Chapter 94: The Kingmaker
The small, high-altitude valley was a sanctuary, a brief respite from their grueling race against time. A fresh spring trickled from a fissure in the rock, providing clean water, and the sparse grass was enough to sustain their horses. Here, under the watchful eyes of Maximus's posted sentries, they finally tended to their wounds and gave Varro, the first of the Fire Cohort to fall, a proper soldier's burial. They built a simple cairn of stones, and Cassius spoke a few rough, heartfelt words in the Germanic tongue of his men, his voice thick with a grief he could not hide.
For Alex, however, there was no respite. The revelation of Aethel-Tech and the true nature of his enemy had shattered his strategic framework. He spent the entire night by a low-burning fire, staring into the flames, the cold, hard disc with the dark star insignia clutched in his hand. Lyra fed him what little data she could glean, but it only deepened the mystery. He was facing a foe whose technology was not just advanced, but fundamentally different. A foe who could seemingly create warrior-constructs at will. A foe who had been on Earth for millennia.
He realized the terrible flaw in his plan. He had been so focused on the what—the chrono-crystal power source—and the how—racing to get there first—that he had neglected the where. This wasn't just a desolate spot on a map. This was Armenia. A kingdom. A land with people, politics, and power structures of its own. He had been treating it as a mere transit corridor, an obstacle to be overcome. That was a Roman mistake. A conqueror's mistake. He needed to think differently. He couldn't afford to simply pass through this land. He needed to make it his own.
By dawn, his mind was clear, his resolve hardened into a new, more ambitious shape. He summoned Maximus to the fire.
"We are changing the plan, General," he said, his voice quiet but firm. The general, who was checking the horses' hooves, looked up, his expression questioning.
"We are no longer just soldiers passing through this land," Alex continued, gesturing to the rugged mountains around them. "From this moment on, we are agents of the Roman state, acting with the full authority of the Emperor. This land, Armenia, is a Roman client kingdom, but its loyalty is a reed in the wind, bending towards whoever is stronger, Rome or Parthia. We are going to ensure its loyalty becomes as permanent as this granite beneath our feet."
Maximus's eyes widened slightly as he grasped the sheer audacity of what Alex was proposing. They were a force of less than two hundred and fifty men, deep in hostile territory, and the Emperor was proposing to meddle in the succession of a kingdom.
"We are no longer racing The Traveler to the prize," Alex declared, his voice ringing with a new, cold authority. "That is a fool's errand. It makes us reactive. Instead, we will seize the board itself. We are going to make a king."
Using Lyra's deep historical and genealogical databases, Alex had spent the night studying the intricate, bloody politics of the Armenian royal court. The current king, a man named Sohaemus, was old, weak, and little more than a puppet of his Parthian masters. But there was a rival claimant. A young, ambitious prince of the Arsacid dynasty named Tiridates—no relation to the Parthian commander—who had been educated in Rome, possessed Roman sympathies, and had been driven into hiding after a failed attempt to claim the throne a year prior. According to Lyra's intelligence, compiled from old merchant reports and spy logs, he was now holed up in a remote, nigh-impregnable mountain fortress called Garni, not a three-day march from their current position.
"We march to Garni," Alex commanded. "We find this Prince Tiridates. And we make him an offer he cannot refuse."