Gunshots rang out in the marshal's office again, making the military police on duty outside exchange glances.
They stirred into action with all the urgency of a lazy afternoon, hoping that when they opened the door, they'd find the old marshal dead by his own hand, overcome with shame. Then they could step in and lay out his body, preserving at least a shred of the commander's dignity.
There were many reasons for the intense hatred between the ranks.
First and foremost, everyone knew that Marshal Heraclius had invested the veterans' pension fund.
Back when the Misty Sea Trading Company was spinning its myth of prosperity, everyone praised the marshal's foresight. No one had criticized him for taking more of the pension money to invest.
After all, soldiers were simple folk. They showed their likes and dislikes plainly.
But now the Misty Sea Trading Company had blown up in everyone's faces. The marshal had clamped down on the news at once, but how many soldiers stationed here didn't have relatives in town?
The unrest in the port district and the "trading company fire" had spread through the barracks. The stories about "the flying man of the port" kept getting wilder by the day. It was only natural for the soldiers to be worried. Yet the old marshal, who should have been the first to explain the situation, had issued nothing but a toothless "denial," claiming that the soldiers' pensions were still safe in the fortress treasury.
That was like burning newspaper money at a grave and expecting ghosts to believe it!
Second, the marshal had been acting very strangely these past two days.
He'd grown irritable and quickly deteriorated into a senile old drunk. At dawn, four officers had given in to everyone's pleas and gone to discuss the pension