Blood Shaper

A mobile swarm of people roamed around a marching block of soldiers in ranks, looking surprisingly like the forces Kay had led to the east just a few days ago. Even if Kay hadn’t been able to see the banners held aloft in the center of the march he’d know that these weren’t his people, they were coming from completely the wrong direction. Scouts and sentries had picked them up a few days ago after Kay had arrived back home and the border guards had been alerted to let them through into Avalon’s territory.

The Itarian Crusade and the Shatterplate Order had returned to Avalon, but not as enemies. Messengers led the way with news of their peaceful intentions and at least one of them was a trusted subordinate of the Order’s commander, who freely gave over some information Kay was looking forward to dealing with. It was a mixed bag, as expected. There was dissension in the ranks of both organizations about what to do with Kay’s demands. The Shatterplate Order was more unified in their response, since Commander Ravenhome was the person in charge, but there were still some that protested bowing down to “some upstart”.

More than that though, people could see the writing on the wall. Kay’s demands didn’t technically give him any control over either organization, merely some oversight that would keep them from running off and attacking innocent people again, but anyone with eyes could see that that was merely the beginning. Oversight would become someone being inserted into their leadership, as a simple adviser of course, but they would grow and grow in power until; both groups were subordinate forces in Avalon’s power. That was the vision of the future the people that didn’t want to give in to Kay foresaw.

And they were entirely right. That hadn’t been the plan when Edric Ravenhome and Crusader General Stonegnawer back home with demands of reparations, but plans changed. Kay had long ago cast aside his trepidation and fears over his own growing power and responsibilities, and those were larger than ever. He wasn’t some chosen hero of the age, but he had been given a mission by the System itself. That mission was lower on the list than his other duties, but it was still there and he was going to milk it for every drop of influence he could. He was the weapon the System had created to eradicate the vampyr, and he was going to drag along anyone that could help him with that. If they happened to end up as part of Avalon along the way and became pillars of support for his people and nation, well, those were the inside thoughts that didn’t get spoken out loud. Especially since the “side benefits” were his real goal and dealing with the vampyr was the actual side benefit.

Kay stepped off one of Avalon’s internal walls that had afforded him a better view of the visitors and dropped to the ground. Amanda was waiting at the closest entrance to the palace, flanked by a number of her direct subordinates.

She turned to follow him as he began walking. “How do you want this handled?”

“We’ll try it the easy way first. Diplomacy, convincing arguments, allowing our allies to help. If we have to in order to get things moving, that’s when we move to the hard way.” Kay felt a tiny hand pat his neck in acknowledgment and noted that Isla had once again slipped past the measures he was implementing to find her.

“Very well,” Amanda replied. “A delegation of their leaders will be allowed to approach directly, where we’ll bring them up to speed. The messengers we sent to find them had reports with them for Commander Ravenhome and Crusader General Stonegnawer, but we can’t guarantee they managed to read them or what their subordinates know.”

They moved to Kay’s public office where Miri was already waiting with a large binder in her arms. “Ah, your Majesty. I’ve prepared a number of potential outfits for you to form for your meeting.”

She nodded back and quickly dismissed her people with instructions for those who needed them. After they left Kay transformed his layered blood armor into a simple outfit that resembled jeans and a t-shirt and started looking over the options he’d been presented. Isla appeared on his desk, already sitting at a small table with snacks and a tea kettle which she poured into a cup sized for her.

“Is that real?” Kay asked, looking down at the setup.

Isla smirked up at him. “Define ‘real’.”

He ignored the attempt at mysteriousness and tapped the edge of the miniature table with his finger. “You know exactly what I mean. How did you carry all of that in here? It can’t have been sitting there the whole time, I would have destroyed it by now.”

“Can’t you leave me to some secrets?” She asked with a put upon sigh and sipped her tea. “I’m your spymaster, I have to be aloof and inscrutable or I’ll lose my job.”

“Ha! Fat chance of that, you’re doing too good a job. What have we heard from our agents among our visitors.”

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Isla scoffed as she picked up a teacake. “You overestimate me, my king. We sent off the straggling survivors of a failed invasion back home with a treaty of reparations and stipulations of submission, do you really think I could recruit any agents in such a time? And to think that I would somehow be able to insert-“

“Okay, now you’re just bragging.”

“And?”

“And we don’t have time for me to indulge you, as fun as it would be for all of us.” Kay grew out a long tailcoat with short sleeves and a high collar, immediately getting twin looks of disgust from Miri and Amanda. That outfit was removed from contention and he turned back to Isla. “What do we have?”

“Most of those against submitting to us either have their own irons in the fire they’re worried about losing or work for another power.” She responded promptly. “There are the various greedy or power hungry folk at low ranks that think we’ll take what they think is theirs or who dread ending up even a single rung down the ladder of power, and those we can ignore. The ones that work for another nation are more annoying, but still nothing that we can’t deal with.”

“What countries are involved?”

“The Empire and the Concord of course. Ravenhome is from the Empire and most of the Order is based there. While they’ve managed to remain independent since Ravenhome founded them, that’s mostly because the organization is relatively young. The Order’s explosive growth and effectiveness have drawn eyes, and the Empire very much wants to make the Order an official part of their military. Young nobles and military veterans have been joining for years now in record numbers, and many of them are agents of the Empire looking to draw the order closer to the imperial bosom.”

“And the Crusade?”

“Similar, but coming from the Itarian Concord. The Crusade is older and more established, but the main point is that they lack a centralized leadership, making them much more susceptible to being seduced into coming directly under the Concords control. A number of their High Crusaders and Crusader Generals already answer to one or more Itarian nobles. The only reason they’ve managed to retain most of their independence is the canniness of some the Crusader Generals and the Concord’s own laws making it difficult for them to drawn the Crusade in as part of their military.”

An outfit that made Kay think of his history lessons about the French aristocracy was also discarded. “Why don’t we need to worry about them interfering?”

Isla pointed out into the rest of the world. “Because they’re too far away. Once the Crusade and the Order were headed this way both governments lost too much control to make either of them stop. Having a notable nation and it’s surroundings be destroyed by the largest vampyr attack in recent history also kept the scales balanced in our direction. Nothing the political string pullers could do was going to stop either group from coming to deal with that. The leaders who’s loyalty belongs to someone other than their own organizations will be obnoxious, but a few figurative hard smacks will get them in line. Without any backup from their masters they won’t be able to afford to really fight with us.”

“Who does that leave?”

“Any loyalists to either Ravenhome himself, the Crusader Generals who are moving as we want, and those who follow the stated principles of the Crusade and the Order can be considered one group. They’ll work with us, which is all we really need at the moment. Which leaves the scattered troublemakers mixed in.” The tiny pixie woman sighed. “There’s a handful of zealots or other flavors of true believer who still won’t accept that you aren’t actually a vampyr and plan to cause trouble in one way or another, and then there are those with real influence that don’t want to lose their spot in the hierarchy. Both types of nuisance on the Order’s side will be dealt with. Zeia is more of an influential figure than I expected and with her fully on our side combined with the general support we have from the Ravenhomes there’s no question that we’ll own the Shatterplate Order by the time this is done. They’ll shed a few people that don’t agree with what’s going to happen, but the organization as a whole will remain.”

“And the Crusade?”

“The Crusade is going to shatter.” Amanda answered. She shook her head at Miri to give her opinion on the most recent of Kay’s attempts at a formal outfit before looking back into Kay’s eyes. “There’s no stopping it, mostly because the Crusade’s decentralized leadership.”

“Oh, that one isn’t bad.” Isla mused. “Maybe with a different cuff though. But Amanda’s right, the Crusade isn’t unified enough to deal with all the sudden shocks they’ve been taking. They’re more of a group of private armies that team up to deal with vampyr threats more than a single Crusade. They haven’t been truly united for a handful of decades now.”

“While that worked for them to deal with multiple fronts at once on a military basis,” Amanda cut back in, “The current situation makes that from a benefit to a flaw. Each Crusader General has their own troops and factions that follow them, and we expect the Crusade to lose at least half of their Generals in the schism to come.”

They all paused to look Kay over as he finished his outfit, an outfit that resembled slacks and a dress shirt from Earth, but with deeper sleeves that billowed just enough to fit a hand in and stitching up the side of his legs.

Miri nodded happily. “I think you should go with this one, your majesty.”

“Alright.” He looked over at Amanda. “The Crusade having a schism can’t be stopped, you said. Can it be delayed?”

She held out a sheaf of papers. “Reports on the Crusader Generals that need to be… dealt with in one way or another to delay the Crusade as a whole fracturing into pieces.”

Kay started memorizing faces and names. “They can split into pieces and go become private armies of Itarian nobles or hunt vampyr elsewhere in the world after we deal with this problem. Until then they’ll get in line and do as they’re told. There’s too much at stake to allow petty bullshit or rock-headed stubbornness to get in the way.”

“As you say, your majesty. Would you like to make a plan to ensure they all toe the line?”

“I would. Which Crusader General is likely to be mouthy who we can also afford for them to not be very useful in the future?”