Original fic: Sarpedon part 2.
Sep. 6th, 2012 09:24 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
silver_sunTitle: Sarpedon.
Words: This part 2600 words (Total posted 4600/55,000)
Genre type information: Military Adventure set in a no magic fantasy setting with technology roughly equivalent to 1830-40 western Europe, but are starting to develop steampunk type technology. Story also has a very secondary m/m relationship subplot.
Advisories: Death and injury related to war of both people and animals.
Summary Transporting a cargo of rifles through the mountains to the small fort at Timballie should have been a routine job, but as events take a turn for the worse, Lieutenant Jago Sarpedon finds that the situation in Sitherand may be far more unstable than he'd suspected.
Link to first part: http://the-silver-sun.livejournal.com/196132.html#cutid1
Retrieving the rifles and loading them onto the three remaining wagons, and then burying the horses took the remainder of the afternoon.
With the wagons more heavily loaded than before and the wagoners wary of another accident progress was slow. So by late evening the 57th and the wagons were camped on a small area of flat ground in the Arram-Sibesh Mountains, some miles short of their intended camp site in a valley on the downward section of the road towards Timballie.
The camp was, Sarpedon thought as he walked through it, uncharacteristically quiet. There were still men erecting tents or cooking over small fires and the sentries patrolled the edge of the camp, but everything seemed somehow muted. He knew why; they were waiting for the next thing to go wrong.
It wasn’t that security duty for a gun shipment from Solidago had been a bad idea or even an unusual one. It was just something that had to be done.
It was how they’d been ordered to do it that was the problem, Sarpedon thought wearily. They should have had a mule train rather than wagons for a route like this. A mule train, however, would have required a significantly higher number of animals and drivers, and it would have created other difficulties in moving the black powder. The higher cost though of procuring the mules and their drivers had been the only consideration on the part of those who had placed the order: men who would never have to make the journey themselves.
Not that it really should have been his job to lead the detachment to and from Solidago with the cargo of rifles in the first place, Sarpedon thought as he climbed one of the higher outcrops of rock at the edge of the camp. He had only been given the duty of being in charge of security for the wagon train the due to the death of Captain Leeton a few weeks earlier.
Captain Leeton had died soon after their arrival in Timballie. His horse had thrown him after it had trodden on a snake while he'd been out hunting. The captain had landed head first down a ravine. They’d buried him there, due to the difficulty of retrieving the body, rather than taking his body back to Kibesha and get a proper burial with priests and such. Sarpedon doubted that Leeton, irreverent old sod that he'd been, would have wanted all that pomp anyway – he hadn't in life.
Had it been war time, Sarpedon knew that he would have been promoted to acting captain in Leeton’s stead, until such point as either a new captain could be sent, his own acting commission was ratified to a full one, or he died also. As it was he had been asked to fulfil Captain Leeton’s duties with no acting captaincy granted or extra pay given until a new officer could be sent from Avron.
Then there had been a series of minor set backs at Timballie. Horses gone lame, leaking water barrels and a small fire in one of the bread ovens that had destroyed a batch of loaves and had rendered the thing useless until it had been rebuilt.
He watched the men go about camp business for a moment longer and then shook his head. They could be such pessimistic bastards. Yet somewhere deep inside he couldn't shake the feeling that they were probably right.
Sarpedon knew that as the officer in charge of the security detail it was his responsibility to make sure the cargo got to Timballie and that a full report about how it got there was written.
Taking out his writing materials that he'd brought with him, he sat down on the outcrop overlooking the camp. The sun was starting to dip lower between the peaks, shadows lengthening and the heat of the day finally beginning to recede, and he hoped that using the higher position would allow him make the most of the evening sun before it dropped below the horizon. With one last look down at the camp, he began to write up his log for the day.
The details of how they had lost two draught horses, a large wagon and rendered inoperable more than a dozen of the new rifles, which had been crushed against the rocks as the wagon had rolled over them, seemed even more of a failure on paper.
It was the first job he'd been given sole command of in more than a year and it would be seen as a failure. He just hoped this wouldn't lead to him being given just desk based jobs in future. Major Bellon was a good man, in Sarpedon's opinion, but he was too bound by rules to take into account the situations in which events occurred, seeming to believe that if he implemented it the same for all without exception it would be the fairest decision.
Although he had no proof of it, his continued passing over for promotion meant that he felt those in command were waiting for him to fail, as if it justified them not giving him a chance.
He would always be a common mercenary to them, just a gun for hire, no matter what he did, Sarpedon thought bitterly, as he finished his report.
He knew he didn’t exactly look the part. His uniform was as dust caked as the rest of the men, while his red officer’s sash had faded to little more than a tattered rag of a nondescript orange colour. It was only his sword that made him identifiable as a commanding officer, and it was also in poor shape. He had acquired it more years ago than he wanted to remember when he had still been a mercenary, in a something of nothing altercation on the Thaabian border, a few days after he'd received his lieutenancy.
Putting his writing materials away, Sarpedon looked down at the two small cook fires that were burning brightly in the growing dusk. The men who weren’t on sentry duty were clustered around them, waiting on a meal, talking and joking easily amongst themselves. A few of the men who were a little more skilled at making something that was passable took charge of the cooking, turning the salt meat and beans, that had been soaking during the day, into something edible.
He knew from experience that it would be some time before it was ready, and that once it was and once he’d collected his share to eat with the hard biscuits that were a feature of all rations, he’d be expected to leave the common soldiery to their own devices.
Sighing, Sarpedon made his way back down to his tent to pack away the log book. Command, while it was something he wanted, was damnably lonely sometimes.
******
The sun was just below the horizon, the faint golden light of dawn barely visible through the thin early morning mist that hung in the high valleys, when Captain Valen Korsona ordered the men in his small mercenary unit into position.
Captain Lasona was in his late thirties, with brown hair and watchful dark eyes. While a small scar on his forehead, gave him the impression of a man just about to frown.
His company was of the few that had avoided the Avronian draft, as they had been working on Corris at the time, providing security for a for a noble who, through some ruthless business deals, had found himself in need of protection from rivals and previous business partners alike.
The reason why he and thirty five of his men were crouched in the dim dawning light, on the cold mountain slopes of the Aram-Sibesh was down to one man.
Aubin Metrian.
Metrian’s request, when he had hired them, was that they were to attack a supply convoy. The ultimate fate of the men and the cargo of guns they were escorting he cared little for. In fact the only point he made clear were that at least a couple of the soldiers should survive to report that the attack had been carried by Sithian bandits.
It was an unusual request, but Lasona's fortunes had been running low, and he had needed an easy job. Not that dealing with thirty armed Avronian soldiers was an easy task. It had needed careful planning, but careful was something that Lasona did well. He hoped that it was this reputation for thoroughness that had brought Metrian to him, rather than the fact that he was desperate enough to take the job.
Captain Lasona suspected that the reason for the attack was probably connected to Metrian trying to obtain the trade route contract for himself and to discredit the Avronian army in Sitherand. Whichever the goal was, Lasona didn't care he was being paid well for it and would have the cargo of rifles sell for additional profit once he could get them out of the country.
As he waited for his men to get into their final positions before beginning the attack, Captain Lasona thought back to his meeting with Metrian in a small, well appointed coffee house in Solidago just a few days before.
Aubin Metrian had been a small, slightly built man. Well dressed in a dark blue suit cut in a conservative style that was still fashionable in Corris, his dark hair slicked back into cue a was almost certainly dyed to maintain its blackness, as he was likely fifty by his face. He had walked with a cane, although didn’t seem to actually need it. Lasona had suspected that the decorative cane carried a concealed blade. It was, he had thought at the time, very like its owner.
There had been something coldly intelligent about him, and Lasona had been pleased to be rid of the man at the end of their conversation.
The request that the attack would be carried out with the mercenaries dressed as Sithian peasants had been odd, The mercenaries hadn’t been happy at swapping their usual uniforms, smart blue coats with red facings and gold buttons, for that of the rough, home spun garb Sithian lower classes, but the pay promised had been adequate so that none had out right refused to do so.
Captain Lasona watched in anticipation as the skirmishers he had deployed crept up on the Avronian sentries. The three soldiers died without a sound, their throats slit with a single deep cut. Five more of his men circled round as he had ordered until they were level with the wagons, and the sleeping wagoners.
Only once the wagon drivers were dead, their throats cut in the same way the sentries had been, and the draught horses untethered, did Lasona order the rest of his men to advance.
As the disguised mercenaries made their way through the camp, with the intention of killing as many of the soldiers before they woke up, a man stepped from one of the tents, directly into the path of two of them.
They stared in surprise at each other for a moment. Then the man, a Prethian most likely, Lasona thought by his dark skin, realised what was happening and head-butted one mercenary and then punched the other in the throat.
Then with barely a pause the man, a sergeant, Lasona realised, blew two loud blasts on the whistle that had hung around his neck. The camp came alive in moments, men half dressed and barely awake stumbled from the tents, yet managed to get to the stands of rifles, and take up arms in moments.
Captain Korsona swore under his breath, sensing that an easy victory was now out of the question. He had wanted the attack to be well under way before there was any resistance. No chance of that now, he thought grimly, as he drew his sword, ready to join the fray.
Sarpedon came awake to the sound of Sergeant Terris’ whistle, followed by the zipping noise of a musket ball tearing through the top of his tent. Glad that he hadn’t sat up upon waking, he crouched, lifted the tent flap and looked out into the camp.
All around chaos reigned. A man, a Sitha peasant by his dress, stumbled past the tent before collapsing a few feet away a bloody stain spreading across the back of his shirt.
The powder smoke from the discharge of so many rifles at close quarters mixed with the early morning mist to create an acrid fog that hindered both sides. Leaving his rifle in favour of his sword, Sarpedon entered the fray slashing at a burly man before making his way to the wagons.
Through the fog it was dimly visible that two of the wagons were under way and the remaining third was being made ready. The wagoners lay dead beside them, throats silently slit in the night eyes staring sightlessly as their livelihoods were stolen.
Creeping low using the cover of the wagons, Sarpedon moved behind one of the would-be thieves and swiftly slashed his sword down onto the nape of the man's neck and he fell to the ground with a gurgling cry.
“To me men! To the wagons!” yelled Sarpedon, as two of Lasona’s men left the second wagon and rushed at him, knives drawn.
One of the men suddenly stopped and pitched forwards part of his skull blown away. Sarpedon saw Sergeant Terris was briefly visible through the fog and then he was gone.
The remaining one drew his sword and closed with Sarpedon. For what seemed like an age heparried the blows neither gaining or giving ground until Sarpedon slipped on some dew slick grass. It hadn’t been intentional, but it threw the other man off balance as he lunged forward for a target that was no longer there.
Seeing his chance, Sarpedon kicked out at the other man's legs knocking him to the ground. Then rising to a low crouch he hacked down across the man unprotected back, a moment later the fight was over.
Breathing hard, Lieutenant Sarpedon looked around to see Sergeant Terris leading half a dozen men down the track after the first wagon which was being driven away, while another small group tried to regain control of the two remaining wagons and prevent them from being taken.
Shots still sounded around him although it was difficult to tell from where in the fog. Louder and more persistent now were the sounds of close combat, of steel on steel and the occasional strangled cry as a man was cut down.
Where the hell is their leader? Sarpedon thought as he looked around from the cover of the powder wagon. If he could catch him or cut him down them perhaps the rest of the men attacking them would either flee or surrender.
As if in answer to his question he saw movement in a small stand of stunted trees that crowned an outcrop of rocks to his left, followed by the muzzle flash from a rifle being fired.
Hoping that his suspicions about where the Sitha bandit leader was were correct, Sarpedon moved towards the trees and the concealed shooter as swiftly and silently as he could. Creeping behind the man, he could see that he was finishing reloading his rifle and taking aim at the soldier trying to regain control of one of the wagons.
Sarpedon hacked down with his sword across the man’s neck as he fired again. The muzzle of the rifle lifted the shot going up into the branches and showering them with leaves. This close guns were always loud, but the shot was followed a fraction of a second later by a deafening roar as an explosion shook the valley.
Sarpedon felt the force of the blast hit him, lifting him off his feet and throwing him backwards to the trees.
Words: This part 2600 words (Total posted 4600/55,000)
Genre type information: Military Adventure set in a no magic fantasy setting with technology roughly equivalent to 1830-40 western Europe, but are starting to develop steampunk type technology. Story also has a very secondary m/m relationship subplot.
Advisories: Death and injury related to war of both people and animals.
Summary Transporting a cargo of rifles through the mountains to the small fort at Timballie should have been a routine job, but as events take a turn for the worse, Lieutenant Jago Sarpedon finds that the situation in Sitherand may be far more unstable than he'd suspected.
Link to first part: http://the-silver-sun.livejournal.com/196132.html#cutid1
Retrieving the rifles and loading them onto the three remaining wagons, and then burying the horses took the remainder of the afternoon.
With the wagons more heavily loaded than before and the wagoners wary of another accident progress was slow. So by late evening the 57th and the wagons were camped on a small area of flat ground in the Arram-Sibesh Mountains, some miles short of their intended camp site in a valley on the downward section of the road towards Timballie.
The camp was, Sarpedon thought as he walked through it, uncharacteristically quiet. There were still men erecting tents or cooking over small fires and the sentries patrolled the edge of the camp, but everything seemed somehow muted. He knew why; they were waiting for the next thing to go wrong.
It wasn’t that security duty for a gun shipment from Solidago had been a bad idea or even an unusual one. It was just something that had to be done.
It was how they’d been ordered to do it that was the problem, Sarpedon thought wearily. They should have had a mule train rather than wagons for a route like this. A mule train, however, would have required a significantly higher number of animals and drivers, and it would have created other difficulties in moving the black powder. The higher cost though of procuring the mules and their drivers had been the only consideration on the part of those who had placed the order: men who would never have to make the journey themselves.
Not that it really should have been his job to lead the detachment to and from Solidago with the cargo of rifles in the first place, Sarpedon thought as he climbed one of the higher outcrops of rock at the edge of the camp. He had only been given the duty of being in charge of security for the wagon train the due to the death of Captain Leeton a few weeks earlier.
Captain Leeton had died soon after their arrival in Timballie. His horse had thrown him after it had trodden on a snake while he'd been out hunting. The captain had landed head first down a ravine. They’d buried him there, due to the difficulty of retrieving the body, rather than taking his body back to Kibesha and get a proper burial with priests and such. Sarpedon doubted that Leeton, irreverent old sod that he'd been, would have wanted all that pomp anyway – he hadn't in life.
Had it been war time, Sarpedon knew that he would have been promoted to acting captain in Leeton’s stead, until such point as either a new captain could be sent, his own acting commission was ratified to a full one, or he died also. As it was he had been asked to fulfil Captain Leeton’s duties with no acting captaincy granted or extra pay given until a new officer could be sent from Avron.
Then there had been a series of minor set backs at Timballie. Horses gone lame, leaking water barrels and a small fire in one of the bread ovens that had destroyed a batch of loaves and had rendered the thing useless until it had been rebuilt.
He watched the men go about camp business for a moment longer and then shook his head. They could be such pessimistic bastards. Yet somewhere deep inside he couldn't shake the feeling that they were probably right.
Sarpedon knew that as the officer in charge of the security detail it was his responsibility to make sure the cargo got to Timballie and that a full report about how it got there was written.
Taking out his writing materials that he'd brought with him, he sat down on the outcrop overlooking the camp. The sun was starting to dip lower between the peaks, shadows lengthening and the heat of the day finally beginning to recede, and he hoped that using the higher position would allow him make the most of the evening sun before it dropped below the horizon. With one last look down at the camp, he began to write up his log for the day.
The details of how they had lost two draught horses, a large wagon and rendered inoperable more than a dozen of the new rifles, which had been crushed against the rocks as the wagon had rolled over them, seemed even more of a failure on paper.
It was the first job he'd been given sole command of in more than a year and it would be seen as a failure. He just hoped this wouldn't lead to him being given just desk based jobs in future. Major Bellon was a good man, in Sarpedon's opinion, but he was too bound by rules to take into account the situations in which events occurred, seeming to believe that if he implemented it the same for all without exception it would be the fairest decision.
Although he had no proof of it, his continued passing over for promotion meant that he felt those in command were waiting for him to fail, as if it justified them not giving him a chance.
He would always be a common mercenary to them, just a gun for hire, no matter what he did, Sarpedon thought bitterly, as he finished his report.
He knew he didn’t exactly look the part. His uniform was as dust caked as the rest of the men, while his red officer’s sash had faded to little more than a tattered rag of a nondescript orange colour. It was only his sword that made him identifiable as a commanding officer, and it was also in poor shape. He had acquired it more years ago than he wanted to remember when he had still been a mercenary, in a something of nothing altercation on the Thaabian border, a few days after he'd received his lieutenancy.
Putting his writing materials away, Sarpedon looked down at the two small cook fires that were burning brightly in the growing dusk. The men who weren’t on sentry duty were clustered around them, waiting on a meal, talking and joking easily amongst themselves. A few of the men who were a little more skilled at making something that was passable took charge of the cooking, turning the salt meat and beans, that had been soaking during the day, into something edible.
He knew from experience that it would be some time before it was ready, and that once it was and once he’d collected his share to eat with the hard biscuits that were a feature of all rations, he’d be expected to leave the common soldiery to their own devices.
Sighing, Sarpedon made his way back down to his tent to pack away the log book. Command, while it was something he wanted, was damnably lonely sometimes.
******
The sun was just below the horizon, the faint golden light of dawn barely visible through the thin early morning mist that hung in the high valleys, when Captain Valen Korsona ordered the men in his small mercenary unit into position.
Captain Lasona was in his late thirties, with brown hair and watchful dark eyes. While a small scar on his forehead, gave him the impression of a man just about to frown.
His company was of the few that had avoided the Avronian draft, as they had been working on Corris at the time, providing security for a for a noble who, through some ruthless business deals, had found himself in need of protection from rivals and previous business partners alike.
The reason why he and thirty five of his men were crouched in the dim dawning light, on the cold mountain slopes of the Aram-Sibesh was down to one man.
Aubin Metrian.
Metrian’s request, when he had hired them, was that they were to attack a supply convoy. The ultimate fate of the men and the cargo of guns they were escorting he cared little for. In fact the only point he made clear were that at least a couple of the soldiers should survive to report that the attack had been carried by Sithian bandits.
It was an unusual request, but Lasona's fortunes had been running low, and he had needed an easy job. Not that dealing with thirty armed Avronian soldiers was an easy task. It had needed careful planning, but careful was something that Lasona did well. He hoped that it was this reputation for thoroughness that had brought Metrian to him, rather than the fact that he was desperate enough to take the job.
Captain Lasona suspected that the reason for the attack was probably connected to Metrian trying to obtain the trade route contract for himself and to discredit the Avronian army in Sitherand. Whichever the goal was, Lasona didn't care he was being paid well for it and would have the cargo of rifles sell for additional profit once he could get them out of the country.
As he waited for his men to get into their final positions before beginning the attack, Captain Lasona thought back to his meeting with Metrian in a small, well appointed coffee house in Solidago just a few days before.
Aubin Metrian had been a small, slightly built man. Well dressed in a dark blue suit cut in a conservative style that was still fashionable in Corris, his dark hair slicked back into cue a was almost certainly dyed to maintain its blackness, as he was likely fifty by his face. He had walked with a cane, although didn’t seem to actually need it. Lasona had suspected that the decorative cane carried a concealed blade. It was, he had thought at the time, very like its owner.
There had been something coldly intelligent about him, and Lasona had been pleased to be rid of the man at the end of their conversation.
The request that the attack would be carried out with the mercenaries dressed as Sithian peasants had been odd, The mercenaries hadn’t been happy at swapping their usual uniforms, smart blue coats with red facings and gold buttons, for that of the rough, home spun garb Sithian lower classes, but the pay promised had been adequate so that none had out right refused to do so.
Captain Lasona watched in anticipation as the skirmishers he had deployed crept up on the Avronian sentries. The three soldiers died without a sound, their throats slit with a single deep cut. Five more of his men circled round as he had ordered until they were level with the wagons, and the sleeping wagoners.
Only once the wagon drivers were dead, their throats cut in the same way the sentries had been, and the draught horses untethered, did Lasona order the rest of his men to advance.
As the disguised mercenaries made their way through the camp, with the intention of killing as many of the soldiers before they woke up, a man stepped from one of the tents, directly into the path of two of them.
They stared in surprise at each other for a moment. Then the man, a Prethian most likely, Lasona thought by his dark skin, realised what was happening and head-butted one mercenary and then punched the other in the throat.
Then with barely a pause the man, a sergeant, Lasona realised, blew two loud blasts on the whistle that had hung around his neck. The camp came alive in moments, men half dressed and barely awake stumbled from the tents, yet managed to get to the stands of rifles, and take up arms in moments.
Captain Korsona swore under his breath, sensing that an easy victory was now out of the question. He had wanted the attack to be well under way before there was any resistance. No chance of that now, he thought grimly, as he drew his sword, ready to join the fray.
Sarpedon came awake to the sound of Sergeant Terris’ whistle, followed by the zipping noise of a musket ball tearing through the top of his tent. Glad that he hadn’t sat up upon waking, he crouched, lifted the tent flap and looked out into the camp.
All around chaos reigned. A man, a Sitha peasant by his dress, stumbled past the tent before collapsing a few feet away a bloody stain spreading across the back of his shirt.
The powder smoke from the discharge of so many rifles at close quarters mixed with the early morning mist to create an acrid fog that hindered both sides. Leaving his rifle in favour of his sword, Sarpedon entered the fray slashing at a burly man before making his way to the wagons.
Through the fog it was dimly visible that two of the wagons were under way and the remaining third was being made ready. The wagoners lay dead beside them, throats silently slit in the night eyes staring sightlessly as their livelihoods were stolen.
Creeping low using the cover of the wagons, Sarpedon moved behind one of the would-be thieves and swiftly slashed his sword down onto the nape of the man's neck and he fell to the ground with a gurgling cry.
“To me men! To the wagons!” yelled Sarpedon, as two of Lasona’s men left the second wagon and rushed at him, knives drawn.
One of the men suddenly stopped and pitched forwards part of his skull blown away. Sarpedon saw Sergeant Terris was briefly visible through the fog and then he was gone.
The remaining one drew his sword and closed with Sarpedon. For what seemed like an age heparried the blows neither gaining or giving ground until Sarpedon slipped on some dew slick grass. It hadn’t been intentional, but it threw the other man off balance as he lunged forward for a target that was no longer there.
Seeing his chance, Sarpedon kicked out at the other man's legs knocking him to the ground. Then rising to a low crouch he hacked down across the man unprotected back, a moment later the fight was over.
Breathing hard, Lieutenant Sarpedon looked around to see Sergeant Terris leading half a dozen men down the track after the first wagon which was being driven away, while another small group tried to regain control of the two remaining wagons and prevent them from being taken.
Shots still sounded around him although it was difficult to tell from where in the fog. Louder and more persistent now were the sounds of close combat, of steel on steel and the occasional strangled cry as a man was cut down.
Where the hell is their leader? Sarpedon thought as he looked around from the cover of the powder wagon. If he could catch him or cut him down them perhaps the rest of the men attacking them would either flee or surrender.
As if in answer to his question he saw movement in a small stand of stunted trees that crowned an outcrop of rocks to his left, followed by the muzzle flash from a rifle being fired.
Hoping that his suspicions about where the Sitha bandit leader was were correct, Sarpedon moved towards the trees and the concealed shooter as swiftly and silently as he could. Creeping behind the man, he could see that he was finishing reloading his rifle and taking aim at the soldier trying to regain control of one of the wagons.
Sarpedon hacked down with his sword across the man’s neck as he fired again. The muzzle of the rifle lifted the shot going up into the branches and showering them with leaves. This close guns were always loud, but the shot was followed a fraction of a second later by a deafening roar as an explosion shook the valley.
Sarpedon felt the force of the blast hit him, lifting him off his feet and throwing him backwards to the trees.
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no subject
Date: 2012-09-08 01:10 pm (UTC)I'm assuming the black powder was ignited in the attack, and that's what blasted Sarpedon backwards. Was it a triple cross, to set those two factions against each other so that some third person can swoop in while the army and the mercenaries are feuding?
no subject
Date: 2012-09-08 05:08 pm (UTC)At the moment Jago only believes them to be Sithian bandits, so he's not considering who hired them. Or are you asking why Lasona is introduced rather than just having the attack solely from Jago POV so that the reader doesn't know about Lasona, Metrian etc?
Was it a triple cross, to set those two factions against each other so that some third person can swoop in while the army and the mercenaries are feuding?
If anything it's actually more complicated than this. But basically Metrian hired Lasona to impersonate Sithian peasants for the attack with the intention of perpetuating the idea that there's organised revolt simmering under the surface of everyday life in the country. That is the simple part. Why Metrian wants people to think this is where it gets complicated. But basically a lot of the idea of the Sithian peasant revolt is being manufactured within an element of the country's government for their own ends. They believe they have the support of another country in this, but they are being played by the other country. Metrian nominally works for the other country, but he's mostly out for himself.
Most of this doesn't become apparent though until later in the story.