Chapter 111: Coalition of Adversaries (2)
"We do not seek war outright."
"We seek to arrive before the enemy understands that there is a battle to be fought." Mordrak’s voice settled over the table.
Hurst clutched his ledger at the voice of Mordrak.
Mordrak was right. A war already declared is a war lost, because the crown, the covenant, and most of all the fulcrum will be prepared for them.
The odds are against them in a direct confrontation.
"Exactly, Cerevisia is the target, but cannot be the first move," Cymbal spoke.
"It cannot even know that it is the target," he said.
"If you mean to sabotage them. The Regory White is a mastermind in trade. He’ll notice disruptions, delays in trade, and immediately assume someone is trying to Sabotage his Dukedom. A fine strategy, but not against him." Hurst said.
"Then don’t give them too much," Elias said.
"Ah, I can’t believe you lot. You’re waging a war for a purpose, and you still want to play fare against those who do not even mean to be considerate for you?" Cymbal scoffed.
"We don’t need the entire duchy, we need the people who control what enters it." He placed two fingers on the table.
"Merchants, port officials, carters, grain brokers. Anyone! Anyone whose decisions can delay something without looking like an act of war!" Cymbal said.
"That takes time, Your Highness," Hurst commented.
"How much?" Cymbal asked him.
"Several months."
"We...do not have several months," Mordrak leaned back.
"Why do you think so?" Cymbal asked Mordrak.
"I hope you do not consider us as fools, your highness. For even I have my own sources. And I can tell, really well. That the reason you’re here suggests that you’ve been loosing the war of minds." Mordrak said.
"You’re yourself against someone who’s always a step ahead of you. Who? I might not know. But whoever they are, they know what you’re after, they know how you move, how you think, what you like, and dislike, as if every ounce of your personality has been laid in front of them," Mordrak leaned forward.
"You...No, your highness, We are all against a single most invulnerable mind, that has been protecting the Kingdom of Lunar for a long time. And we do not know who that person is." He said.
"Whatever you have been planning, someone has been standing ahead of you long before you arrived here." He scoffed, not in mockery, but thinking of the situation.
Cymbal listened to him.
He ran his fingers on the edges of the glass, staring at his reflection in the brass.
For once, he had nothing immediate to say. Elias glanced at him and raised his brows.
"So there is someone," he confirmed.
"The Grand Duke is right, Your Highness. The kingdom has been spiraling in ominous deaths. Assassination attempts over Saintes, death her high priest, death of a very close ally of yours, Winifred, these...these...deaths aren’t mere deaths. These are hunts. Someone is after you, your highness." Hurst said.
"Whoever it is...they have been remarkably successful." Hurst said.
Cymbal raised his eyes to meet Hurst’s.
"Successful?" he repeated.
"I did not mean that as an insult, Your Highness," Hurst bowed down a little, apologetic.
"What is it that you meant?" Cymbal asked.
"I mean that the people around you are disappearing," Hurst said.
"People have been dying around princes since kingdoms were invented." Cymbal spoke.
"...this many?" Hurst whispered.
""""...""""
[A/N: Phahahahahahaha...ahem, my bad. Please, continue.]
"...Ahem..." Galt shifted in his chair.
"With respect," Galt said. "We didn’t ride out here to discuss whether the Prince has an enemy. Every man with a crown has enemies. The question on this table is whether he has a plan that doesn’t need six months we don’t have,"
"I didn’t come here because I found a clever answer to a problem, or a meticulous strategy for war. I come here because I’ve stopped trying to out-think. If you cannot win a game of chess, then just burn the board, and that’s why we’re here. We’re all with a purpose. That purpose has a reason, that reason has an intent. Intent, which is driven by our pasts. But our goals of burning the board, goals of rebelling against the crown align." Cymbal spoke.
"The more time a superior mind is given, the more total its victory. Deny it time, not cleverness." He said.
"Hurst says infiltrating Cerevisia trade properly will take months, he’s absolutely right. If we’re building the network from nothing. So we just don’t build one."
"Every wealthy port has men already moving grain, and gold outside the law. Smugglers, brokers skimming margins the crown never audits closely enough to catch. Regory has spent decades building a duchy on indulgence, and pleasure. Indulgence always has a black market to it."
"You have to use the enemy’s own instrument against him rather than forging a new one. The borrowed blade cuts as deep as the owned one, and costs nothing to sharpen."
"Buying criminals already inside the walls?" Mordrak murmured.
"Buy men who already know exactly how to move things without being seen, because they’ve been doing it their whole lives for profit. That isn’t six months of building trust from nothing. That’s weeks of paying men to keep doing what they already do, just in a slightly different manner, and in the directions we choose," Cymbal said.
"The same principal applies for the magic towers. You don’t need a tower that loves you or fucking cares about you, you’re men at war."
"You need a tower that hates being second to Fulcrum. Ambition recruits faster, and holds longer than a coin. A man chasing what he’s always wanted does not need to be paid fucking twice."
"Offer them what Fulcrum has always denied, and they will not need convincing."
"What about the mind ahead of us? The one none of us can name? What about them?" Galt asked.
"We just have to make certain..." Cymbal tapped on the table.
"That by the time he notices we’ve moved, there’s nothing left standing still enough for him to out-think." He said.
"You don’t have to worry about skimming through names of men to exploit, Winifred has them all. I... have them all."
"I know exactly which hands in Cerevisia have been waiting their whole lives to be paid to look the other way. I just need an execution engine." Cymbal final concluded.