“Rest assured Lord Hielos; I will make sure the people of the tribe will be loyal to the union, satisfying you and the Senate!” The excited Vito immediately expressed his stance to Hielos.
“Vito, you traitor!” Kaduk's eye widened with anger, wishing he could eat this old man, who he had trusted, alive.
“You are the traitor, the traitor to our Theonia! Our tribesmen are happy and enjoying their stable life under the rule of the union, yet you want to push us into war!” Vito pointed at him and scolded him.
“Shut his mouth!” At Hielos' warning, the soldiers gagged Kaduk, who was still trying to shout. His anger and fear could only turn into a muffled sound…
. . . . . . . . . . . . .
Hielos returned to the inner part of the city just in time to meet the cavalries that had arrived from Thurii under the starry night. Even though they didn't manage to catch up with Petaru, they still managed to bring the Senate's order. With Hielos already taking action, the Senate's order just became a confirmation for his action.
Adepiges then greeted Hielos, who came to the city hall. He then asked, “Have you caught them?”
“We captured Kaduk.” Hielos then continued with gratitude, “Thank you for risking your life to bring this report!”
It is, after all, a taboo to travel at night in the Bruttian region, let alone riding on a horse. Although falling is already terrifying, the wild animals roaming in the wilderness are much more frightening. Fully aware of this situation, Adepiges borrowed another horse from Besidice to prevent accidents and galloped towards Consentia with the two horses, which indeed happened while he was in the middle of his journey; one of the horses sprained its front hoof, so he immediately changed horses and drove the wounded horse away from the road (who later returned and was then eaten by the wolves, alerting Petaru and the others), and finally brought back the news to Hielos.
After hearing Hielos' praise, Adepiges did not show a trace of pride as he was no longer the humble slave at the start but the intelligence officer arranged by Davos in the Bruttian region. Even the several Praetors in the cities of Bruttii have to rely on his intelligence in order to be informed of the tribal movements in the region and take precautions to ensure that there is no trouble in this area. Hence they didn't dare to underestimate him, let alone him having Davos behind him.
“Did Hegasitus came back?” Asked Hielos.
“I haven't heard anything from him yet.” Replied Adepiges.
Hegasitus was the chieftain of the Siro tribe's survivors. After Theonia conquered Bruttii, Davos settled the Siro tribe near Consentia and appointed Hegasitus as its inspector. But in reality, he is more like an assistant to Consentia’s Praetor with his knowledge of the Bruttian region. And many measures for the stability of the Bruttian region had even come from his advice. He is even the first one to mediate once there is a conflict.
“It seems the statement of Kaduk's men is true. Petaru didn't come to Consentia but went directly to the south.” Hielos strode inside the city hall.
In the Praetor's office room, Hieronymus was already waiting there anxiously. He had just arrived in Consentia this afternoon and had not yet started recruiting soldiers, only to be informed by Hielos that there might be a rebellion in the evening.
He became surprised but also excited as he felt that he could finally be of use.
At this time, Hielos, who knew Hieronymus' character, entered the room without politeness and bluntly said, “We caught Kaduk, and he admitted that they were preparing to rebel. However, we didn't manage to catch Bodiam and Petaru!” Hielos said regretfully and went straight into his desk with a large map of the Bruttian area on the wall.
He then continued after pointing to the bottom left of the map. “Bodiam must have gone to Anbania, where he ruled as the great chieftain for more than 20 years and had a high prestige. However, we have demolished the city of Anbania after we integrated Bruttii into our union(Davos thought that Anbania was too isolated with barren land and unable to accommodate many people, so reconstructing the city would be too wasteful of resources and would just increase the risk of rebellion. Thus after a discussion in the Senate, they decided to demolish it.) And even though we have moved out the tribes living there, Anbania still have a population of about…uh-”
“There are still about 5,000 Anbanians. So even if Bodiam managed to persuade them, they could only gather up more than a thousand soldiers.” Adepiges, who then entered the room, immediately added.
After all, it's only a month since Hielos came to Bruttii, so he only has a preliminary understanding of the situation here. Thus he is not as familiar as Adepiges, who lived in Bruttii for many years. Hielos then stepped aside and motioned for Adepiges to make a detailed introduction.
“Petaru, on the other hand, if he didn't come to Consentia, must have definitely gone here-” Without refusing it, Adepiges went straight to the map and pointed to the left of it, “Here is one of the tribes that he ruled, with a population of about 6,000. So if you want to crush the rebellion, I suggest attacking here first. Although this tribe is a bit further away from Consentia, it is still within the Consentian plateau, and there are also other tribes living around it. But the main problem is that it is also close to Clampetia, so they can escape from Bruttii at any time through the mountain paths to join the Syracusans, which will cause terrible results.
On the other hand, most of the Anbanian tribes surrounded a lake while the others lived in the mountains, so it would take Bodiam a lot of time to gather them while we only needed to block the road from Anbania to the Consentian plateau. Thus Bodiam could only cross the mountains and risk entering the Consentian plateau, or follow the rugged valley eastward to the city of Aprustum.” Facing the two statesmen, Adepiges confidently expressed his opinion.
“Well said!” Hielos praised loudly and continued, “I think we could follow as Adepiges said.”contemporary romance
Hieronymus nodded and said, “How many men will you give me?”
Even though he spoke briefly, Hielos still understood what he meant. After all, he was the praetor of Consentia and had to sit in the centre of this Bruttian city, so Hieronymus was the only that could direct this battle.
“I can recruit 2,000 independent Bruttian citizens from within Consentia tomorrow while gathering a thousand men from the tribes outside the city and try to complete the assembly at noon. Beyond that, I can't give you any more troops because I still need some soldiers to station in Consentia in case other tribes are affected by this and riots occur.” Hielos said in a serious tone.
“3,000 is enough,” Hieronymus simply replied, then pointed to Adepiges, “However, I want you to come with me.”
“I would be more than happy to, Lord Hieronymus!” Adepiges gladly replied.
“Tomorrow morning, I will send messengers to Clampetia and Vergae to inform the two lords, Asistes and Saru, to cooperate with you as much as possible while raising their vigilance. Furthermore, I will also send someone to rush back to Thurii and get the Senate to inform lord Agasias in the city of Aprustum to be on the alert for these traitors who might slip away through the river valley!” Hielos finished stating his arrangement.
. . . . . . . . . . . . .
The following day, Hieronymus led the assembled 3,000 reserve soldiers to the south…
Petaru, on the other hand, managed to act quickly enough and convince more than half of his tribe to follow him and defect from Theonia Union. He also sent his men to the surrounding tribes to spread rumours that “Syracuse's army had invaded Theonia's territory, and the Theonian army was defeated and was about to be destroyed!…” And so on and such rumours caused the people to panic.
Even some tribal chieftains became so restless that they rushed to ask him for advice.
He then took this opportunity to talk about the many discrimination and grievances he suffered in Thurii during his years as a Bruttian chieftain and a Senate's statesman to the point that he even shed tears and his eyes turned red.
And his words just happened to answer the chieftains concerns about Theonia's deliberate and constant promulgation of laws that accelerated the disintegration of the tribe. Making them think that even Petaru, who had become a statesman, was forced into this situation, let alone them.
Hence some of the chieftains began considering following Petaru in rebelling against Theonia's rule.
Just when Petaru rejoiced in his scheme's success to create an anti-Theonia union of the Bruttian tribes and start a rebellion against Theonia throughout the Consentia plateau, the army of Hieronymus quickly approached.
After learning about it, Petaru, who was clueless about what happened in Kaduk's tribe last night, was shocked. In their plan, they thought that the Senate wouldn't be able to find out about their disappearance until at least today and would not send anyone to their tribe until tomorrow or the day after tomorrow. But by then, they would already be ready and could take advantage of the pressure of the Syracusan army and the empty troops of the Theonian territory to deal with the Theonians in Bruttii. However, the Theonian army attacked so quickly and unexpectedly that his fears had become a reality.
Petaru hurriedly sent someone out to argue with the army's commander and buy time for himself.
Yet, no one expected Hieronymus to ignore him and directly lead the army into the tribal settlement to catch Petaru.
And the panicking Petaru could only send his men to stop Hieronymus while he rode quietly and tried to escape.
But Petaru's hastily formed troops was defeated by Hieronymus, then they began chasing him.
In the end, Petaru's mount was hit by an arrow, throwing him off his horse. Finally, Hieronymus captured him.
Hieronymus then tied him up and the nearly a thousand rebels with ropes and strung them into several long rows. They then threatened them to walk through the various tribal settlements with their spears, causing all the tribal chieftains who saw this sight to be nervous and trembling in their legs.
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