The City of Amul

III

The night had come and with it the departure of the city guard (now temporarily rebranded as "Force to pacify the evil of the south") in their mission to destroy the dark forces of Sangar castle.

Out of the 210 strong city guard of Amul a division consisting of 105 soldiers plus 46 volunteer citizens left the city's south gate in their way to the castle with their first objective being to establish a main camp in the midpoint in-between the city and the demon castle.

The remaining 105, with warrior Jamshid as captain, would be in charge of protecting the city if any other incident happened.

"Those filthy dogs are finally leaving" a spiteful voice said from a luxurious balcony.

"If my luck is well the beasts will feast on their flesh" he pondered to himself as a servant put some wine in his hand.

These nefarious remarks belonged to a robust and refined older man named Ahriman, the city chief of Amul.

It was partially this man's fault that the guards hadn't ventured into their campaign sooner. He was unmovable in his conviction that protecting the city (and more importantly the food and resources in it) required for all of the soldiers to stay put.

Captain Parkus clashed several times with Ahriman over the campaign and the resources and weapons they would need once the time to act inevitably came.

"What a repugnant man" was something that sprouted in the minds of both of them.

Parkus was, of course, no saint in this matter. His reputation had been on the decline for a long time before the Sangar issue started and had helped in giving him a reason to rouse some positive feelings back from the population.

He was eager to attain some sort of victory that would completely repair said reputation and this opportunity was too good to let go. Therefore he wanted to mobilize as many troops as possible and gain a quick and dazzling victory.

But Ahriman was not a stupid man. He had known of Parkus's dishonor and his desire for redemption for a while now and wanted to make some profit out of it from the start.

This ambition was the main factor that led to the troop distribution: Ahriman was willing to agree to Parkus's demands of over 150 soldiers for the mission but only on several conditions.

These were:

One: Ahriman and the city council would be fully responsible for selecting each and every one of the soldiers that would go or stay.

Two: Parkus would only have a month to bring results from this campaign.

Three: Everything of value found on Sangar castle would belong to the city council (any instance of hiding them for personal wealth will be punished accordingly).

Upon hearing these conditions Parkus immediately understood that Ahriman had seen right through him.

He had originally hoped to not only mobilize a majority of the soldiers in the city but also to select them himself.

Why? To choose only those that were loyal to him.

This plan was borne out of a very real problem in the plan to gain his glory back in Sangar.

"What if there's nothing there" that was the issue.

If he went to all this trouble to go out and he simply came back with nothing to show his reputation would be completely destroyed.

With this in mind he needed a backup plan and the one he came up with was particularly malicious:

If he could concentrate a majority of power on himself, with soldiers loyal to him, outside the city limits he could use them to put pressure on the city council on the threat of destruction if necessary.

This was the idea that captain Parkus had come up with. An idea that Ahriman and his council had now neutralized with their conditions.

The first condition made it impossible to surround himself with soldiers that were loyal to him and maybe those in the council would even put some of their own spies in there to monitor him (it would have been hard to gather these loyal men to begin with, considering his reputation, but now it would be practically unachievable).

The second one would put a time limit on his operation but also limit his capacity to sway the many soldiers to his side.

And on the same note, the third condition would make it even harder to sway them by promising them the riches of the castle.

Parkus was furious over this miscalculation but that wasn't the end of it.

Ahriman made it clear that if he accepted the conditions proposed these would be made public for everyone to see.

Parkus understood what this meant and ultimately he looked to make a compromise.

He would take only half of the full force of the city guard and guarantee the fulfillment of the third condition without question but with some changes to the other two:

He would agree on condition one for most of the fighting force but as commander he would have authority to choose a small group of 20 soldiers as his personal bodyguards.

And when concerning condition two he asked for the time limit to be extended to two months instead of one.

Parkus hoped to mitigate the damage with his own conditions and hopefully use the extra time to come up with a scheme to protect himself.

After some deliberation with the council Ahriman finally agreed to the bargain.

And like that, fueled by the greed of these two men, was how the campaign finally started.

"That worthless Parkus better come back with something of value" Ahrimans guttural voice let out.

"Was it really prudent to let him go with that large a force milord?" the meek voice of the servant replied.

Ahriman chuckled and played with his robust moustache.

"You kids hehehe… of course I know not to trust that man" his eyes suddenly gleamed with a dark light, "he himself must know that we have men of our own among his ranks, that his feet are tied and at the first sight of any trouble we can act and destroy him"

It was not for nothing that on the matter of deciding the troop deployment he and the council had purposefully selected most of the truly experienced and powerful warriors to remain in the city under the command of a respected leader like Jamshid. Someone who was not only famous for his military might and intellect but also for his simpleminded honesty and loyalty to the people of the city.

If Parkus decided to attack the city in desperation he would be meet by a much more experienced force that on top of that had the advantage of having a fortified city to defend themselves.

Ahriman felt the sweet scent of victory mingle with the aroma of the wine and smiled.

But suddenly, another servant opened the door on a hurry and exclaimed:

"Sir Ahriman!!! A royal prefect from the capital has arrived!!"

An unexpected piece had suddenly appeared on the board.