Act two did not start immediately. First I had to move all the actors into place, and disarm the orcs of course. Since they were not collared yet, it was necessary, especially because I did not need something to deviate from the script when act two opened.

When the process of frisking and disarming the sullen orcs, I made my way over to the priest, who was looking aghast at the wagon we had filled with collars and manacles. Every rider had carried three collars and one set of manacles. As the wagons emptied out, we had moved the collars to the wagons. The priest was staring at two wagons full of collars for him to use.

I clapped him on the shoulder. “Plenty of work for you, I doubt you’ll get any sleep tonight. Unless of course, you’re willing to teach me how to activate these contraptions.”

He looked like he was considering it, but then blanched at the implication. “No, but I don’t think it’s necessary to collar all of them.”

“Of course not,” I replied. “Only the twenty-five hundred warriors we’re taking with us.”

The priest looked aghast at the amount of work in front of him. “I think just a select few leaders should be enough.”

“No, no. That won’t do,” I said with a subtle hint of mockery. “You yourself said I should not let beasts run around unshackled. Well, get to it then! Shackle the beasts.”

“I—uhm—that is to say that—uhm—I might have been a bit—uhm—hasty,” the priest stammered, almost choking on his pride as he admitted he might have been wrong.

“Nonsense!” I said loudly, and clapped him hard on the shoulder, almost sending him to his knees. “Don’t tell me you’re not interested in doing your Gods’ work? Is a priest really slacking off?”

“No!” the priest protested vehemently. “Of course not!”

I looked over his shoulders to see that the approaching pair of troopers were escorting a dozen orcs our way. I pointed to them. “Good, here’s your first customers. I’ll be checking your work tonight. I’ll cut off a centimetre of your dick for each mistake you make. Don’t make too many mistakes or I’ll run out of things to cut.”

“You can’t threaten me like that,” he almost shrieked.

“I think we’ve established long ago I can and I will. Before you begin spouting your rebel nonsense, we both know I’ve been cleared by the High Hierophant of Gyzbohr himself. Or are you doubting the word of Gyzbohr’s representative here on Camcesa?” I asked with a serious face.

“No, I would neve—” he started.

“Good, get to work then!” I interrupted him before he could get started on more of his whining. Next, it was time to review the butcher’s bill. Hopefully, it would not be too bad. Near the healing area, Caspar and the commanders had set up the command post. They were gathered around a large table, which was strewn about with papers.

They all came to attention and saluted me with a fist over their heart. I gave them a nod, and asked, “How bad is it?”

“As you no doubt expected, the worst hit is the shield wall, so we’ll get to them last,” Caspar said and indicated for Melissa to go ahead.

“Milord, as you know, I was in overall command of the first reserve force. We did not take any losses because of enemy fire. However, a Unifier squad leader’s horse got a leg stuck in a hole, it tripped and he broke his neck on impact,” she reported with a frustrated look on her face. She did not know that two of my mancers had arranged that little accident. Taking care of one of the priests.

Thomas went next. “Milord, no casualties to report in the second reserve force.”

“Good,” I replied with a nod.

“Milord, the rifles performed exceptionally well, only minor injuries due to eagerness to kill those green-skinned bastards!” a young commander by the name of Newton reported eagerly, without waiting for permission to speak.

“Perchance, can you tell me how they sustained injuries far away from the enemy lines? And wait until it’s your turn,” I asked with a frown.

He opened his mouth to answer and was about to make another mistake, but Bethany saved him by reporting, “Third reserve force saw no action, no casualties.”

“Thank you, Commander,” Caspar said and then motioned for Newton to speak.

The eager young commander looked almost embarrassed now. “Milord, no casualties in the rifles. We had some minor injuries because of an eagerness to get to the firing platform before they were finished.”

“And why could that not wait?” I asked frostily.

“I’m not sure, Milord,” he said lamely.

“Did the men act without orders? Or did you order them up there?” Caspar asked sternly.

He was about to open his mouth, but before he could speak, I said, “Don’t compound your mistake by lying.”

He looked down at his feet. “Milord, High Commander, my apologies. I ordered them up there.”

“Why?” Caspar asked.

“Because I wanted to be sure that we had rifles in place if the orcs got any ideas, High Commander.”

“And what about the screening force, you forget about them? Why did you ignore orders?”

Newton was looking very uncomfortable. I put a stopper for his public dress down. “We’ll take that in private in a moment, move on.”

Some public humiliation would serve as an enhancer of the upcoming berating he would get in private. Doing everything in public could backfire, the young commander had been humiliated enough.

Caspar took care of his report shortly. “The shield wall took a lot of casualties. One hundred and twenty-seven men have died. Forty-one of them are Unifiers.”

At the same time as he reported the losses, he scratched his nose with one finger. Indicating only one of the two priests had died. It was all good. 2 out of the 5 undercover priests had died, and act two would take care of two more, which was scheduled to start right about now.

Looking up, I saw the two Unifier platoons containing the next two victims were approaching, it was their turn to get checked out by the healers. Even if they had not been in combat. It was the procedure I had put in place. Small injuries could still happen in the reserve forces.

I hid a self-satisfied smile as I activated the memory crystals embedded in the many Unifiers. More than just the two platoons with the priests. If only their two platoons acted, it would be too suspicious, so a total of five platoons were affected.

I had spent night after night altering their memories but had made sure to suppress the new memories. They would become dominant and completely rewrite their memories the moment I activated the crystals, which I had just done.

All of the affected people paused for a fraction of a second, before resuming what they had been doing. However, knowing what to look for I could see the change in the Unifiers walking by us. Their shoulders tensed, their hands moved towards their weapons.

They had all, except for the hidden priests and mancers, had their memories modified in such a way that they were appalled by the way the Church treated slaves and other races. They had all secretly joined the rebel cause of the Godslayer. Specifically, the memory made it seem like the two priests were the organizers of the little attempted murder of me that was about to happen.

To ensure that the priests and mancers died, since I could not alter their memories without them knowing, I had placed Wolf Guards to shadow and target each of them individually. The Wolf Guards’ only task when the fun began was to make sure their targets died.

One of the Unifiers finally drew his sabre and charged at us. “For the Godslayer! Death to the Enslavers!”

The commanders looked up confused at the man charging us. The Unifiers behind him took that as their cue to act, and they drew weapons as well but attacked some of my troopers that were passing them in the other direction.

The charging Unifier was only a few steps away from being able to cut down Caspar when Nishka reacted. As if out of nowhere she interposed herself between them, one of her dragons cocked and loaded, aimed directly at the Unifier’s face. She pulled the trigger and splattered the man’s brains all over the place.

“Protect the Lord!” she shouted.

“Rebels, kill them all!” I roared. Though a few of my Wolf Guards would ignore my orders and capture three regular Unifiers for interrogation. The noise of combat could be heard from several places in the camp. Then came the sound of gunfire. I had ensured that the rebellion would happen at a point in time where none of the rebels would have easy access to their rifles, while my own men had.

I had also filled some of the mancers in on the plan, and they faked attacks on our own people, non-lethal but injuring, with magic. Making it appear as if the mancers in the groups were in on it as well.

Barely a minute had passed from the time the rebellion had happened until it had put down. The official priest looked green around the gills when he stormed over, screaming the entire way, “What do you think you’re doing? Your men just killed two priests!”

“Shut up!” I roared back in his face, punching him hard in the face. “My men were just attacked by rebels, and what do you mean, two priests?”

He blanched, it was clear that he had just revealed something he was not supposed to. Before he could say anything though, one of my squads came up, dragging three Unifiers with them. All banged up and bloodied, but alive nonetheless.

“Milord! We managed to capture some of the rebels,” he reported proudly. He was not in on the whole plan. Not a lot of people were. I wished to mess with my own people’s memories as little as possible.

I stared at the sprawled priest, channelling all my anger at him. “Commanders, get a handle on the situation now, I want to know if we lost anyone. Squad leader, good job on capturing these. Tie them up, we’ll interrogate them in a moment.”

“Milord, there were mancers amongst the rebels,” the squad leader reported while his men tied up the surviving “rebels”.

“What the fuck is going on?” I demanded angrily from the priest who was crawling backwards, to get away from me. “What priests? Why are there mancers amongst the Unifiers? What the fuck are you up to? Trying to assassinate me and pin it on the orcs?”

“Sta—stay back!” he screamed in fright, throwing a ball of fire in my face. With a contemptuous snort, I overpowered his mana and took control of the flames. Killing it completely. In return I made fire appear right next to his head, stopping his backward awkward crawling.

“Don’t kill me! The High Hierophant will punish you if you do!” he screamed in fright.

“How is he going to know?” I growled.

“I’m talking with him right now,” the priest babbled.

“Oh really? Send him a message for me then.”

“Wh—what message?”

“This,” I replied with a sinister smile and kicked him square in the balls. The shriek he let out was less than masculine. I gave him a few seconds to recover. “Can you hear me? Whimper loudly if you can.”

He whimpered a bit more loudly. “Okay fuckface. Tell the High Fucktard that the last time you guys sent assassins I killed them. I’ll continue to do so. Give me one reason why I shouldn’t believe you’re trying to assassinate me and eliminate you.”

The priest whimpered a bit but still managed to convey a message, “The High Hierophant says that if you kill me, he’ll attack your home.”

“He does know that will just make me join this Godslayer’s rebellion, right? And he should be more worried about rebellion in his own ranks than from me. I like my lot in life.”

After a few seconds, the priest replied, “He apologizes for sending disguised priests and mancers. It was not for nefarious purposes.”

“I don’t believe you or him,” I retorted. “Here’s what we’re going to do. The orcs that are helping me will be here with supplies in a day or two, you and the rest of your freaky bands of assassins will go with them and vanish from my lands. Is that understood?”

“The High Hierophant is not keen on you allying with orcs. They’re beasts that need to be killed.”

I shrugged. “Whether I enslave with a freaking magic collar or with the promise of payment of some sort, matters little. In either case, they’re under my control for now.”

“I need to question the surviving rebels before we can agree to this,” the priest said.

“Fine, go ahead and get it done, you still have a few days,” I said and walked away.

Over the next three days he questioned the survivors, again and again, he even questioned the other Unifiers, where he rooted out another handful of rebels I had planted and activated there. They were summarily executed. He did not shirk his duty of collaring my new warriors, but now that it had been revealed there was another priest, he helped as well, speeding up the process.

When Barka’s group arrived with my new provisions I was more than ready for those priests to fuck off, but first I had something to discuss with Barka.

“You fucking bastard,” I said in lieu of a greeting and the punch to his face sent him sprawling to the ground. Of course, his hard head broke some of the bones in my hand. Easily fixed with healing magic.

He tried to scramble to his feet while bellowing a war cry, however, bands of stone rose up from the ground and kept him in place. He struggled against the bands, but could not get free. Angrily he demanded, “Release me, what’s the meaning of this?”

“You slimy fucking weasel, you purposely sent me to take care of your old rivals, didn’t you?”

“Ungrateful daughter of mine has spoken too much,” he grumbled. “So what? You get something out of it, something you need. I just got a little extra you didn’t know about, no harm in that.”

“Except you lied to me, trying to use me,” I growled. “I don’t like being lied to and feeling used by a supposed ally. Heck if you had told me, I would still have done it. Because you’re right, I need to do this. However, free trade with the dwarves is done. You’ll be paying a road tax from now on.”

“You can’t do that!” he cried out.

“It has already been done,” I said with narrowed eyes. “Only way it becomes undone is if I get something I want.”

“What do you want?” he asked surly.

“I want permission from your daughter to form a link to her mana pool, so I can use her powers.”

“Done,” he said with a happy smile.

“You’re both despicable!” the daughter in question shouted before storming off.

I looked at the still bound chief. “Good luck.”

He looked less than happy as the stone crumbled away and set him free. The priest came up and asked, “What was that about?”

“Do you have much experience in dealing with orcs?” I asked.

“Only to kill them,” he responded proudly.

“That was a negotiation.”

“Looked more like strong arming to me,” he replied.

I shrugged. “Same difference. Now be a good little priest, run along and get packed. You wouldn’t want your orcish escort to leave without you, would you?”

As I walked away, I could almost feel his scowl on my back. I let myself smile. While 2 priests still lived, I had managed to wipe out four of them. Not a bad feat in my book. The next challenge would be the other outcast groups and then Barka’s former clan. Lots to prepare for, and still a lot of time to get it done.