Den of the Red Wolf

I do not want to say that the d’Ameston Agency grew, phoenix-like, from the body of the Companions of the Green Flame.  After all, the Green Flame is not really dead.  Not the second iteration, anyway.  That group dissolved after Turbun retired and Kendra and Aeinridi finally had the child they had been wanting.  Everyone happy.  Not like the end of the original Green Flame, with Lady Marjorie and Kendra spending weeks at Evermeet putting Charlotte’s mind and body back together.

After working with Kendra and Aeinridi again, and Turbun and Drasha, I was no longer satisfied with my self-imposed exile.  I guess Kendra had gone some ways towards healing me, too.  She’s good at that.  Good thing.  Aeinridi needs her now more than I ever did.

Just, I wasn’t ready to retire.  I still wanted action.  I wanted my friends around me.  Once we decided to formally dissolve the Green Flame, I headed for Freyk’s Wall, the city I had avoided for several years.

The d’Ameston Agency would not be a single team, like the Green Flame or some of those former Crimson Brigade squads.  It wouldn’t be focused on a single remit, like McArneson’s Swords or the Rail Riders.  It had to be more than that.  I needed a force that could project power quickly anywhere in Loksenta.  I hadn’t liked what I saw coming.  The Garythites were enlarging their estates and using the extra income to bolster the Silver Company.  The Oligarchs were trying to replace the nobility as the country’s power center with the wealthiest merchants.  The coming war with Krondak would destabilize everything.  The Crimson Brigade couldn’t be everywhere.  I needed a company that the Queen could call on when the Brigade couldn’t be used.

Setting up a large mercenary company quickly required funds, lots of them.  Fortunately, that was not a problem.  I had a considerable amount set aside.  The Green Flame had been good at hunting monsters and fighting bandits.  We had been paid accordingly.  I had seen to that.  And if a few jewels went missing the same night a Krondakite knight was killed, then it happened during a robbery, not an assassination.  The Loksenta Military Intelligence Service didn’t need to know all the details of a mission, did it?  Although Wilk duFreke probably figured it out.  As long as I got results, he wouldn’t mind.  I had enough to get started.

The first thing I did was hire M’Andra.  She manages the Agency.  I could command troopers and negotiate payment for hunting down a few bandits.  I could not keep a large company supplied or write the right contracts.  M’Andra does all of this and more.

I found a pair of brownstones in Midtown East, down near East Gate.  They were perfect for the Agency’s headquarters.  Apart from my own rooms on the third floor, the first building was M’Andra’s domain.  The ground floor was where we met with clients.  The second floor held our, and later Gudrik’s, offices.  The basement was storage and archives.

The second building was mine.  The basement housed a small armory.  The ground floor had briefing rooms and the map room.  The second had sleeping quarters for troopers whose duties prevented them from getting home or back to the barracks.  The third held Drasha’s laboratory.  Not that she needed the whole floor.  Just, nobody but Drasha could put up with the smells her experiments produced.

The shared roof of the two buildings was set up as a training and exercise yard.  For the most part, just for me.  Troopers could use it as they desired.  I even caught M’Andra up there a few times, after meeting with a particularly aggravating client or trader.

With the headquarters arranged, the Agency needed some actual troopers.  We would start out with bodyguarding and event security in and around Freyk’s Wall.  Nothing too ostentatious.  I needed troopers who could fight but were not too hot headed.  I also needed some who could lead a team and be good at detecting threats.

There were a couple of good squads already working in Freyk’s Wall that met those criteria.  Most of their members, anyway.  If I hired the whole squad by guaranteeing them more lucrative contracts than they were already getting, I could ease the laggards out later.

Kendall McArneson and I had had dealings in the past and were on generally good terms.  I trusted his ability to evaluate troopers.  I hired a couple of my key squad leaders away from his Swords.  In exchange for favors to be named later, of course.

The agency was now in business.  Getting work was not a problem.  Between them, Kendra and M’Andra knew plenty of rich merchants and almost-as-rich traders who would give a new company a try.

We did a good job.  We charged enough not to seem cheap but not too much not to be a good value.  Our reputation grew.  With it, so did our clientele.  Soon, the Agency was able to field a half dozen teams at once.

Phase one of my plans was complete.  The d’Ameston Agency was an established, well-regarded mercenary company.  It was already bigger and more successful than most.  That was not sufficient.  Time for phase two.

With the backing of investors who, even now, I cannot identify, the Agency bought land out in the Fan.  This was to be the site of our barracks - our training ground, housing for our troopers, our storehouse, and our armory.  Building a barracks in the Fan was not an innovation.  Both McArneson’s Swords and the Silver Company already had their own training grounds in the Fan.  In fact, the Agency bought a derelict facility that the Silver Company had abandoned for a larger one.

Building a barracks allowed the Agency to do several things that were required for it to grow.  First, it provided the space for the troopers and the supplies they needed.  Second, it allowed us to train those troopers.  Our first teams came to the Agency already trained.  Some were well-trained.  Some were poorly trained.  Some were trained in skills that the Agency did not need.  A comprehensive, if severe, training regimine greatly improved the quality of our troopers.

Finally, living together and training together built a sense of camaraderie amongst the troopers. In the early days, the loyalty of the teams that the Agency fielded directly correlated to how much the agency could pay them.  They were mercenaries, after all.  They were in it for the money.  The agency needed to be more than a group of mercenaries.  I needed a military force.  A well-paid one, granted, but one whose loyalty went beyond their pay packet.

The Agency still takes bodyguard and security contracts.  They provide both valuable contacts and valuable intelligence.  We’ve also taken up the Green Flame’s old job of hunting monsters and bandits.  The Agency can handle bigger problems along those lines than the Green Flame ever could have.  

The Agency can now field about four dozen teams.  These teams can operate independently or as part of multi-team squads.  They are organized into a half dozen platoons.  At least one platoon is always in the barracks.  This is partly to make sure there are fresh troopers available and partly to defend the barracks, if necessary.  If the headquarters is the Agency’s head, the barracks is its heart.  We cannot afford for it to fall.

I have discovered that the commander of a small army is not as action-packed as I had thought.  I have had to hire my old friend Gudrik Cloudsmasher as my second-in-command, just to keep on top of everything.  Just, Kendra, Aeinridi, and I do get out in the field occasionally.  Every once in a while, the Agency gets a contract that suits our particular skills or requires a particularly high level of confidentiality.

No, most of my time is spent analyzing intelligence picked up by Agency troopers and devising strategies.  The problems I had identified years ago have not gone away.  Loksenta is at a point of unstable equilibrium.  Only the fact that the first faction to make a move will inevitably be crushed by the others is keeping order.  Something will happen to collapse this equilibrium.  The d’Ameston Agency has to be ready.