Miranda rolled over on the bunk, groaning lightly. As she did, her right horn poked a bad spot.
“Owwww!!” Azrael pulled away quickly, holding his hand to his left eye. “Woman, you’ll do in my eye! Do you know how long it took for the doctors to save that from Balenor’s blade?” Their tails clasped together tightly as she continued her roll. She smiled gently through slitted eyes.
“You complain like a girl, Commander. Perhaps your knickers are a little tight?” She laughed under her breath. Dawn was still a grey shadow, perhaps an hour or two still in coming.
“I’ll give you tight knickers, lieutenant!” He rolled back over to her.
When dawn broke, Azrael walked out from his quarters, watching the deep red globe lift itself above the treeline. He looked left and right to see the activity around the camp, noting his men getting the day started. The humidity was already on the rise, the cool of the night like a faint damp blanket over the entire camp.
“So, dragon-speaker, ready for another day?” Miranda asked from behind him.
“If they only knew how true that name was, I might actually lose that lousy nickname.”
“Perhaps, but I think it’s a bit catchy.”
“They say it with such reverence, but all I did was preserve our skins, young lady.”
“Kaenig still is angry that you didn’t negotiate to reduce the payment to Vargan, you know?”
“Why would he be? He can’t be that stupid.” Azrael looked back over his shoulder to her.
“He thinks you could have counter-offered, saved some of the money for the battalion.” She continued belting on her gear, sitting on the bed and pulling her boots on.
“He fails to realize we were never bargaining for payment to deal with the drakes. We were only informing him of the drakes’ trespass. The money was there to buy our lives in forgiveness of our own trespass. If we’d ‘bargained’ him down, he’d have known we had money in our pockets, and that we’d thought it was somehow acceptable to leave with it. Take a wild guess what his reaction would be to that, hey?” He smiled back at her.
“I certainly see your point.” She stood, sheathing a thin blade at her side.
“I’d appreciate it if you’d find a method of explaining that to Kaenig before he damages my reputation with his foolishness.”
“I’ll figure out a way.”
A halfling runner came by, muttering something to Azrael before scurrying away. “I’ve been called up to command. You know the way back to your squad, lieutenant?”
She nodded, gathering up the rest of her things.
He walked with some haste to the command cabin. He marvelled at the sounds of the tropical birds, the smell of the flowers on the air. Around him, the forward settlement was waking. The enlisted tents stirred, slaves moving back and forth preparing meals and polishing metal – the constant humidity this far South caused a great deal of corrosion if not tended to.
Entering the cabin, he saw two other commanders present, and general Mahar, all around the main table.
Mahar looked to his entrance. “Come in, commander, come in. Take a seat.”
He walked up to the wall, where a large map of the southern reaches of Bael Turath, where it butted up against Arkhosia, was hanging. “Gentlemen, we are here.” He pointed to a colored set of pins stuck in the map at irregular intervals along the border.
“This war has been a steady drain on us, but our line is holding. The problem, as it stands, is that their soldiers are stronger and more numerous than ours. One benefit: we will win on the overall attrition scheme, assuming no dramatic surprise victories by the Arkhosians. To put it simply, they don’t breed as quickly as we do. We have several varieties of humanoids with which we can put forces together, and they only have the dragonborn. They eat or sacrifice everything else.” He turned back to the assembled group of commanders.
“Their abject worship of Zehir has left them in an untenable position – while they do well with their poisoned archers, they can’t afford to use poison everywhere, or their common grunts would be nicking and killing themselves too regularly. Even though a dragonborn – much like the Yuan-Ti leaders – lays eggs in a clutch, dragonborn only lay one or two at a time, and they’re lucky if the clutch lives to adulthood. Culturally, ours is a somewhat more forgiving-of-error society – surviving childhood is generally only a matter of not starving in our lands. In the case of the Arkhosians, cannibalism and…ahem, pardon the pun…draconian punishments cripple their ability to re-stock their ranks.”
“I intend to supply a dramatic surprise victory against the Arkhosians, and make it clear to them that their war is untenable. Their leadership is rational, if not necessarily what we’d consider sane. I intend to bite off a major chunk of their northern holdings and secure the Seaport of Ma’grantir, ensuring us trade routes in and around the Huerist Ocean.”
“Nine weeks ago, Arkhosia launched a retributive strike against the Turathian town of Malakkan. For those of you not familiar with it, it was a town of about fifteen hundred individuals. I say was, because it is no longer there. It was razed shortly after their northern army’s back was broken near Darl-Knade.” Azrael sat up a bit straighter, not realizing that the reaction to their operation had had such dramatic results.
“Which brings me to today. The city of Rheeam, here, is the first step towards the ocean…” and he indicated a marker on the map further into Arkhosian territory “it is a reasonably-sized township of between four and eight thousand. That population is about four hundred to eight hundred Yuan-Ti leadership with the balance made up of dragonborn. Lots of stone the leaders live in, lots of wood for the slaves.” He paused. “If possible, I’d prefer to avoid destroying the entire place, but make no mistake, we’re going to cost it from them. I intend for commanders Yistria, Lorean, and Pritzant to approach from the East and North, and draw out the fighting forces of the town. Azrael, that’s where you come in – you’ll be moving in from the Southwest, and it is my intention that you decapitate the city leadership. Without leaders, the dragonborn will fall into disarray and begin to disperse into the forest. We’ll then mop up, and move the rest of the regiment further south to establish a new front. We’ll dig in and the Cairn Jale will install military governance of the town.”
He motioned to the lieutenant sitting in the back of the room, who came forward with leather rolled packages. Mahar spoke further as the junior officer handed them out, one to each commander.
“You will each meet at the sandtables tomorrow with your respective plans of attack. These are detailed maps of the area around Rheeam, please see to it that your juniors learn the area like their own homes. I expect to hear your initial plans by noon, and you mobilize four days from now. The supply train is scheduled to arrive later today, so get your enlisted men loaded and ready.” He looked around at each, and seeing no questions, nodded.
“Dismissed.”
