Blood Shaper

Book 6: Chapter 5

Kay set aside another set of reports that contained the details of what Amanda and Cindy reported to him. Amanda had the government and civil matters handled, while Cindy was going over what military and adventurer related items she knew about. Kay would need a more detailed report both from General Curcius, the leader of Avalon’s military, and Meten, the oni who was in charge of Avalon’s directly controlled force of Adventurers, the Sentinels, in the future but both of them were busy and Cindy had been involved in fighting back vampyr incursions fir the last few months, so she knew enough to give Kay a summary.

“A civil war breaks out in Nelam, a flood of refugees show up begging for sanctuary, then vampyr attack everyone to our west and more people run to us for safety, all while I’m gone.” Kay shook his head. “Thanks to that we’ve got rampaging vampyr everywhere and a horde of people to deal with.” He tipped back in his chair and stared at the ceiling. “If it wasn’t crazy talk I’d say someone is after us.”

“Looking for an enemy pulling the strings isn’t wrong necessarily,” Amanda grabbed the papers Kay had set down and organized them before setting them back down, “But spending too much time on the idea might lead to madness. The level of power someone would need to engineer all of this just to strike at Avalon would be able to attack us on their own.”

“True.” Kay let the moment pass and sat up, his back straight and his posture open, doing his best to portray himself as a confident leader. “Alright. I’ve got the top level summary, so let’s talk details. What’s most pressing?”

Amanda shuffled through her documents and pulled out a sheet that she handed to him. “The refugee issue is the one most likely to boil over quickly or turn into something that needs handling. They’re inside our borders and can make plans of their own, which makes dealing with them the first thing to handle in my opinion. Foreign policy can wait until we have our domestic issues solved and the military side of things is holding to my knowledge.”

Cindy nodded when Kay glanced at her. “She’s right. Curcius has built the army up enough that we can train new recruits in relative safety and still have forces to deal with threats. Our territory is basically a peninsula so we’ve only got one land border to deal with. Thanks to that the army has been able to concentrate along the edge most of the vampyr are coming through and have been holding them off there. Sentinel forces have been filling in the gaps between larger deployments and picking off anything that tries to move inward.”

“We’re pushed out that far?” Kay drew out some blood and shaped it into a floating map of Avalon’s territory. The rounded shape looked a bit like a fish’s fin from an angle. Kay pointed at the Kay pointed at the far western end of the map. “That’s the edge of what we claim, but that’s hundreds of miles away. We don’t have that many soldiers.”

“You’re right, we don’t. We don’t need that many right now though.” Cindy tapped at two different points on the map. “That’s where our two deployments are right now. On our side of the border that’s all undeveloped land but both of those spots are close to large roads that lead west. A lot of the refugees take the roads for speed and then have been cutting over the border as soon as possible. We aren’t facing an actual invading army, the vampyr we’ve been seeing are animals chasing prey. We don’t need to defend the border, just where the people are coming.”

“My people were originally using less obvious paths,” Amanda added, “When it was better to be slow and draw less attention. Now that its more important to get as many people out of danger as quickly as possible I’ve been ordering them to abandon stealth and head for our army.”

“My smugglers, abolitionists, and rescuers.” She replied. “When it was just the civil war I had them ramp up their efforts into getting slaves out of danger without breaking completely into the open, but when things escalated there was no point in keeping it a secret any longer. Nelam is gone and so are almost everyone that gives a shit about finding the secret mastermind that’s been foiling so many of everyone’s plans. Not everyone who worked for me was pleased when they found out who I really am but,” She shrugged and a small satisfied smile graced her face, “I showed those who wanted to be ornery the error of their ways.”

Kay followed all of her logic and couldn’t see anything to argue against. The only reason he hadn’t officially known what Amanda was doing was to keep them out of war with Nelam. That was pointless now on two fronts. “You’re still using them?”

“Of course! They’re still useful after all. I’ve officially brought all of them that didn’t run off into service of Avalon and I’ve been using them in a number of roles so far. Most of the people who reported directly to me are going to get moved into administrations and other bureaucratic positions, the smugglers are all working at evacuating everyone they can out of the danger zones or keeping lines of communication open with the limited number of settlements that are still holding out, and all of the speakers, orators, cell leaders, and such are doing their best to keep things calm among the refugees.”

“Speaking of, let’s get back on that topic.” Kay dismissed the map and let it sink back into his veins.

“Indeed. A vast majority of those who have fled into our lands aren’t going to be a problem. They’re grateful that we’ve let them in and given them food, places to stay, and a measure of safety. Most of them either fine with what we’ve managed to do for them so far or are accepting that we can’t make anything perfect for them this quickly, and a large number of them are considering or already have sworn fealty to Avalon and become citizens.” She pointed to the paper she had and showed him some figures. “Thankfully we were already expecting population growth through immigration following your coronation so we had some infrastructure ready and more under construction to deal with that surge in place. We weren’t ready for this many people all at once, but we were able to hold on long enough to get back into the green. By the end of the month we should be finished with all the emergency construction and can move back to regular expansion.”

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“That’s all good news. Where’s the problem coming from?”

“The people who aren’t simply grateful that we’ve helped them at great expense for no direct benefit to ourselves, of course.” Amanda scowled as she pulled out the next page. “They vary from group to group and person to person, but it all varies down to them wanting something that we don’t have or haven’t given them. Some of them,” She tapped a few names on the list she showed him, “Are just annoying and not really a threat. Nobles who are demanding better treatment and similar nonsense are the majority of that category. Then we have the opportunists that see all the chaos and want to carve a portion out for themselves. Some of them are moving inside the framework of our nation and range from annoyances to thorns in my side, including criminal networks or organizations that are trying to reestablish themselves, but there are some that have been or look like they’re making moves against Avalon. Cindy dealt with a couple of those.”

Avalon’s only other noble grimaced. “It wasn’t pleasant, but they didn’t really give me a choice. The less violent or just more reasonable few are in jail and the rest are dead. A few tried to challenge me, and at least one of them just went straight for an assassination attempt.”

“Are you alright?”

“Oh, I’m fine. Only one of them got anywhere near injuring me and they gave up when everyone around me came down on them like a sack of bricks. According to Amanda and the others the actually threatening ones are waiting to make their moves instead of rushing ahead.”

“Good, glad to hear you haven’t been hurt covering for me. It sounds like you have at least one more category of problem though, who’s left?”

Amanda nodded, “Two more. There are armed groups of escaped slaves that followed the flow of people once the vampyr made it ridiculous to try and keep fighting. Some of them are my people, were my people and I’ve gotten control of them again, or were just bright enough to see where things are headed and are behaving. We’re working on integrating them into our armed forces if they can be trusted or just letting them have normal lives if they want them. The one’s that aren’t behaving are either rabble rousing or pushing to commit atrocities.”

“They suffered so now they should be able to wreak their vengeance against anyone from Nelam that they feel deserves it?” Kay asked acidly.

“Essentially. We’ve been trying to get help for the ones that are just hurting or broken and lashing out, but they have to want the help. The rest…” Amanda shook her head. “As much as I can sympathies with people that have been treated so terribly for so long, I can’t let them kill people for the crime of having been around atrocities or evil and not doing anything. Random civilians who grew up in Nelam might not have tolerated slavery or just not fought against it but that doesn’t make it right to massacre them.”

“We can’t let that happen.” Kay insisted. “Repaying the evils of slavery with more evil will just start a cycle of hatred and pain that will burn everyone around. As long as they are within my lands there will be no counter atrocities.”

Amanda bowed her head.

“Who are the last group of potential problems?”

“The factions of the civil war who made it out as well as some of the polities that weren’t involved by still had to flee the vampyr. As with everyone else, some are fine and some are problems. A few tried to claim some of our lands for their own and had to be spoken to or smacked down. Others are demanding we help them reclaim their territories or give them this aid or that resource. The most problematic of them have been unwilling to wait for you to return or Parliament to make decisions.”

“Speaking of, how is Parliament?”

“Split on most of the remaining issues. The majority have had no problem with accepting refugees or any of the refugees becoming citizens, but opinions are roughly split on what kind of aid beyond that that we should be giving. Some are interested in pushing the vampyr back and reclaiming territory for those who have lost it other believe it isn’t our problem and we shouldn’t commit to fighting monsters for people who were our enemies until recently.” Her lips quirked to the side. “Even if they aren’t all Nelamian most of our citizens aren’t seeing much difference between Nelam and those around them, since they didn’t do anything to hinder Nelam’s attack on us.” She shrugged lightly. “And while I know that most of the region was tied up in Nelamian manipulations and string pulling I can understand the emotional reaction.”

“When we eventually decide on the best course of action I’ll have to work on convincing Parliament to side with me.” Kay muttered as he thought it over. “Even if I am technically a tyrant who can do whatever I want without asking anyone, I don’t want to be and Parliament isn’t supposed to be a rubber stamp or an excuse to hold up and show I’m being a good boy.”

“I am both in agreement and happy that you’re thinking about it in such a way.” Amanda told him. “However, before we go any farther, perhaps you could introduce your guest?” She gestured at Miri who was standing behind Kay and a little off to the side. “I understand that you wanted to get to work quickly, but some of the topics we need to discuss are sensitive ones.”

“Oh, you won’t need to worry about me.” Miri stepped closer with a smile on her face. “The two of us will be working together quite closely in a very short period of time.”

“Prime Minister Amanda, Duchess Cinderella, meet Miri, my seneschal.” Kay waved back and forth between the woman at his side and the two sitting in front of him. “We picked her up in the Isles and she not only made a good impression and an impassioned speech about why she wanted to serve me, she also comes with the necessary skills and some fantastic recommendations. Lauren spoke to me about how I was causing problems with your search for someone to serve that role,” He told Amanda, “So when someone perfect for the position appeared and wanted it I went ahead and filled it.”

“Is that so?” Amanda turned a steely gaze to Miri and looked her up and down. “Well then, if you pass muster it seems we will be working closely together.”

Miri met Amanda’s cold gaze with the same cheerful smile. “Don’t worry about me Prime Minister, I’m absolutely sure that I’ll more than meet all of your expectations. I am very good at my job.”