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Tiberius's quill scratched across the parchment, leaving a short list of names in sharp black ink.
"Vito. Old Tom. Garvin." He didn't turn around, eyes fixed on the training field outside the window where his Lightning Company drilled spear thrusts and formation changes. "Take a few men you trust and bring me these stewards and overseers. Alive."
He paused, then added coldly, "Not just them. Their wives, every male over sixteen in their households, and every thug they keep on payroll. I want them breathing."
His finger tapped the parchment again. "Everything they own—coins, grain, houses, land deeds—seize it all. Split it like this: sixty percent to the White Company's war chest, thirty percent to the Lightning Company's funds, and the last ten percent…"
He finally turned, scanning the veterans' faces with a rare, almost relaxed smile.
"…the last ten percent goes to you and your boys. Call it hazard pay. Make their purses heavy tonight. But do it fast."
---
The next morning the training field felt heavier than iron.
No drills. No shouted orders. The entire Lightning Company stood in perfect ranks while Tiberius stepped onto the wooden platform, a custom blunt longsword resting on his shoulder—more iron club than blade, its edges deliberately dull and brutal.
His face was stone. His eyes swept the formation like winter frost.
"I know," he said, voice low but carrying to every ear, "there have been whispers in camp. About the extra food and copper coins you earn for your families every Sunday… and how they disappear the next day under 'perfectly legal' excuses."
He let the silence crush them.
"Storage fees. Protection money. Management charges. Cute names. If I didn't know better I'd think my soldiers were tenant farmers or shopkeepers paying tribute to the underworld."
Many heads dropped. No one dared meet his gaze.
"I heard about it," Tiberius continued. "But I also remember making one rule very clear: when your commander asks a question, you answer honestly. Because on the battlefield, even the smallest piece of information can decide whether you live or die."
"You forgot that rule. So tonight the entire company goes without dinner—including me."
A ripple of pale faces spread through the ranks.
"Because in my army, one man's mistake means his squad leader answers for it. A squad leader's mistake means his company commander answers. A company commander's mistake means Tiberius Mord answers. And today, every last one of you failed. That tells me my training still isn't hard enough. Because on a real battlefield, mistakes don't get you skipped meals—they get you gutted by Volantene spears, skulls crushed by war-axes, or trampled into red mud by cataphracts."
The silence was absolute, the air thick with dread.
Then Tiberius's voice changed—still cold, but now edged with iron certainty.
"But there is one unbreakable law you will never forget again: what belongs to my soldiers belongs to my soldiers. Anyone who reaches for it loses the hand… and the head that ordered it."
He turned sharply. "Vito!"
"Here!" Vito stepped forward with a wolfish grin.
"Bring the stewards up. Their wives and sons too."
Vito and a handful of hard-eyed veterans dragged forward more than a dozen pale, trembling men and women—exactly the parasites who had been bleeding the soldiers' families dry. They were shoved onto the platform like cattle.
Tiberius lifted the heavy blunt sword. Sunlight glinted off its merciless edges.
"Nail the fattest, greediest one to the board," he ordered. "I'll execute him myself."
Under the horrified stares of the entire company, Vito personally hammered long iron spikes through the fat steward's wrists and ankles, pinning him spread-eagle to the thick wooden plank. The man's screams tore across the field.
Tiberius walked forward without hesitation.
He started at the waist.
One swing. Two. Three. Each blow landed with every ounce of his strength, the blunt sword crushing flesh and bone instead of cutting cleanly. Ribs snapped. Organs burst. Blood and worse sprayed across the platform.
Then the back. The neck. Finally the head.
The steward's skull exploded like a dropped melon, chunks of bone and brain flying into the front ranks.
Tiberius didn't stop.
Next man. Next wife. Next son.
For half an hour the platform became a slaughterhouse. The wet crunch of bone, the wetter splatter of blood and shit, the inhuman shrieks—every soldier watched in frozen silence.
By the end Tiberius's arms trembled with exhaustion, his face and armor splattered crimson. Thirty-odd mangled corpses lay in a steaming, unrecognizable pile.
He planted the bloody blunt sword in the wood and looked down at his men, voice hoarse but absolute.
"Tomorrow is a special day. I will issue three full weeks of rations and pay at once. Your families will come here in person and receive everything directly from Captain Jules's trusted men."
He drew a ragged breath.
"But this is a one-time exception. Never again."
He waved a tired hand.
"First Company—clean this garbage off my platform and dump it at the main gate. If any of them are still breathing and manage to crawl home, they earned it."
---
That night, inside Tiberius's command tent.
Vito tossed him a bottle of sharp-smelling medicinal wine and eyed the boy's swollen, purple arms with a twisted grin.
"Kid… you're even more vicious than the captain was in his prime. When Jules executed that knight who missed muster because he was balls-deep in his mistress, he at least used a clean noose. You turned that platform into a butcher's block. Those rabbits are going to have nightmares for years."
Tiberius said nothing, just rubbed the medicinal wine into his aching arms with mechanical motions.
He felt sick. He also felt something far more important.
From this day forward, the Lightning Company belonged completely to Tiberius Mord.
"Oh, right, Vito," he said suddenly. "My uncle…"
Vito barked a short laugh.
"What, you finally remembered this is his estate and those stewards were his property?"
"Don't worry. The captain only said one thing."
"What?"
"'Well done. But sell off the rest of their families afterward. No loose ends.'"
"I understand." Tiberius's voice was calm again. "Handle the sales yourself, Vito. Tell the Haen family slaver to take them. Pleasure garden, disputed-lands mines—I don't care. Just make sure they never find their way back to Lys."
Vito nodded. "Consider it done. I'll slip the slaver a few extra gold dragons to make sure they disappear for good."