Kingslayer by Honor Raconteur Page A

have asked more questions.” Cheerfully ignoring Ramin’s wail of protest, he went back to his plans. “Navid, after you see to the cats, talk with your Night Raiders. I want them to go into the enemy’s camp every night and hassle them. Tell them to bring me their ideas and their plans of approach. I’ll have other tactics in play during the night, and I don’t want anyone taken down by their own allies.”
    Navid gave a nod and started jotting down notes to himself.
    “Kaveh, you and Sego deal with the propaganda. I don’t care how it’s delivered, but make sure that most of the troops over there can read it.”
    “Yes, sir.”
    “Ramin, I want you to contact everyone in Niotan and offer them this bounty: if they can defeat an officer and bring me proof of it, then I will reward them.” He thought about it for a moment before adding, “Tell them they must bring me either the officer’s helmet, insignia, or sword. No, make it at least two of those three.” Otherwise there would be people who would quickly steal something in the heat of battle without actually earning the reward. Darius wanted those officers taken care of first.  If the sub-commanders were disposed of, the men would be unsure of what to do. Especially in that hodge-podge army. They’d retreat by default. Almost as an afterthought he ordered, “That’s including army personnel.”
    Everyone at the table froze and gave him incredulous looks. Bounties like this normally excluded the army, as any soldier worth his salt would naturally try to take down the officers of the enemy. But Darius didn’t prescribe to the theory that rewards should be withheld from men that were bound by duty. Besides, his position as lead general was very precarious with the men. If he showed that he was generous, they might view him more favorably. He needed to win their loyalty somehow and he was not above using bribes to do it.
    Ramin scratched at that too-bright hair of his, gave his general an odd look, but dutifully jotted this down. “Yes, sir.”
    Alright, what next? “Kaveh, are the engineers ready to build our barricades?”
    “Yes, sir. They reported to me that they’ve done as much prep work as they can. They think they can assemble the barricades quickly once we’re there. Say, two days or so altogether. The watchtowers are ready to roll out at any time.”
    Excellent. That was one worry off his mind. Most of Niotan’s troops were already on the front line, keeping the army at bay with any tactic they could think of. Darius would be bringing little more than relief troops and crews of engineers with him. The trick would be rearranging the troops once he arrived in order for his tactics to be the most effective.
    They weren’t quite ready to leave but it had to be soon. “Gentlemen, we march out the day after tomorrow at sun rise. Will you be ready?”
    He got firm voices of assent from around the table. Satisfied, he blew out a breath and stood up. “Then this meeting is dismissed.”
    ~~~
    The problem with being a general was the political obligations that came hand in hand with the job. Maneuvering through a formal court demanded the same amount of ingenuity, intelligence, and strategy as being on a battlefield. The sole difference between the two being that Darius couldn’t stab anyone when they said something he didn’t like. Unfortunately.
    But he knew better than to try to avoid the political nature of the job. It was politics, after all, that’d led him to being a wanted man with a significant bounty on his head. So even though he was on the eve of battle, he went to the formal dinner that night and even lingered for a while afterward, mixing with his new peers.
    Or at least trying to.
    Sego had called it correctly when he said that no one here knew how to react to Darius yet. They weren’t quite avoiding him, but they didn’t engage either. They were deliberately standing so that their backs were to him or they stood in profile. The