Summer in Montenegro was never kind.
The stone streets of Cetinje baked under the merciless sun, the air thick with pine resin and the sour bite of horse dung.
In the Baron's hall, courtiers waved fans lazily, whispering of Ottoman troop movements and Russian promises of aid.
Elias Kaine lingered in the shadows, silent.
Watching.
Always watching.
Baron Radomir Petrović, draped in his crimson sash, rambled on about tariffs on imported grain—a subject none of the nobles cared for.
Elias, however, understood its weight.
Grain tariffs meant hunger.
Hunger bred riots.
And riots… well, riots were opportunity.
"Sir Elias,"
the Baron's voice broke through the chamber, his tone booming across polished stone.
The nobles had given Elias that title as though he were some relic knight of the old realm.
"What say you?"
Elias inclined his head, the faintest smile curving his lips.
"Raise them. Let the merchants howl. The treasury grows fat, unrest festers—and when it does, only Your Excellency will be seen as strong enough to restore order. Geneva has forced all to abandon mercenaries; only a state's soldiers can crush rebellion now."
The Baron laughed, pleased by the cruelty of the logic.
Murmurs swept through the nobles.
From his chair, young Prince Danilo studied Elias with that unreadable expression of his—neither approval nor disdain.
Just silence.
Elias recognized the moment for what it was: another seed planted, another step along the path.
That night, he returned to his attic chamber.
Thin plaster walls muffled the bustle of the city, while a lone oil lamp cast shifting shadows across his desk.
Maps upon maps overlapped in a tangled lattice of pins and notes.
His Eagle View interface hummed at the back of his mind.
The Zabljak base pulsed steadily: the Tiberium Reactor thrummed, Ore Miners hauled carts of glittering rock, riflemen drilled in disciplined silence.
A miniature empire, growing stronger by the day.
A report blinked before him:
[Ore Reserves +1,300 Credits][Veteran Riflemen (2) Commissioned – Cetinje Regiment][Spy Infiltration Successful: Ottoman Consulate, Dubrovnik]
That last entry made him lean closer.
Through the consulate's telegraph, Ottoman troop dispatches were now his to read.
Already, patterns emerged—fresh garrisons along the Adriatic, supply routes thickening.
The storm gathered.
~
The following morning, Elias walked with Baron Petrović among the rose gardens of his estate.
Guards trailed them, muskets resting on shoulders.
"You are wasted as my secretary,"
Petrović said, smoke curling from his pipe.
"Your mind is sharper than half my officers'. Too… calculating."
Elias bowed slightly.
"I serve Montenegro, Excellency."
"And yet you think like a general."
The Baron eyed him sideways.
"Rumor says you drink with soldiers in taverns. That you question engineers at the foundries. That you ask too much about fortifications."
For a heartbeat, Elias faltered.
Had someone seen too much?
"Curiosity,"
he said smoothly.
"My father was a soldier—before he lost his leg. He always hoped I would follow him. I lack the body for soldiering, but strategy, that I inherited."
The Baron studied him, then laughed.
"Good. Montenegro needs men who think. Turks have numbers. We have only wits."
Elias forced a polite smile, but his mind was already racing.
Attention was dangerous.
The Prince, sooner or later, would begin to wonder who exactly this foreign-tongued aide truly was.
It was time to accelerate.
At the War Factory, he placed a new order:
[Build Order: Mobile Construction Vehicle (MCV)]
It would empty his coffers, but the reward was immense.
A second base meant survival—whether hidden near the Bay of Kotor under the guise of shipyards, or inland by Nikšić where ore veins ran deep.
Expansion meant security.
His engineers had also completed their latest project: hidden watchtowers across the mountains.
They offered sightlines for miles, and in time could be upgraded into gun emplacements—death machines long before any enemy set foot on the range.
Europe still dreamt in Napoleonic formations, but Elias was already sculpting the future of war.
Yet soldiers alone weren't enough.
He needed loyalty.
In the war room, he summoned two Veteran Riflemen already seeded into Montenegro's army.
"You will form the Iron Hand,"
he told them, voice low.
"A circle within a circle. Recruit quietly. Only men of silence, ambition, and discipline. You answer to me alone."
They snapped to attention.
"Yes, sir."
The people's loyalty lay with nobles for now, but that too would shift.
With time, the Iron Hand could weave itself into the state's own military—loyal to Elias, not the crown.
Power would not need to be seized.
It would flow to him naturally.
The summer dragged on, heat suffocating the valleys.
Reports from Istanbul whispered of Ottoman unease, Russian promises, European tension pulling taut.
The continent edged closer to war.
Elias's real concern, though, was time.
His notes sprawled across the desk like spiderwebs—troop growth projections, ore yields, diplomatic forecasts.
If memory served, the Crimean War would ignite within the year.
That gave him only months.
Months to prepare an army for fire and blood.
Months to slip them into Russia's ranks without attracting suspicion.
Geneva had outlawed mercenaries, yet Britain and France would cheat the law with their foreign legions.
Why not the Slavs?
Why not Montenegro?
He rubbed at his temples, weariness clawing at him. But there was no rest.
Not yet.
The turning point came at a banquet.
Prince Danilo presided at the table, wine in hand, basking in laughter and ceremony.
Elias stood in the shadows behind the Baron, invisible as ever—until the Prince raised his glass.
"To Montenegro's future!"
Danilo declared.
"To those who shape it. Some born of noble blood… and some,"
his eyes flicked to Elias, sly and sharp,
"who come from nowhere, yet seem to think like kings and generals."
The hall chuckled.
Elias bowed his head, hiding the tension that coiled in his chest.
The Prince knew.
Not the whole truth, not yet—but enough to mark him.
And in the Balkans of 1853, curiosity was a knife waiting to slip between the ribs.
That night, Elias scrawled in his ledger by candlelight:
The time for subtlety wanes.
If the Prince grows suspicious, I may be cast aside.
My armies cannot yet reveal themselves.
But perhaps they don't need to.
Perhaps the Crimean storm will give me the cover I require.
He set the pen down, exhaustion thick in his bones.
A man out of time—caught between the smoke of muskets and the thunder of machine guns, knowing slaughter on a scale beyond imagination was only decades away.
And yet, if he played the game well enough, perhaps he could bend history.
The Eagle View pulsed again.
Factories churned.
Riflemen drilled.
The machine grew louder, stronger.
And soon, the world would hear it roar.