Chapter 29.

  Plans and Pawns

  One week later…

  Piercer leaned back in his chair, distancing himself for a moment from the mountain of contracts, reports and missives that cluttered his desk. He had sent his men, Gunther, Ginter and six others, west to the small town Hardwright had described, in search of the priest of mysterious importance. Twisting his head to the side, a soft pop in his neck gave temporary relief to the tension that had been building more rapidly in the recent days.

  Piercer could not stand the Cardinal. Not the man, nor the church he represented. Twenty years he had devoted to the Holy Order’s legions. Twenty years of tedium and hardship interspersed with extreme violence and loss, only to be cast aside, abandoned when men of violence like him were no longer needed. Some soldiers he knew, had rebelled. Demanding pay and admittance to the city they fought for. and all of those men were either taken at the hands of the Justiciars or had fled to the north to try their luck across the Jormungand.

  His chin came to rest in his hand as he remembered that day. Scores of paladins in golden armor and deep hoods, emerged from the city to place his brothers in bondage, dragging them away in golden chains to a fate unknown. He would see his men, even if just their bodies returned. And the Cardinal may have delivered him the piece he needed.

  The target was more than just a simple priest as Hardwright had described. Of that he was certain. The shiftiness of the man’s demeanor conveyed more truth than any word the Cardinal could ever speak. That Hardwright wanted the priest alive meant he would be valuable within the capitol. Theodren Stormwall would provide the access he needed to go where no soldier had gone before, into the Conclave itself.

  Stormwall… he sighed deeply as he remembered the last man he met with the name. Staring each other down across the great river. First they hurled insults, then arrows and then finally, words of diplomacy. No one had ever outmaneuvered him before or since, and when the giant Northman could have slaughtered them all, he did not. Restraining himself and his men, he chose to let the muddied, bloodied and bedraggled survivors of Piercer’s detachment return with the bodies of their fallen comrades. When the capitol announced that the son of Thorn had joined the priesthood, Piercer had dismissed the lad as a cheap pawn given to the Conclave as a gesture of good will, but now… he would have to reassess the young man.

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  He picked up his latest missive from one of his spies within the capitol. The comings and goings of various politicians and priests was scrawled out upon the page. One particular line caught his interest. The Patriarch had stopped visiting the Academy. Gaius Lex the Patriarch had gone from his office to the Academy twice a week, every week for the last four years. But in the last three weeks, the Patriarch had not visited The Loom, as it was called, even once.

  The Taskmaster squinted at the page. Whatever had held Lex’s interest there had left three weeks ago. The Patriarch was not one to change routine lightly, and if it was important enough for the man to go out of his way for every week, then it was important to Piercer.

  In the last ten years Piercer had painstakingly crafted a network of spies and informants. Bribes, threats and blackmail had taken him far in his endeavors until he knew the goings on of almost every institution of import, except, until a week ago that is, when Cardinal Hardwright delivered himself right into his hands.

  The Golden Shears were an especially difficult nut to crack. None of their sect ever seemed to leave the confines of the Conclave unless they were on orders. Always returning bloody and silent, in a manner that unnerved all who were aware of it. But now the head of that order was sitting upstairs. Drowning his anger in the best booze Piercer could find him. With a plan to keep him placated, until Theodren was in hand and the Taskmaster could make his position clear.

  Piercer lowered the parchment onto the flickering stub of his candle, tossing the page into the bin where a pile of ashes already sat. Hardwright’s arrival had significantly sped up his timetable. So much so, that he would spend the next several nights maneuvering all the necessary pieces into place years before he had originally planned.

  He set about writing his next batch of orders. The soldiers of Militas had gone soft and undisciplined in their pseudo retirement, taking to drink and sport to while away the days between what jobs he could find to keep them busy. He would have to reinstate a training regimen for the men. He would not allow laziness and lack of discipline to cost him another victory as it had for the weak willed officers of the northern campaign. All of them had retired to the city, lauded with medals earned by the men they left behind and telling tales of bravery that weren’t their’s. Piercer had gone to great lengths to consolidate his authority when the officers abandoned them. He would need it now.