Presently, a fresh company of damsels arrived for inspection, their forms newly sculpted by cosmetic sorcery. Despite being novices to this trade of flesh, they showed few signs of anxiety. Rather, they bore their coming duty with excitement and a patriotic jubilance.

  On one maiden’s cheek, one of the tattooed men noticed a cluster of dark, blighted swellings marring the porcelain finish. Upon interrogation, an accompanying cosmeticist admitted that the malady was not only incurable but profoundly contagious, raising his own infected thumb as proof. The thug weighed this defect for a moment, but rather than discarding the damaged goods, a grin of wicked pragmatism split his features.

  "Ay, ain’t none of these chuchos doing inspections on the merch’. Slap a coat of paint on the rotten puta and stuff her in the ‘bang!"

  As the men laughed, the blighted maiden felt a wave of relief wash over her, her duties uncompromised to the realm and its blessed, all-loving sovereign Ramiro.

  The battle under observation shifted with a calamitous turn. As a wave of soldiers clambered over a mound of the fallen to assault the fortress, the very earth parted its lips and swallowed them whole. Just as the fissure sealed, it erupted once more, spewing forth a geyser of shredded iron and crimson mist.

  A tattooed man repeated the plea to withdraw. "Ey, homes, we really gotta bounce, you know? That shit could happen to us."

  The Count found this constant fretting as grating as the buzz of a summer fly. "Your understanding is as shallow as a drought-stricken stream. Can you not read the flow of the current?"

  He summoned a larger vision to the wall, a map that traced the enemy’s movement. With a gesture, he marked their pleasure district with a small circle of light, and to the south, he placed a much larger circle, representing the headquarters of King Ramiro. He then drew a line through the centre of the enemy’s path; and lo, when extended, it struck first their leader, whose larger significance would shield them like a mountain range soaking up a tempest from the ocean. He added further marks for their satellite brothels, many of which had been within the path of the storm yet thus far spared.

  "There is no peril for those who perceive the subtle currents of the world,” he concluded. “We are but the grass beside the path, and to flee yet would be to abandon the harvest as it ripens.”

  In a closing flourish, he drew several crosses along the enemy’s predicted route, marking these as the spots of his fabricated assassination plans.

  The youths of his retinue heaped their praise in a flute-like chorus, calling him a master whose grasp of the future was unrivalled, whether in the markets of coin or the cosmic battlefields of his former life.

  Yet, the tattooed men remained a chorus of discord.

  "Kid could skip through the HQ just to hit us," said one.

  "Don’t sleep on it, homes," warned another. "It’s one of the hard bans for the ash-kissers - you do NOT wet your pito on no droid panocha. I heard he tried to make their gang full Catholic before Wild Wong reined him in. The kid’s a straight-up moral crusader, and who are we? We’re the fuckers dealing the pussy on his turf. We’re top of the hitlist, homes.”

  A third man of the streets—called by most The Arab due to his Middle Eastern extraction—added a more pragmatic reason for the enemy to target them. Destroying their pleasure districts would deal a heavy blow to the spirit of The Empire’s troops. It was he who had argued this very function to the high lords in regards to boosting the morale of the war effort, securing them thereby a tripling of their original slave allotment.

  The Count listened most closely to this last advice. This Arab had become an invaluable advisor, a voice of reason who often smoothed the rough edges of his brutish companions. Indeed, the initial pivot of their slaves into the trade of pleasure had been the man’s suggestion. Though, as is known to any genius of business, the true danger and the merit lies not in the hand that plants the seed of an idea but in the hand that waters it to fruition with coin.

  The visions of battle showed the monstrous defenders of the fortress overrun. Yet, just as the attackers poured in, a sudden reversal occurred; soldiers fled back in panic, and a great jam formed at a breach. In an instant, a blast of fire erupted, vaporising the tangled mass of men into soot.

  As the Count watched this conflagration, the thought of an opportunity bloomed. Many other businesses observing this destruction and advised by their own imbecile advisors would soon be closing their doors. Was this not the perfect moment to gather their discarded responsibilities and expand his portion of the Empire’s wealth? He had always wished to purchase more, but was limited by his coffers, which in this world and outside had already been liquidated to the final copper. Yet, now, these objects of desire would be abandoned. They could be his for nothing, so long as he dispatched some of his subordinates to take over their administration - the loyal ones, not the thugs. He might expand even further through the judicious rationing of slaves skilled in these affairs.

  One of the tender-skinned youths, misreading the Count’s silence as agreement with the pessimists, sought to seal the argument with a contribution of his own.

  "And let us not forget, Major KK-sama, that other reason he might target us..."

  The thugs looked confused, while the prettier members of the meeting stared grimly, as if they’d watched a dancer take a misplaced step to snap their ankle. The speaker, sent a silent warning, winced at the pain of his blunder, which drew further curiosity from the rougher of the group.

  Unrelated artefact, The Staff of The Frostbitten Lover

  The Count meanwhile had a felt spike of ice drive through his bowels.

  In a moment of intoxication, he may have let slip the existence of a certain purchase from The King that was now concealed in his inventory. The command about this had been one of absolute silence, for public knowledge of that purchase would paint a target upon his back that no amount of gold could wash away, and there would be no further debates on whether they would be visited by that demon of the plains.

  The Count, swift to cover the fool’s mishap, forced a loud, boisterous laugh. "I suppose I may have made the matter personal upon the public forums. One does tend to become a verbal terror after love has raised the spirits."

  With a practised air of self-satisfaction, he recounted a favourite of the verses he had cast upon the board about the enemy’s lack of amorous experience, a missive of such devastating wit that one could imagine it warranted a violent reprisal.

  “The plum blossom

  That keeps its petals tight and shut

  Against the wind

  Knows nothing of the butterfly,

  And rots inside its shell.”

  The slender youths and maidens of his retinue laughed at the Count’s encouragement, praising his wit as a dagger that would bleed the enemy dry. The tattooed men, however, exchanged glances of dull bewilderment, utterly unable to grasp why a poem about a flower would draw The Tyrant’s wrath.

  "But fear not," the Count added, his voice dropping to a tone of soothing assurance. "The brutes are right in their befuddlement. Though the verse would be devastating to any man bestowed of culture, our enemy has none. I doubt the Tyrant possesses enough human sensitivity to be offended by a jibe at his virility, any more than he would be disturbed by the unsavoury aspects of our trade. To a living storm, both a house of pleasure and a house of mockery are indistinguishable from a house of worship – these are all merely structures to be levelled in due course; and now is not our due.”

  At this moment, a fresh flower of a maiden was brought before the Count for his appraisal. She was a creature of a different mould than the others, possessing a slender, boyish frame that had not yet known the fullness of maturity. Her hair, the green of young pine needles, was tied up in the simple manner of a servant, and she wore a robe of unpatterned cloth that spoke of a humble station; yet despite this lack of adornment, there was a singular charm in her bearing. Her eyes, of that large, moon-like span peculiar to the Count’s favourites, shone with the startling blue of the ocean depths.

  The Count clapped his hands with the delight of a child discovering a lost plaything.

  "Ah! My little cat, have you returned to me?"

  The girl, whose manner was as flat and unreadable as a mirror, replied in a voice devoid of feeling.

  "You called, my Prince? If you require a service, I would request in exchange a draft of poison."

  "Poison? Oh, it is yours, it is yours!"

  Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.

  He took her hands and spun her about; she followed his lead with the light, practised step of the dancer she’d been before her transformation, causing the Count to wince briefly at the reminder of her artifice before he dismissed it to savour her delicious sight.

  It was then that a most distressing scene unfolded. One of the tattooed men, a boor with no understanding of the fragility of such blossoms, approached the girl and lifted the hem of her skirt to handle the rear of her person.

  "Puta needs more meat," he remarked with a frown of dissatisfaction. "Who you trying to attract, ese? Boy-fuckers?"

  The Count’s face flushed a deep crimson at this outrage. He dashed forward, intent on striking the offender, but the man, possessed of a warrior’s reflexes, evaded the blow with ease. A smug smile appeared on his lips as he inquired, with feigned innocence, what offense he had committed.

  "Don’t ever, EVER fucking touch my women!" the Count shrieked, his voice cracking with emotion and his manners dropping for a moment.

  "And if I do, homes?" the man replied, his grin widening. "What’s the penalty, huh?"

  With a terrifying insolence, he stepped forward, struck the girl upon her bosom with a rough hand, and retreated before the Count could react.

  "You wanna fuckin’ go, homes? I’ll slap ten-toes down with you right now.”

  The Count stood paralysed, his colour deepening to the purple of a bruised plum. He knew, with a sickening clarity, that he possessed neither the strength nor the skill to best such a brute in a direct contest of arms. He looked about him, hoping for assistance, but the room was still; his own followers, those pretty youths who sang his praises so sweetly, now averted their eyes, recalling the previous incidents when their tender frames had been brutalised at the hands of these ruffians. Some of the brutes returned his glance with the eager, cruel eyes of spectators at a cockfight, each of them ready to settle the accumulating scores with the pretentious Count

  One of the tender youths attempted to intervene with rhetoric, arguing in a trembling voice that the contest would be unfair due to the disparity in their specialities - the Count was, after all, a magician, not a direct combatant. But, rest assured, had they been in the celestial realms of Spaceblitz 2, the thug would have been reduced to cosmic vapour before he could draw breath.

  While these empty threats were being aired, another of the tattooed company, who had approached the offender from behind, suddenly seized his arms and pinned him fast. The molester gave a start of surprise and opened his mouth to question this betrayal, but before the words could form, a third man stepped forward.

  This figure, whose skin was so heavily inked that he resembled a reptile, drew a dagger and, with a motion as a gust of wind, drew it across the man's throat. As the crimson rain began to fall, the captor wrestled the struggling man to the carpeted floor.

  The reptilian executioner stood over the man, weaving strange signs with his hands to hasten the outpouring of blood, and he fixed upon the wretch a gaze that could stop a heart in the middle of its pulse.

  "I don't give a fuck about some puta, Miguel. But this ain't the hour for insubordination. You gonna correct your behaviour?"

  The bleeding man, his bravado draining as the redness from his features, nodded timidly, his eyes wide with terror and respect.

  "Apologise to the boss."

  "I’m sorry, Count," he gurgled.

  "What are you sorry for, Miguel?"

  "For touching... his woman. Won't happen again."

  "Say sorry for being a bitch, too."

  "I’m sorry for being a bitch."

  "That's right. You are a bitch, Miguel. But you’re a good bitch; a bitch capable of correction.”

  The executioner paused in his grim work and looked to the Count with a glance of inquiry. The Count nodded his head to signify that the apology was accepted, yet the offense remained.

  The executioner completed his task, and the man’s body shuddered once before growing still. Then, wiping the blade and returning it to his belt, he bent and drew upon the assistance of a comrade in dragging the remains outside, leaving a trail of dark dew upon the carpets.

  The Count cast his gaze about the room. Most eyes were fixed upon the grim removal, save for one pair.

  The Arab was watching him with the intensity of a hawk circling a hare. The man seemed to be weighing the Count’s spirit in the balance, judging him in error for the lack of amnesty; yet the moment their glances met, the man’s eyes retreated behind a mask of clueless amiability, as if he were not the hawk but its prey fleeing into the brush.

  An Arab as imagined by an 11th century Japanese artist

  The Count knew with a sudden, burning certainty that the execution had been a piece of theatre - a bloody toy dangled before a child to silence its tantrum.

  "I know," the Count said, recomposing himself but unable in his indignation to let the matter pass, "that it was your wind that bent that reed."

  The Arab raised a pair of hands that were clean and bloodless. "From me, it could only be a suggestion."

  He referenced thus the formal reckoning of their hierarchy, according to which the captain of the tattooed company was the reptile-skinned executioner who had just departed. But the Count knew well the deceptive nature of these gangs. The face of leadership was not always its brain, much as the hands that often dirtied themselves belonged to others. Rarely did the heavens fuse all the gifts of charisma, intelligence, and action into a single vessel. The Arab, once operating as the mind behind these thugs, had been scheming to re-establish himself in the same position for their united organisation.

  Yet that ambition was flawed, for the man was against a rare individual who possessed his talents and more. The Count had not only a superior intellect but also a charm and courage that this calculator of trifles could never hope to rival. A lowly thug, no matter how much coin his suggestions earn the master, remains a lowly thug, just as a crow painted white does not become a heron.

  Driven by a petty desire to prove his dominance, the Count recomposed his features and addressed the assembly. He gave a hard rejection of the Arab’s earlier advice to flee, declaring instead that their operation would stand firm.

  "We shall hold the line," he proclaimed, his voice regaining its melodious power. "Just as the pine endures the winter frost, so have we endured the storms of the past to gather the wealth of the spring."

  He reminded them that where weaker hearts had conceded, they alone had stood firm through the tribulations of history and thereby reaped great profits. They had held the line through the outing of Ramiro as a child cannibal and its resulting devastations - devastations incurred not for the act itself, for surely a little vore fetish never harmed anyone of consequence, but rather for the horrific damage dealt to the Count’s portfolio when his assets were seized by The Company under the pretence of reform.

  He admitted to them now, with a disarming candour, that during those devastating days he had considered abandoning the field, and might well have done so had not King Ramiro personally contacted him with such singular promptness.

  "Consider that promptness!" the Count urged, his eyes shining. "Before the ink was dry on the public decree, our King divulged to us the acquisition of his powers over the mind—powers that promised not only the regaining of our lost riches but the claiming of empires yet unseen!"

  He recalled how Ramiro, in the intimacy of their private council, had offered further assurances in the form of bold predictions, all of which were now unfolding before their eyes like a painted scroll. The King had prophesied that the West Bank would be left largely undefended, having seen with a sage’s eye that The Company’s developments were but temporary stages for a tournament, devoid of long-term commitment; and lo, in accord with this vision, the great host had withdrawn to their ships, leaving behind a fraction ripe for destruction.

  Even more miraculously, the King had anticipated that The Tyrant would remain behind to fight unsupported. Where any lesser analyst might have presumed The Tyrant and The Company to be a package deal, inseparable as shadow and form, Ramiro had grasped the subtle rifts and inclinations that would sever them. The Count confessed that he too had been among the unbelievers on this point, yet by holding the line—by refusing to panic when the world cried bankruptcy—the wisdom of the King had been proven absolute.

  "But most of all look beyond the dangers of today," the Count cried, his voice rising with fervour. "There is a reason to stay loyal that transcends the conquest of a single territory. I speak of these beauties emptied of complaints!"

  He extolled the virtues of the mind-slaves, urging his followers to trust in an asset that opened infinite economic potential. The competitive advantage should be obvious to any man present who had profited so richly from the sale of these brainwashed women for pleasure.

  "Our slaves of the mind will be the hardest working yet cheapest labour force on the planet, capable of feats no free man would endure. Limitless, guilt-free pleasure is but the most sensuous of manifestations! Imagine the other industries! Say a patron desires a quarry dug in a land plagued by monsters; our citizens will toil diligently without a single complaint over the hazards, without one request for days-off for bereavement! Or if a patron wishes to populate a town on the frontier, a whole city of our citizens could be marched there in an instant, unburdened as they are by foolish emotional attachments to a worthless plot of soil!”

  Future of entrepreneurship

  The more one meditated upon the labour potential of their mindslaves, the clearer it became that they were unbeatable - perhaps the very future of all entrepreneurship!

  "If any among you still harbour doubts," he concluded, sweeping his arm across the room, "remember that I have performed the ultimate act of trust. I liquidated every asset remaining after the devastations to purchase back into The Empire. Many of you have shown the same wisdom, pooling your fortunes with mine. I encourage those still hesitating to do the same - do not merely hold the line, but pour every ounce of soul and coin into this one great thing incapable of failure!"

  And, at the heights of his commitments, he recited thus:

  “Though the muddy field

  Is trampled by the cold rain

  In the dark of night,

  The green shoot already holds

  The promise of golden grain!”

  He finished his rousing speech with a whispered decree that struck the final blow against cowardice. Not only would they not be closing the operation of their brothels, but he commanded them to prepare for additional operations. This moment of panic and crisis was about to become their greatest opportunity.

  The assembly was dismissed from his chambers so that he might meditate upon these schemes with the privacy of his concubines. However, the Arab lingered, attempting to catch his sleeve for a private word.

  "Business continues," the Count said, cutting him off. "The enemy’s movements are as clear to me as the moon in a puddle, even if your own eyes are too clouded for this vision.”

  He resolved then and there that the new acquisitions would be managed solely by his own retinue of loyalists, denying this upstart any share in the glory.

  The Arab weighed this dismissal, his expression unreadable. Then, shifting his ground, he approached the matter of the secret the Count had so carelessly revealed earlier.

  "And can it be trusted," the man asked with a voice like silk wrapping a dagger, "that your men have held their tongues elsewhere regarding the...drunken sharings?"

  In a calmer moment, the Count might have agreed with the concern. But the anger still simmered within him. He hated that this man had seen through his earlier excuse; he hated the tactful phrasing which treated him like a volatile explosive; and above all, he hated the implication in ‘your men’ that his own followers possessed less discipline than these alley-mutt thugs.

  "I trust my training of them," the Count declared, his chin lifted high.

  "Then business continues!" repeated the Arab.

  The man bowed with a speed and confidence that might have suggested to the uninitiated that he was entirely persuaded, though to the knowing eye, it looked very much like the bow of one backing away from a crumbling cliff.