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Game of Thrones White Dragon Rising
Game of Thrones The Sun Dragon Descends
Scapegoat Quartermaster
"They want to give up before we've even fought?!"
Jules's voice cracked with pure disbelief. He stared at the map like he was seeing the decision-makers' faces for the first time—the lifeline marked "Flank Corridor" suddenly looked like a death warrant.
"Do they even hear themselves? The Flank Corridor is still ours! Not a single brick has fallen off Twinbridge's walls! Our warships still sail in and out of Peninsula Port whenever they damn well please!"
He slammed his fist on the table so hard the map markers jumped.
"Stone Crow Town is still in our hands! The Volantenes are squatting dozens of miles away at Three-Tax Gate—they haven't even sniffed our perimeter—and our own people are already talking about handing the enemy the keys to the front door?!"
"This isn't strategy. This is a plague! One guy loses, so everyone else pisses their pants and forgets how to stand! That idiot Mitridas gambled away the family fortune on the main front—doesn't mean we have to jump into the grave with him! The enemy hasn't even arrived and we're already opening the gates to invite them in?!"
Jules was breathing hard, pointing out the window toward Twinbridge.
"Our soldiers are still reinforcing the walls. Our craftsmen are still forging crossbow bolts. Our farmers are still hauling grain here! Everyone is bleeding to hold this ground! And those Lysene and Myr lords sitting safe in their palaces draw one line on a map and declare all that effort, all that hope, 'expendable'?!"
Lysandro's face had gone from uncomfortable to outright sick.
He wasn't some spoiled rich kid anymore. After these hard fights he'd started to understand real military reality—what counted as strategy, what counted as suicide.
As the governor's son he knew exactly how those councilors operated, and he saw the panic for what it was: pure terror, flailing for any way to buy a little more time by cutting off their own limbs.
"I'll speak to my father," Lysandro said through gritted teeth. "I'll make him understand we cannot abandon the Flank Corridor! This region is too important—too important! Anyone who suggests giving it up should be thrown straight into the Seven Hells!"
"I'm done with that Myr idiot Mitridas and his brainless orders! A defeated general dragged back on a donkey cart—what right does he have to keep commanding us?"
---
That night in camp, Habro poked at the fire with a stick, clearly in a foul mood.
"So, Demetrius, what are you gonna do next?"
"Fuck me, why am I so cursed?" Before Demetrius could answer, Habro jabbed the stick deep into the flames, sending up a shower of sparks and glowing coals.
"Me—Habro—first ambushed in the delta, nearly lost my leg, most of my brothers dead or scattered. Now I've got maybe a hundred men left—down a full quarter!"
"And then? My dizzy-brained patron is still trapped in that Three-Tax Gate prison camp! Who knows if he's dead or waiting for his family to pay ransom… either way, I'm never seeing that final payment!" Habro spat.
That was the ugly truth: when your employer gets killed or captured, the odds of collecting the rest of your fee drop to zero—even if it wasn't your fault.
And Habro still had to pay death benefits to the families of his dead men and wages to the living. No tail-end payment meant his company would dissolve. After half a lifetime building the outfit, with brothers counting on him for their next meal… what the hell kind of ending was that?
"Easy, brother," Lysapo tried to soothe him. "Look on the bright side—at least you're still alive. You're not stuck in that giant prison at Three-Tax Gate…"
True enough. If Habro hadn't followed Tiberius to Stone Crow Town, he'd have gone back with his patron and right now would be watching Volantene earthworks slowly choke the life out of them.
"Cough… yeah, there's that…" Habro muttered.
"That idiot saw how bad our losses were and actually let us pull back for rest. Thank the gods for small mercies, or I'd be eating mud in Three-Tax Gate right now!"
"But Demetrius—what about you? Going back to Myr? Still a centurion?"
"With the Stone Crow fight on your record you could probably make thousand-man commander, especially with so many officers dead…"
Yeah, the darkest joke of all: the more superiors died, the faster you got promoted.
From that angle, Mitridas was practically Demetrius's benefactor.
Without the general "clearing out" so many senior Myr officers, a man of Demetrius's birth would've topped out as centurion—maybe a standard-bearer for some thousand-man commander at best.
"I'm not going back to Myr to stay in the army—at least not while the war's still on," Demetrius shook his head, staring into the crackling fire with a cold smile.
"Go back for what? Keep serving that ass-selling donkey-cart general Mitridas?"
"Hah! Might as well stick my neck straight into a Volantene noose!" He jerked a thumb toward the distant tents where his Myr men were camped.
"Our Myr blood has been spilled enough for that idiot's stupid orders! Besides…" He lowered his voice so only the three of them could hear.
"Go back and become a thousand-man commander? I'd be lucky to get three or five centurions under me! Manpower? We're gutted! And I've got no patrons up top. Guess who gets every shit job, every suicide rear-guard, every 'hold until relieved'? Me. That's not a promotion—that's a one-way ticket to the underworld! Promoted to thousand-man right before the big push? Sounds great on paper. In reality it's just a fancy title for 'dead man walking.'"
"Ha! I know that song by heart!" Habro took a bitter swig from his waterskin.
"Promoted right before the battle, no one above you to protect you—who else is gonna take the fall? Who else is gonna be the expendable? Nobody cares when the guy with no connections dies!"
"So Lysapo, what about you?" Habro asked suddenly. "Heading back to Tyrosh?"
"Tyrosh…" Lysapo gave a bitter little smile.
"What would I even do? Keep being a quartermaster?" He dropped his voice even lower, afraid someone might overhear.
"You know how it goes—after the disaster at Swordbreak Fort, somebody has to take the blame. We all know exactly whose fault it was."
"But as long as Mitridas still holds military power, no one's pointing the finger at him. So it'll be 'logistical failure,' 'shoddy supplies,' 'corruption and dereliction of duty'…"
He tapped his own chest. "Us little nobles and officials in charge of grain transport and rear-echelon work? We're the perfect scapegoats!"
"The only reasons I haven't been hauled up yet are because I helped win Stone Crow Town and because I'm still outside Tyroshi military control—governor far away, no one can touch me!"
"Think about it: if Three-Tax Gate falls and Mitridas keeps his job, they'll need fresh scapegoats… Hah! Count me out!"
The fire popped. Silence fell over the four men.
They'd come to the fire hoping to find some way forward together. Instead every path led straight off a cliff: bankruptcy, suicide promotion, or scapegoat duty.
"Listen, brothers… I've got an idea," Habro made sure only the men around the fire could hear. "We throw in with Tiberius. We join his Lightning Company."
He raised a thick finger and started counting, eyes sharp with the old cunning that had kept him alive this long.
"First—Vito's my old comrade. He's already captain of crossbows in Jules's White Company—real seniority."
"Right now Tiberius's Lightning Company is attached to Jules. Whatever else, Jules and Tiberius are smart. At least we won't be ordered to die by some mushroom-brained idiot."
"And that kid Tiberius… fuck, he's sly as his fox of a grandfather. Without his crazy fake-surrender plan at Stone Crow Town we'd all be rotting in the ditches right now, picked clean by crows!"
He paused, looking each man in the eye to make sure they were listening.
"Second—you may not trust the 'Lightning Kid' yet, but you all know Jules the Trustworthy's reputation. Go ask around! Solid record, plays it safe. Doesn't throw brothers' lives away to pad his own glory or purse like some madmen and fools."
"Under a commander like that, the odds of surviving long enough to collect your pay are a hell of a lot better. And Tiberius—after all these days together we know he's the same as his uncle: reliable, keeps his word, and plenty ruthless when he needs to be."
Finally Habro jerked his chin toward the tents where Lysandro and Tiberius slept, voice dropping to a near whisper but full of genuine respect.
"Third—look at that one. Rogare family young master. That's a direct line to Lysene high society and gold."
He slapped his thigh, summing it up with the fierce relief of a man who'd just seen a way out after staring at the abyss.
"Brothers, do we even need to choose? Go back as a bankrupt company captain? Or a thousand-man commander who'll be fed into the meat grinder? Or a quartermaster who'll be thrown under the cart the second the blame game starts?"
"Why not follow Tiberius and Jules—smart, connected, and actually got brains—carve out our own bloody road in this shit world and stuff our purses while we're at it?"
Lysapo asked timidly, "Then… why join the Lightning Company instead of the White Company?"
---
Inside the command tent, lamplight slid along the blade of the sword in Jules's hands. He polished it with slow, focused strokes, steel reflecting his calm face.
"Vito," he said evenly, eyes never leaving the edge, "you think Habro and the others plan to sign on with me as ordinary captains, quietly earning a daily wage…"
He paused. The polishing stopped. The sword tip lifted slightly, pointing meaningfully toward the night breeze outside where a banner snapped—a bold blue lightning bolt on white.
"…or are they going to join a twelve-year-old kid's 'Lightning Company'?"
Vito stood nearby, grinning wide enough to show teeth stained by cheap liquor and chewing grass. The old soldier's eyes glittered with shrewd understanding.
"Chief, is that even a question? If their heads aren't full of piss, they already know which way to walk." He stepped closer, voice rough but clear.
"Habro—you and I both know the man. Used to run his own outfit, four hundred mouths under him, proper captain in every sense."
"Now he's down on his luck, coming to us. He respects you, knows the rules of the mercenary trade: sometimes luck just turns. But asking him to swallow his pride and serve as just another company captain under you?"
"Ha! That little bit of arrogance left in him? The drop in status would be too much. He'd never be happy."
Jules nodded for him to keep going.
Vito warmed to it. "Then there's Demetrius—proper Myr army centurion, knows drill and formations cold."
"But in the White Company we've already got plenty of officers and strict rules. Even if you like him, how many men would he actually command at first?"
"But in the Lightning Company? Tiberius is desperate for experienced regular-army officers to build the framework. Demetrius walks in and immediately runs his own show. Joining the White Company? He'd still be taking orders. In the Lightning Company he'd be a founding elder—helping set strategy and sharing the profits!"
"As for Lysapo…" Vito chuckled.
"That Tyroshi little noble, the quill-and-parchment guy—he'd never fit with us anyway!"
"Our logistics are already tight. Even if you took him in, an outsider squeezing into an established system? No chance."
"But the new Lightning Company—three hundred mouths to feed, equipment to scrounge. They desperately need a competent, trustworthy quartermaster. The company's small now, but that post is critical and the future is wide open."
"Makes sense. Then I'll wait and see what they choose tomorrow."
Jules's Diary:
Vito is right.
What they need isn't a comfortable slot inside an already-finished machine. They need a place where they can start fresh, prove their worth, and carve out their own future.
The Lightning Company offers exactly that. Tiberius needs his own loyal cadre. Lysandro's investment needs reliable junior executors. And Vito needs help so he can step back from Lightning Company affairs—he's the White Company's crossbow captain, not the Lightning Company's full-time trainer.
This is a clean, logical optimization.
For me it's good too. The elite stay with the White Company; fresh blood strengthens the Lightning Company. Tiberius needs to learn how to handle officers from different backgrounds with different skills and egos. That's the growth he must go through if he wants to become a real commander.
One force has become two. The younger one is still growing, but both share the same goal. That's good. Very good.