Rebirth of the Phoenix God

"Victor, meet Haskar. Haskar, this is Victor and Orsha. And on the road of elimination…"

Smiling happily to the soldier from Tlinra, Fen's lips twitched when the young man noticed a confused look on the man's face. In one instant though, the envoy's expression changed to an understanding yet defeated smile.

"So you have bested me, sir Fen. Given the disproportion of our means… I salute you. Great job."

Joining this exclusive talk that only the two out of four people gathered could enjoy, Haskar smiled himself. But instead of keeping the suspense up, as soon as he noticed a flash of annoyance speeding through Victor's eyes, his face changed once again. 

Now serious and focused, he turned to the part of the group that was out of the loop.

"Excuse my rudeness, dear sir and lady. As it appears, I'm someone who dabbles in… less official means of imposing one's will on others. It's nice to meet you, I'm Haskar of the third Heptarchian division, regional commander of the eastern branch for our fertile province."

Bowing his head with grace to the mercenaries, the Kinzarian officer glanced towards the severed head roped-in to the side of his saddle.

"Former commander. Judging from the situation, I did not expect you to associate yourself with the old regime anymore."

Not letting the man sweep the mood of the entire talk and take an absolute lead, Fen interjected with a slightly masochistic side. After all, this wasn't a normal opponent that could be dealt with by using standard means. Unless the hierarchy would be established at the soonest possible moment, then further cooperation with the man could prove challenging.

"Yes. Former commander."

Confirming Fen's words with a wry smile plastered on his face, Haskar once again directed his eyes towards the trophy.

"This fellow here is… or rather, used to be the governor of the city. For some strange reasons, as soon as he was about to give the order to ambush your forces with all his strength, he just happened to choke on his wine. Given how he was dead anyway, I decided to use his now useless head as a gift to express my sincere intentions."

This time, Haskar didn't just lower his head, but he bowed with his entire upper body. Leaning down with uncommon grace, he appeared to be some kind of a show-runner awaiting the applause after some witty trick. 

"Ah, I get it. So that's what you have been doing with all those letters through…"

Suddenly catching up from the tone and the rather obvious giveaways at what this talk was really about, Orsha exclaimed before her eyes meet with Fen's suddenly cold gaze. Reflecting on her actions on the spot, she quickly cut her words. 

"Yes. Over the span of the last three weeks, even before we were pushed into our current, unfortunate situation, I happened to play a game of sorts with our new friend. Bit by bit, we learned more about the intentions of the other side, and in the end, mister Haskar was fully aware of the options in front of him."

Fen's eyes suddenly froze, with an extremely cold glint flashing through his pupils.

"But I have to admit, our little game… It was one of the few challenges that this entire situation imposed on me."

Instead of cowering in fear from the clearly unfriendly tone of the young arcanist, Haskar simply stood in place, staring right into the abyss contained in Fen's gaze.

"Sir Fen…"

Suddenly shaking his head, the middle-aged man from Tlinra dressed an extremely serious expression on his face before once again starting at the depths of Fen's pupils.

"That's what our paths forces us into. This is the way we have chosen, and a man can only swear fealty to the results of challenging fate."

For a moment, the atmosphere around the four important figures changed. From the shocked and happy one to a serious and philosophical. Before long, Fen's face relaxed, a hit of acceptance and acknowledgement appeared in his eyes, diffusing the tension is the area. 

"Okay then, let's speed things up a bit. Would you like me to explain or have our new friend do it from his perspective?"

Even though this meeting was aimed at allying the two forces, Fen didn't dare to miss the opportunity to decide the limits of their cooperation. Unless he could restrain the man's ability to cause problems right now, who could know what would happen in the future. And negotiations in the current situation, where he and his friends had a huge advantage, was not something that the young man was willing not to abuse.

"I think I would like to hear it from mister Haskar."

While the debate over the intricacies of covert works and scheming were beyond Victor's scope, any negotiating tactics were well within his means to recognise. Years of service as the main representative of the entire mercenary's group turned him into a pretty-well diplomat, capable of securing the best deals possible. And noticing what Fen was attempting to do, the idea of not using this opportunity was too ridiculous to even appear in his mind.

"So be it."

Shaking his head with both annoyance and praise reflecting in his eyes, Haskar quickly calmed himself down and looked at the trio in front of him. 

"According to the intentions of both sides and what the long term goals would be for both your and my side, I believe… that the entire eastern district of the western province should… reconsider the allegiances."

Given how the mercenaries were not giving him an easy time either, Haskar didn't see any point in being overly nice himself. This kind of stance had one, simple meaning. This game both of them could play!

"Okay, fuck you guys. Screw you all. Can't we just get the terms and get it over with? Or do you want to take off your pants and directly compare your sizes instead of trying to do that with your words alone?"

At first, Orsha's eruption presented the girl to be quite annoyed, but a quick glance she stole from Fen made it clear that she knew what she was doing. And the young man was way past the point where he would dare to underestimate her abilities. After all, while he had some natural talents on his own, it didn't mean others couldn't best him in other aspects.

"Hahaha… I think the girl - Orsha, am I right? - is right. If my guess about your… adventures to the west is right, we shouldn't waste time nor keep our forces anxious about what's going to happen."

For some reason, the girl managed to diffuse the situation like no one else could, making all three of the men realise how pointless their ongoing struggle was. Ultimately, only one outcome would ever appear. No amount of words would change it. Because when it came to schemes of this scale, there was only one thing that held any meaning.

Gold.

The flow of gold would decide the terms at which Haskar would join hands with the mercenary kingdom. With a lot of aces in his sleeve, from the strategic position of his city to being directly outside of the maximal effective range of Kiznarian King's rule, all the way to how he was the best person to fool the monarch into believing Fen's manipulated story. He had a lot of chips to put on the table. 

But so was the case for the mercenaries. What the man had yet to understand, unless he managed to come up with exactly the same reasoning as Fen, was that the job was far from being over yet.

Given the circumstances, Haskar could expect Fen and company to settle on the profits from the trade, maybe obtain the protection of one of the nearby kingdoms. In general, a normal person would never dare to push the scope of their plans to the level Fen did.

After all, who would kill a lion just to recover a cheap ball that fell pray to the beast's mischief? And that was the scale of the effort that Fen was putting for the price he wanted to obtain if Haskar were to compare what he knew about mercenaries' efforts and desired results.

"Okay then."

Letting out a deep sigh, Fen shook his shoulders before looking sharply at the man in front of him.

"We can offer you a partial autonomy on the same set of rules that decide our own rule. Once this entire mess is over, you will get a fair split out of the profits from the trade. The areas focused on the trade form the entire country generate income for the shared coffer, and half of it is distributed to each of us directly. The other half will be used for state-wide projects."

This time, neither the mercenaries nor Haskar required to think about anything. While the history of the old Kingdom was mostly buried, a lot of records of its inner-working remained. What Fen was currently proposing, was just a slightly modified pioneering contract given to the commanders taking over their new posts in the golden era of the first mercenary kingdom.

"That's reasonable. But would you mind to explain what was your business to the west? I can't really picture a reason to cause a commotion so big just to force the cession of those lands. A big bribe would do it faster and cheaper."

Summing up the facts that he knew, Haskar looked at the mercenaries.

"Oh… You have no idea what's coming this way. But let me put it in those words. Once the storm will be over and Kinzarian subjugation army will disperse back to the hinterlands, all the management and profits from the lands of the now eradicated nobles will be divided between the cities. You could say, what we are striving to create is closer to a federation of allied states rather than a powerful, centralised entity."