Raiten:

  “1,000 plagued and 7,000 Sorayvladian warriors. That’s not counting the amount that will arrive in two days' time.”

  “I shouldn’t even ask, but how many will those reinforcements be?” I venture. We discuss in the shadows of the thicket, like assassins in the dark. The fires of our enemies blink orange in the distance, piercing through the dark veil of the briars.

  Zyla’s mouth makes a thin line as her eyes roll back to normal. She looks at the four of us huddled around her and sighs.

  “Another 7,000.”

  “That’s…” I shake my head, the numbers seeming incomprehensible.

  “15,000,” Umbrahorn mutters softly. “Maybe the glory days of war have truly returned to this era.”

  Kiren and Saegor are uncharacteristically quiet, the two of them simply processing the heft of that number.

  Zyla continues. “The other 7,000 are heading the main supply line, so that’s why they lag. Sometime in their trek, they divided their forces so that the frontline could make greater headway. At first I didn’t understand why, but—” she looks at Saegor. “I think they’re expecting us.”

  Saegor blows out his lips. “Hells, of course they are. They’ve practically determined the field of battle already.” He jerks his leg up incessantly, eyes doing some sort of mental calculus.

  “503 against 15,000—” I begin but Umbrahorn huffs.

  “Hey! I count as well.”

  “I know, I just wasn’t counting myself.”

  “Oh. My bad.”

  “Right. As I was saying, 503 against 15,000—”

  “You forget that it’s 1,500 spirits in our arsenal, because I can revive them twice each,” Saegor interrupts now.

  “Oh wow, thank you soooooo much Saegor, you have saved us. Now they’re only ten times our number,” Umbrahorn argues.

  “So we have to attack tomorrow,” Kiren whispers, ignoring the hammerhead’s fretting.

  Saegor nods sagely. “We can’t wait. Tonight we plan. Tomorrow, we strike. At least that way, we have to only deal with 7,000 of them.”

  A silence permeates between us. Our gazes turn downcast—processing. I look at the mud ringing my boots. Feel the sticky weight of it as I lift my feet up and down, rocking now on the smooth stone I occupy.

  I reach down and pick up a stick, drawing what I imagine to be the enemy’s position on the slope. At first I merely do it out of boredom, but the others start gathering me, watching me sketch, as if expecting me to come up with some extraordinary plan that I don’t have.

  I try drawing out the blocks of our enemy regiments the way I’ve seen them in the old war books that Kai used to lecture me about. I ignore the pain of those memories for the facts.

  X’s for the enemy.

  O’s for us.

  I even add the crude figures of five whales, all misshapen, flying above the glades.

  And finally, I draw three large X’s. Add a witch hat to one. A few streaks of lightning to another—though they look more like odd scribbles than anything.

  Lastly, for the biggest X, I put the form of a small, crude stick-figure baby above it. And cross it out.

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  The stick snaps in my hand at the part.

  Zyla gives me a pitying stare, having noticed my reaction. The others are too focused on the image.

  “The witch, the general, and the boy shogun?” Kiren asks.

  I nod.

  Saegor puts his hand out. At first, I don’t understand what he’s asking for. He sighs and points to the broken end of the twig. I hand it to him and he draws out the briars below the hill. The swing up to the right—his effort of sketching the forest’s curve to one side of the slope.

  “In my experience,” he begins, choosing his words slow and careful-like. There’s a certain weight to each syllable now—almost as if he’s trying to infuse a confidence in his planning. “The simplest strategies work the best. Even against a vast enemy, all battles usually boil down to one key tactic: envelopment.”

  I sit straighter, the term coming back to me through one of Kai’s lessons.

  “So rather than attack head on, you want us to strike at their sides?” I ask.

  “We’ll do both actually. Envelopment requires a sort of ‘fixing’ force. Someone to hold the enemy’s front in place and leave their flanks open. But there’s a much simpler way of putting it.”

  “Hammer and Anvil,” Umbrahorn interjects, his voice perking with excitement.

  “Well put shark,” Saegor confirms. He draws a square block with an O in it, positioned right below the slope. “The force that attacks the front of their army—the fixing force—that is the anvil. The hammer will come from here:” He draws now a line connected to another O-square that comes around the slope from curvature of the briars. “We’ll flank from the right. The briars will give us more cover there than if we tried from the left.”

  “I like it,” Kiren says. “We can catch them off guard. Maybe even pass their plagued.”

  “That sounds great and all, but you seriously don’t expect us to defeat even 8,000 of them with just our numbers?” I object.

  Saegor shakes his head. “We don’t have to kill all of them. We just have to keep the troops busy.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Sorayvlad isn’t like Catolica: they don’t have the same hierarchical rigor. Instead, all command and subsequent respect goes to two individuals. Three if we’re counting the plagued as a separate force.” He points to all three of my big Xs.

  “Cut off the head of the dragon’s head…” Zyla mutters.

  “And the body will die,” I finish.

  “In our case, the body will cease functioning or tear itself apart. Hopefully both,” Saegor says. “Think about it. Before they were united, Sorayvald had a bloody civil war to determine their next leader. If we kill all three here, we end the war.”

  I stare at the biggest X. Tighten my fist.

  “So who's going to be the Anvil?”

  One by one, everyone looks at me.

  I sigh. “Of course.”

  “It makes the most sense. You’re the flashiest. Literally,” Kiren chuckles.

  “More importantly,” Saegor interjects, pointing to the X with lightning streaks. “It gives you time to draw him out.”

  Right. My one true purpose on this sortie.

  But this much I don’t mind. As long as we win, I’ll do whatever it takes.

  I give them all a solemn nod.

  “Understood.”

  “Alright. Well then—”

  “Wait.” Umbrahorn points a fin to the whales. “How are you going to deal with them? Send flying spirits after them?”

  “Eh, they’ll probably just get shot down. The whales will be a problem—I think they have mancers riding them to hail us down with magicks. But I have an idea.”

  When Saegor doesn’t elaborate, I clear my throat. “Uh, are you willing to share this—”

  “No.”

  My eye twitches. “Why?”

  “We should be careful with how much we plan and how much of the plan we share between us. Just in case. And also, on that note, no one sleeps tonight. Got that? We can’t risk it.”

  Immediately, I understand. I didn’t even consider that threat. He’s right. She could just figure out our strategy within the dreams and turn it against us.

  I also recognize this as a bare attempt to further besmirch my name amongst the group, because he pointedly looks at me. For what it's worth, the others just give him a nod rather than glaring at me or anything.

  “If that’s everything, then make your final preparations. I’ll go hunt us some rabbit. And…” he levels one last look at each of us with his single eye. “We will win. No matter what. We simply must. Do you understand?”

  On that much, the mancer and I can finally agree.

  I pick up the other half of the broken stick and stamp it down upon the biggest X.

  “No matter what,” I mutter.