Strax didn't sleep.
While the sky still held the hesitant blue of pre-dawn, he was already standing in his office, adjusting his coat and fastening the last buttons with precise movements. The city outside was beginning to awaken, oblivious to the fact that one of the most rotten cogs in its system was about to be forcibly ripped out.
He glanced one last time at the report on the table.
"Protected" trade routes.
An expensive joke.
In practice, those routes were institutionalized illegal tolls. Merchants paid two, three times for the same journey. Part went to the city hall, another part to the assigned soldiers, another—the largest part—disappeared into the hands of intermediate officers.
At the top of that system was a name repeated with irritating frequency:
General Manager of Military Routes and Assignments.
The man who decided which soldiers went to which posts.
Which routes "deserved" protection.
Which caravans were conveniently ignored.
