenth time that leads to children being born as retards.'

While Lee was pleasantly surprised by the discovery, Alan knew the emperor well. He intended to say something to change the subject, but the emperor spoke first, although it sounded more like an angry hiss.

He said, "So those bastards are stealing my gold and eating my food …"

At this point the cavalry began to regroup. Approximately half of the forces rode directly into the town, but, apart from lone curious passersby, the streets were empty. Lee guessed that it was intentional and the soldiers waited outside the city so that the news of them arriving spread first, and the people could return to their homes.

Strongheart's plan turned out to be rather straightforward – he was about to use the manpower of close to half thousand cavalry men to check every single household. The peculiar part was that the man clearly thought of a system.

The soldiers didn't rush all over the place, performing a chaotic search. They slowly and methodically moved from house to house, and then from street block to the next, while leaving few men behind in the secured areas.

One might think that it stretched out the forces, making the search less effective the further it went, but it wasn't the case this time. General Strongheart had enough manpower to populate the town, to not speak of searching it.

Lee had to respect the discipline in the cavalry. Almost like riding in a formation on a field, they moved through the town at the same pace, but when there was a rare hold-up, the rest patiently waited until the wave could move further as one.

Indeed, from the top the cavalry did look like a slowly moving wave that would run through Elsdon, and only stop at the cliff wall … except there were wave breakers.

The serene atmosphere below was instantly shattered by a loud blast that reverberated through the town. One of the two story residential buildings in the south-east of the town, blew up the moment soldiers went in, as if it was booby-trapped.

A pillar of flame shot to the sky and destroyed the house, probably killing the people inside. Years ago Lee saw Isabella's Captain Freewon do something similar, but back then the distance was too far to observe it clearly. This time though, it was much more impressive.

A couple of people on the cliff instinctively took a step back as if the attack occurred next to them, but Tess pressed Lee close to her with one hand and hugged Alan with the other, as if she was shielding them both from all the evil in the world. Emperor, on the other hand, widely grinned, and leaned even further over the edge of the cliff.

"Do not worry!" He said, "That wasn't ours."

Lee furrowed his brows in displeasure. Even if that was some rebel's last stand, weren't few of his men taken to the afterlife alongside of him?

"The elites of the imperial cavalry don't throw their lives away like that." Alan explained misinterpreting his stepson's expression as confusion, but only confirmed Lee's suspicion, "The person down there was clearly out of options and tried to eliminate our soldiers while killing themselves in the process. And, maybe, destroying documents or some other evidence …"

Alan's explanation was interrupted by two more houses blowing up, but the more chaotic the situation below became, the more excited The Emperor grew.

"There are more!" He said, and clenched the handle of his sword, "I can smell them!"

At this point Lee couldn't recognize the easygoing and friendly person, who met them the first time he was brought to the palace. But he wasn't given a chance to muse about that, because a strange rustling few yards behind the group drew their attention.

Almost at the same time, three hidden trapdoors sprung open, and from holes in the ground one after another ten or so men jumped out. Their clothing was relatively neat, but they looked to be slightly out of breath. Noticing the group on the cliff's edge for a moment stupefied them, though.

"I told you, I can smell them!" The Emperor said in a strangely calm voice, while slowly pulling out his sword and slightly bending his knees.

Not only he didn't care about being outnumbered, he seemed to welcome the challenge.