Try to wake them through whatever means necessary. If any sorcerers remain, then use their strength to assist in the waking, use flame, use drowning. Tear a scale off if necessary. Whatever idea you may get, use. Send reports back to Rhomaion immediately if any show reaction, else simply list what methods have been tested.

If they cannot be awoken, then start moving them into the Dwarf Holds. Keep them safe.

– Signed, K. Of War.

– The ‘Dragonfall Retreat’. One of the few Imperial Orders that have successfully been recovered by the White Pantheon after the Great War, although the frequency of the finds suggest that this order in particular was not written but rather printed in mass. A copy exists in most Epan National Museums of Great War History.

Stalker looked around at the other men in the room. They were in some old barn that had been requisitioned by Iliyal, it was an old structure, now abandoned and cleared out. The farmhouse nearby had been inhabited, but Iliyal’s forces had requisitioned the land. As precious as the farm was, it apparently hadn’t been precious enough for the old man not to part with in exchange for money. The animals had been moved out and the moon was shining in through the window above the huge set of doors.

Stalker had somehow managed to fit into the general style that the other men wore. Casual clothes, but no one was too casual, it was all jeans and trousers and button up shirts, but with short sleeves and no ties. A few men had come in jumpers or jackets. Huge Baker was here, looking like even more of a hulk of a man than previously. A man who had been in Stalker’s team during the attack on Drayim Fortress approached Stalker. “How you doin’ boss?” Ranger was the man’s name, Ranger with short brown hair and a loose shirt. The man had been a crack shot with the rifle. Another one who had changed it after Iliyal’s basic training.

“I turned up to another of Iliyal’s suicide missions.” Stalker replied bluntly. “How do you think I’m doing?” Ranger laughed.

“Well I’m doing the exact same then.” He said.

“What did you blow your check on?” Stalker asked.

“Life.” Ranger replied and Stalker nodded.

“Life here too.” He said, although that life had been an attempt to relive the glory days of his youth before prison had stolen them from him. It hadn’t been a bad gig frankly, he was starting to get calls and contacts in that world again. Iliyal’s training had given him a set of talents that shouldn’t be wasted in some office. After all, how could a man who led one of the teams involved on a clandestine attack on a Paladin stronghold ever be expected to return to normal life?

It didn’t hurt Stalker to admit it to himself. He knew what he was, and he knew that he was simply too prideful to be dealing with the gruelling monotony of normal life. Iliyal’s army had been an option too, Stalker had almost considered it, but then, how could he go from the bottom again? So just as in his old life, he had taken the short path, and the war was good business.

The rest of the men were talking quietly amongst themselves. A few laughed, a few shared stories. Everyone was more or less the same. Too prideful, with too much life behind them and not enough life ahead of them. Everyone saw Iliyal’s letter. Everyone remembered the Tremali brigade, and everyone came back.

Stalker’s ruminations were stopped by a Goddess suddenly rounding the corner of the barn. Stalker had seen plenty of beautiful girls in his life, those weren’t a rarity. But as he looked at that Goddess, more than twice his height, with a face so fine it could have been sculpted marble and hair so white it seemed to glow in the moonlight, Stalker felt nothing but sheer awe. Could that even be called a woman? A creature so beautiful shouldn’t be allowed to exist. That creature came to a stop in her black coat and black uniform, with a cap on top of her head, and that creature spoke. “I am Malam, Goddess of Hatred.”

When Iliyal had said that he had men for such a mission, Malam had not been particularly excited. The elf had soldiers. True, they would do everything that was commanded to them, but soldiers did not have… that… how to put it? That personal touch that criminals did. A sabotage by order and a sabotage by instinct looked so different that they may as well have been night and day. Malam thought Iliyal would give people only capable of the former, but as she inspected this gang before her, she realised that these men were naturals in the latter.

Malam gave them a smile that told of a thousand promises. Men like this were the worst humanity had to offer, yet that was precisely why Malam adored this type of character. Arascus had a sliver of it in him too, although he tried to hide it. “Gentlemen!” Malam shouted. “I would like to invite you all to the Special Imperial Service! Acceptance is mandatory!” They didn’t think she was being serious, a few laughed.

Good.

Men who would laugh into a Divine’s face were exactly the sort that Malam was looking for.

Malam leaned back in her chair, looking down into her bottle with one eye. There was still a small amount of drink remaining. She sighed, tipped it back into herself and realised something. Kassandora had created an army true, but Kassie loved armies and toy soldiers and all these other things that allowed one to feel mighty even when they were small. In that creation of an army, she had missed out one of the most important power-brokers of a state: Secret Police.

Special Imperial Service would do, it was the sort of bureaucratic name that revealed little and promised too much. She sent a letter explaining the concept to Arascus, and she got to work on the organisation. Kassie’s army was grand, but someone needed to keep the peace, didn’t they? It was one thing to win a war, but any force trained by Malam’s sister would be too disciplined, too honest, too rigid and too definite. Their idea of peacekeeping was to roll into a town and leave nothing standing. Two birds could be killed with one stone. Malam could create the SIS, and Rancais could fall.

Malam quickly wrote a short letter to Iliyal. He was one of Kassandora’s men so he’d be smart to understand what she meant: ‘I need a team of men who will lie, cheat and steal with a grin. I need…’

Malam looked at the men of the SIS, turned to the side, and started to walk. She knew exactly the level of levity and candidness with which to talk to criminals like this. “To show off the seriousness of this organisation, because we’re all very serious here and very important business. The first order of the day will be to collapse the government of Rancais!”

Stalker turned his head away from Baker and Ranger as he looked through the window of the Aris Airport shuttle bus. They had been separated into teams. Trios were sent to the large cities, pairs to the smaller ones. Someone had asked Malam on why she didn’t send men alone, her answer was that she would rather one job done well than two jobs done poorly. The airport apparently had a name that wasn’t just the Aris Airport, but all the men were Lubskan and these Rancais words were unpronounceable to be quite honest. He watched the city of Aris slowly go past him. Tall buildings, all carved out of a limestone that became known as Aris Stone. It sat on a grand river, with a man-made island in the middle of the city splitting the river in two.

The buildings were grand, four, five, some even six stories tall. Yet they didn’t make Stalker feel tiny within it, it was probably the grand roads that had as many lanes as the buildings’ floors, yet instead, it only made Stalker look around in awe at the scale. In the distance, there was a hill with a White Pantheon church on it. There were grand towers, grander cathedrals dedicated to the many Gods. North, there was the finance district of the city, with its steel skyscrapers of glass and steel.

If Malam was a city, then she would be Aris. There was no doubt about it.

Malam turned on her heel. She paused her speech for dramatic effect. The sharp echoing of her heel marked the restart of her speech, she pulled out a black bank card and held it in the air. It glinted in the air and the men all watched with hungry eyes. “Money will be supplied to you as necessary. Burner phones will be handed out too.”

Stalker looked at the Rancais ATM. All that Malam had given them was a fake passport, some pairs of clothes, a hotel booking, a plane ticket to Aris and this black bank card. He took a breath and put it into the ATM. It slid in. He entered the four digits onto the keypad: one, seven, eight, nine. And Stalker held his breath as he readjusted his cap and sunglasses. The people in Aris were all overdressed. He would actually need to buy more expensive clothes to fit into the crowds because right now, he stuck out like a sore thumb.

The ATM buzzed and displayed the name on his fake passport. He looked at it for a moment, then he clicked Check Balance. Malam had said the money would come in as it was needed and that she was monitoring the accounts. Anyone who would waste it would apparently end up being disposed. After dealing with Iliyal and knowing that the Goddess outranked him in Arascus’ hierarchy, Stalker very well believed that to her, disposal of an asset was as easy as lifting a finger.

The machine finished loading and Stalker felt his eyes widen. He quickly turned it off so that no one else would see. A figure totalling almost six digits had been staring back at him.

Malam began to explain how this would be organised. “I will be giving out bonuses for those who excel. I do not care how or what you do, however anyone who performs a galvanizing action on Rancais will be removed from service and from life.” She brought out another booklet, this one, she had been working on before this operation even began. She had expected to need it. “You will read this in your own time, it is a guide. This is not a literary story, this is not some essay. I do not want your critique or your feedback, I want you to read this and do as it fucking says.”

Stalker, Baker and Ranger had all been given one hotel. It was a fairly middle of the road place, not so dire that it should be avoided, and not so expensive that it caught attention. It was near the city centre, close to one of Aris’ train stations, bus routes and with an entrance to the underground tram network. Malam had chosen a good place for them. To top it all off, breakfast was included. Dinner, they would have to buy themselves.

Baker was showering as Ranger and Stalker were sitting on their separate beds. Both men were in silence, Stalker had suggested reading through Malam’s book since their schedule was so tight so they had both opened it. And now, Stalker could not pull his eyes away from the paper. It was…

It was borderline incredible how much the Goddess could think of. The sabotage methods within it ranged from mass casualties to vandalism, yet it had been structured in such.

Malam continued. “As I said before, we are not going to be galvanizing Rancais. We are going to be destroy their will. Amateurs think that will is destroyed through fear and awe and overpowering strength.” Malam smiled at the men. “But I am not an amateur, and because the SIS is an extension of me, you will not be amateurs either. We are not going to be destroying individuals, we are not going to be bringing the state to its knees. No gentlemen, we are going to degenerate normality to such a degree that there won’t be a reason to wake in the morning. That is what it means to destroy will.”

Stalker walked through a department store pushing a cart. He would do this, take the goods back into a rented car, then buy clothes for a change. Then, it would be time to get to work. He looked down at the supplies he was buying. Nails and concrete and rope. Pliers and a hammer. Superglue. Thermal oil for a car, everything and anything he could get his damn hands on.

Malam took a breath. Now, it was time to get into the technical aspects of sabotaging Rancais. It was all covered in the book in greater detail, but it would be better if she explained at least a little of the reasoning. “First, we attack cleanliness. The first line of defence against Anarchy are tidy bins and running water and, as farcical as it sounds, the comfort to flush a toilet.”

Stalker walked into a bus station in a jacket, a cap, sunglasses and with a backpack on his back. He looked like a hiker or some traveller who had just come from some place. People weren’t even giving him a second glance, that was perfect. He waltzed into the bathroom and quickly disappeared into a stall.

In there, it was movements all around. The backpack came off. One of the socks came out. A pre-measured plastic bag of concrete was emptied out into the sock. Stalker threw it into the water and gave it a flush. He went out. The bathroom was still empty. He managed five out of six stalls by the time someone had come in. Baker and Ranger were doing their own stations.

Malam would be happy when she received this report. The bag of concrete and the socks cost less than a fancy meal at a restaurant and how much had they caused in damages? Easily hundreds of thousands in terms of repairs. And they still had three stations each left to go.

Malam gave the men some time to stop laughing. “The plumbing is the first trench we have to scale, but there is a vanguard to be defeated too. The profession that is a city’s grand sacrifice to the cause of maintaining decency. One of, if not the, most important jobs in making sure that a city is a grand monument to civilization rather than a hive of scum-sucking leeches.

Baker threw Stalker and Ranger over the fence and waited alone outside on watch. Maybe if they were trying to steal the garbage trucks, this would be difficult. But they weren’t. They were stealing anything in fact. Stealth was only important insofar as that they couldn’t be seen right now. By the time the camera recordings were inspected in the morning, it would be too late anyway.

Stalker and Ranger ran to the first truck in the cover of night. There were thirty here, lined up one after the other under a giant roof. Great steel behemoths that fought day and night to carry Aris’ trash away from the city. The two men circled to the fuel tank of the closest truck. Ranger picked the lock in twenty seconds. Stalker poured a vial of thermal oil into it. They had wanted hydrochloric acid to fully devastate the engines, but then Baker had said how a guy he knew once set fire to his engine by pouring thermal oil into the fuel just through not paying attention.

Stalker put the fuel cap back into place. It gave off a satisfying click and he moved onto the next truck. Ranger already had it open.

Thirty trucks took less than twenty minutes.

Malam looked at the men. “Arson, of course, is a popular one. The goal is not mass death. We do not want people to be killed by us, we want for them to start killing each other.” Malam took a pause. “I think you’re all smart enough to answer, what sort of locations are we looking to burn?”

Stalker walked passed a newspaper shop talking about a fire near the garbage disposal facility. Apparently police had started looking for the perpetrators. It didn’t matter though, all that was released was a grainy video by cameras. Those damn criminals hadn’t even stolen anything, they just ran in and sabotaged the trucks for no reason!

Stalker fiddled with the fire-starter kit in his hand as turned into a sports centre. He paid the admission fee to go swimming, it cost less than a bottle of beer. And he went into the changing room. And here, Stalker looked around. It was almost annoying how he couldn’t find anywhere to set a fire, until he had to smack himself in the head at his sheer ineptitude.

The ceiling! Made out of a ceiling grid with polystyrene tiles dropped into it! Of course! He went into a changing locker, stood on the seat and looked around. There was no one about. Quickly, he pushed a tile up, threw the fire-starter kit whole up there and pulled out his lighter. The kit smelled like fuel and it burned like it too. Stalker didn’t even need to hold his lighter to it for more than a second for it to spark up. And then he jumped down and briskly yet calmly walked out. Passed the reception, like a man who had forgotten something in his car.

The fire-alarm sounded just as he left through the front door.

Malam clapped her hands at the answer. “Excellent! I knew you people had it in you!” The Goddess of Hatred continued her explanation. “Now that basic decency is in the gutter, we move on. It is one thing to bring a place down to its knees. It’s another to make sure it stays that way. We turn the light off, we plaster over the light switch.” Malam smiled at the hungry eyes ahead of her. She was going to tell them herself at first, but she realised that they could probably figure it out themselves. “How do we do this?”

Stalker pulled out a handful of black screws. The bronze screws in shops were always of a higher quality, always of a better make and there was no real reason not to use them. If they could be afforded, then they should be afforded. There was only one benefit that the black ones had over the bronze ones, but sometimes, one benefit made all the difference. Right now, for Stalker, that benefit did.

Black screws, when dropped onto tarmac, blended in so well they were almost invisible. Stalker yawned and stealthily threw a few out onto one of the Great Aris bridges. It wasn’t even about causing car crashes; the bridge would have to be shut down to be cleaned up. And with Baker and Ranger covering over bridges, then from today to tomorrow evening at the very earliest, it would be impossible to get from one half of the river to the other.

Malam smiled at the men. They were born naturals at this game. There was no other way to describe it. “And now we turn the heat up!” Malam shouted. “The best way to make sure that any crisis response comes too late is to start the crisis ourselves! Any ideas Gentlemen? Come on, you’ve been excellent so far!”

Stalker silently pulled up the window of a food warehouse. This was one of the largest suppliers to Aris, just outside of the city. Malam had found the location and the drive was easy. It wasn’t even heavily guarded, the building had one guard at the front and then a tall chain-link fence. It would probably stop the average man. But the average man had not been trained by Iliyal Tremali, were he?

On the way here, Stalker and Baker and Ranger had discussed what to do. Throw rats into the warehouse? That idea had been shut down quickly. Sometimes, these things became farcical. But fire? Well, it would be hard to start a fire on a steel structure though. However, there was one thing that would get the facility shut down. Shut down for good in fact, and it was far easier than starting a fire.

Stalker approached the vents and gently pulled it off its hinges. He pulled out the clear jar with salt and baking soda mixed in. He toped it up with bleach. He threw the copper coins inside. And he quickly retreated, holding his breath just in case. What would such down a food warehouse faster than a mustard gas spill?

Malam wondered how Iliyal had even found these people. Honestly, she was glad she came in before the man could sacrifice in some pointless battle of his. These men were far too good to waste on trivialities like that. “Each city has two weeks of food within it! We don’t have two weeks to waste! What do people need to survive? Food and what?”

Some things were difficult. Some things were easy. The idea of targeting a water filtration plant was difficult in principle, but in practice? Stalker had not done anything easier. He could not think of anything easier in fact. It was such a huge system, such a complex, and Stalker did not even have to step close to it. Instead, he looked at the huge collection of tanks all feeding water into a central structure. The blue pipes ran along the ground on iron stilts that where submerged into the soil.

The man looked through the camera feed on his laptop and he pilot the drone with a bag of home-made thermite onto the pipe. That had been easy to make too, it was simply tedious collecting all the matches and scraping their sparking strips down. Stalker flew the drone close to any of the random water pipes set it down, and pressed the ignition switch.

The thermite sparked immediately, it burned as bright as a welding torch for all of two seconds, and then it burned out. But two seconds were enough. The pipe buckled, the metal twisted, and the water pressured ripped it apart. And with that pipe, a full third of Aris lost its water supply.

Malam kept on talking. “So now that we brought a country to its knees, we have to make sure that we stop its allies from coming in to fix things. This is an easy answer, just on a grander scale! How do we stop Doschia from assisting Rancais?”

There was easy, there was very easy, and then there was the easiest. This, Stalker could not even imagine failing at. A damn child could do it. The trio of saboteurs had gone on a road trip out of Aris and past some villages. They had chosen a hilly area, with little road coverage, far away from the highway. Baker was waiting in the car, Ranger was on the hill keeping watching over the fields nearby, and Stalker had gone down into the trench between the two mounds.

Stalker got down onto his knees as he checked either end of the rail. No train was running, he put his ear to the track. It wasn’t vibrating or making any sound.

So it was time. Stalker grabbed his portal angle grinder and got to work. There was no need to cut both sections of the rail, simply cutting enough of an incision in one to get one wheel of the train to bounce off would be enough. Just as he finished, Ranger shouted that a train was approaching in the distance. The two men ran up the hill, then back to Baker’s car.

As the massive man drove off, the sound of a crash came from the field.

Malam spun, her white following her like a cold blizzard. “And now, we indulge ourselves gentlemen! We do what types like us do the best and that is simple! We kick them while they’re down! HOW?!” This wasn’t a question; it was a demand.

Guns had started to pop up in Aris due to the chaos that the three men had caused. It would have been containable if it was just one city, but it wasn’t. Every major urban area in Rancais was facing the same level of sabotage. Food warehouses had been attacked, public places had been set alight. Water facilities were damaged. A few bridges had been collapsed and there wasn’t a single train still moving in the country as the government madly scrambled workers to investigate every inch of rail that existed in Rancais.

And now, since guns had started appearing on the black market, it was time for the coup de grace. Malam had managed to smuggle in large calibre anti-material rifles that Iliyal had secured from Epan military stocks. It was night time. The stars were out. Stalker looked through his scope and aimed at the huge amalgamation of steel that looked like a skeleton fashioned out of rods and wires and disks. It was impossible to miss when shooting at something that large.

Stalker pulled the trigger. He made a hole in a box, a wire snapped, a tower started to tip, a few sparks started to fly. For a moment, lightning arcing upwards from the substation turned the night into day. It raced along wires as if Stalker had just blasted a hole in its prison that it was now escaping. Only for a moment though, it stopped as quickly as it started.

And as it stopped, Aris turned dark.

And Malam finished, casting her arms into the air to the cheer of the Special Imperial Service. “When the city is broken beyond recognisability, we know we’ve won.”

Stalker walked into a small store and looked around. There wasn’t a single item that wasn’t protected by a lock. The storekeeper had an illegal pistol on full display in front of him. Stalker gave the man a nod and the man stared at him warily. And Stalker left without buying anything. He remembered driving down this road on the way from the airport and into Aris.

Now, full black garbage bags were flooding onto the tarmac of the street. A gang of young men in balaclavas and thick jackets were strolling through the middle of the road, forcing cars to come to a stop and let them pass as they hurled insults towards the drivers. The traffic lights did not work. Somewhere in the distance, there was the blaring of sirens, probably both ambulance and police. A fire truck drove past him to smoke rising in the distance. A bus stopped in the distance, people quickly ran from the bus and into the tall buildings of Aris. Some young man kicked over a bin in the distance. A pile of trash was strewn across the ground.

Stalker felt his lips curl up into a sadistic smile. He remembered when he had been jailed in Lubska. There wasn’t some tragic tale to him, he simply let out the beast that most other men kept in check. It was the pity he had hated the most back, those sorry eyes that fell upon him as if he was a broken toy to be fixed. He remembered Iliyal. The elf had given him a belonging of likeminded men and had turned him into a sword to be wielded. Those short few weeks with Iliyal had taught Stalker things about himself that even he did not know.

But Malam?

Malam indulged him in a way that Iliyal never could.

Stalker looked around at the city as he sneered at the thought of these people thinking they could fix him. Who was broken now?

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep