And so the Planning Starts
After all this earth-shattering news, none of us knew what to do with it. Then, for the first time since we sat at the table, Acton slowly stood, drawing us all to him, and spoke.
“I, Clan Leader Acton, hereby request a vote to remove Porvan from his position and allow a new clan leader to take his place that will be more fitting in this time of war.” Turning to face me, he bowed deeply and sat back down.
The matter was now in my hands. A clan leader had made a request, and it was up to me to approve or deny that request. Setting my hands firmly on the table, I rose from my seat.
“By royal decree, I waive the right to vote and remove Porvan from his role for high treason to the clans and our country. He will stand a trial of his peers at a later date, but it will be delayed until after he has helped us defeat the Lost King. His punishment is to be at the beck and call of all clan leaders, royal guardians, and myself for any matter to right the wrongs he has committed.” The other four clan leaders bowed their heads in agreement with my ruling.
“Porvan, do you accept this ruling and agree to help us, or do I need to lock you away in a cell until the matter can be settled?”
“No, My Queen, you pass fair judgment, and I deserve far worse for the crimes I have done against our people and kingdom,” Porvan said, bowing his head to me.
“So it shall be,” I intoned, and everyone in the room echoed it back to me, sealing the matter. “Now pick up your chair, sit your ass down in it, and help us fix this whole mess.”
Taking my seat, I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and calmed the nerves that ran through my veins.
I’d just made my first royal decree, and it was to remove a guilty man from his position—not the direction I wanted to go, but it needed to be done.
Now, all I needed to do was move forward and deal with the knowledge we currently have.
“Porvan, you never told us what the messenger requested or what happened when you didn’t do as it said,” I inquired.
“It was an order to start recruiting members of the clans to join Henry in his quest to take over Errit. He wanted strong fighters from our clan and the Hell Hawks because the dragons still bonded with them. Payson killed the messenger when I refused the orders, and we never heard from Henry again, but it was also around the same time that Paxton left. I’d hoped it was that he’d killed Henry and just didn’t want to come back home to a traitor of a father. ”
Shifting, I caught Payson’s gaze. “Do you have anything to add?”
“No, Your Majesty. I did kill the messenger, but after that and Paxton leaving, I didn’t want anything to do with it,” Payson answered, giving me an apologetic look.
“My father might be an asshole and a traitor, but he is still my father. I should have told you as soon as you told us about the Lost King, but I was afraid of what would happen to my father and myself for keeping it from you.”
“That is a matter best left to be discussed at another time,” I ventured, giving him a nod as I turned back to the clan leaders.
“It is even more important now to gain alliances where we can. I am sending a message to Queen Mary asking for a meeting. We need those dragon riders. Do we have any other dragons pair-bonded to clansmen, or is Jade the only one besides myself?”
“The Bronze Reapers have four since we are closest to the Unclaimed Dragon Lands,” Garold shared. “We didn’t have them join us here because that many dragons are noticeable to scouts searching for our location.”
“There are two others besides Jade in the Hell Hawks, and they are elsewhere for the same reason. It’s our protocol. They check in with us every few days, one at a time, to get news and orders,” Acton added.
Nodding, I focused on the map, trying to decide what the best use of them would be.
“Vasin, can you reach out to any dragon, or do you need to meet them first?”
“I can send out a broad request, but I can’t pinpoint the communication without meeting them first.”
“There needs to be a meeting of the dragon riders. We will need them more than ever to get us the information quickly. I believe it would be wise for us to send them out to scout our own lands. We need to make sure Henry hasn’t split his army, making them less noticeable because the number of men I saw wouldn’t signal he had Utros behind him.
Once Vasin meets the other dragons, they will be able to communicate back and forth, giving us real-time details, and we can give them orders back just as fast.”
“Send out the request for all clan dragon riders to meet us at a location of your choosing, Vasin.”
“It is done. I will let you know when I get a response back. How many are we expecting?”
“Six, but let me know if anyone else answers. You said all dragons could hear your call.”
“Dragons do not owe allegiance to any country or king, only their pair-bond. If they would not benefit from this information, the dragons will not make it happen.”
“So what you’re telling me is that if a dragon that’s not a part of the clans hears this call, they will ignore it?”
“That is exactly what I mean. Other dragons cannot communicate like we do, so it will take a lot of effort to drag their rider with them to the location I picked out.”
“This ought to be interesting to explain.”
When I returned to the people in the room from my conversation with Vasin, I found everyone staring at me expectantly. “I’m sorry, did you say something to me? Vasin and I were working on a plan to get the dragon riders to our location.”
“Trust me, you’ll get used to telling when she’s talking to him. She gets this unfocused look about her,” Cole shared, grinning at me. “They were asking how fast you wanted this to happen, but I think you already answered that, Your Majesty.”
“Oh, I apologize. I should have explained what I was doing more clearly. Becka, could you please find Alto and bring her here?” I asked and looked around the room. “Do we have any paper or ink here for me to write with?”
Acton pushed back his chair and walked over to a large wooden chest. The lid groaned as he lifted it and pulled out a stack of papers, an ink dish, and oil to mix the ink powder with. I also noticed there were more maps rolled up inside.
“What maps are those?” I called before Acton closed the lid.
“Many are more detailed maps of each country, but some are outdated,” Acton explained. “Would you like for me to bring them over as well?”
“Yes, and anything else in there that you might think to be helpful in planning a war,” I answered, my hand itching to write down all the plans I needed to make.
Being able to write things down slowed my thoughts enough that I could make sense of it all more easily.
I knew I had ideas forming, but I couldn’t quite figure them out, telling me they needed to be put on paper.
Acton returned and set everything on the table for me.
Swiftly, I started to mix the ink into the perfect consistency.
The act alone helped me to narrow my focus on what I needed to figure out.
Once I had the ink ready, I dipped the pen and started to write down everything we knew about the situation.
“If any of you need a break for any reason, I would suggest doing it now. Once she gets into this mode, it will take a while before she comes out of it.” Ballard chuckled, having experienced this many times as I worked with Sal.
Sal.
My head shot up, and I locked onto Ballard. “Where is Sal? Please tell me he didn’t lock himself away in his hut and hope for the best.”
“He is fine. Under his home is an underground vault for all the books he has stuffed into that place. We put them in there and then dragged him here with the others. His apprentice isn’t ready yet to take over for him, so we need to keep him alive a little longer,” Ballard explained with a smile.
“Why isn’t he here? It only makes sense to have the man with knowledge on everything to be at these types of meetings,” I questioned.
Ballard was careful not to give away anything in his expression, but I knew I wasn’t going to like the answer. “Personally, I agree with you, Your Majesty, but others of the clan leaders do not see the value.”
I let out a scoff before I could prevent it, clearly displaying my feelings on that statement.
“Ballard, would you ask him to join us? I would greatly value his insight on a few matters.” Once Ballard left the room, I turned to the remaining three clan leaders.
“Now might be the best time to tell you I am a scholar and tactician by nature. All things can be explained or clarified by looking at the past because it seems, as humans, we rarely learn from our mistakes. Did you know that hundreds of years ago, there was another massive war between all the countries? I’m talking before the Raven Queen’s time and before the mercenaries were their own people.
It is written in the history of our people as a nation in the Royal Library. ”
“Are you telling us that you read this information yourself? Or is this all gossip from the court dandies?” Xio retorted.
I gave him a sly smile, far too pleased he didn’t believe me.
“It was quite the riveting tale, to be honest. Our country was the underdog being the smallest, yet there was one thing the other kingdoms didn’t have…
desperation. They feared being swallowed up by the three other countries, so they changed how they fought.
No longer would they take the noble road facing their enemy head-on.
Instead, they hid and lay in wait before ambushing them…
sounds very much like how we mercenaries fight to this day.
“Interestingly enough, the man who pushed the change was exiled from the kingdom when he gained more respect from the people than the king did. Once cast out, he disappeared into the wilderness, never to be seen until one day, many decades later, he arrived back in Royal City on the back of a black dragon. He was the first King of the Mercenaries, and they begged to know how he’d gotten a dragon to let him ride on its back and listen to his commands.
This led to making a treaty with Norden’s royalty.
“That lasted until the Raven Queen when it all shattered due to greed on the Norden side of the deal. What I want to know, though, is where they vanished. It was a few years before the mercenaries decided to make their home in Norden once again, so where did they reside until then? It’s not even in our own history.
Granted, we lost almost all of it during the Great War, so it could have been in our history at one point. ”
The clan leaders gaped at me as I finished rattling off all this information to them.
Apparently, they’d never seen a woman who liked to learn history more than how to fight before.
A loud and deep belly laugh sounded in the room, causing us to turn toward the door of the strategy room.
There was Sal in his dusty robes, ink-stained, wild white hair, and craggy features, grinning ear to ear.
“Maybe I should make you my apprentice instead of Isabell,” Sal gestured to the gangly redhead with freckles splattered all over her face.
I’d seen Isabell around, always working or studying, hunched over various books in Sal’s home.
She was older than me and was extremely shy, having only uttered five words to me over the past six months of my being around.
Granted, she had a hell of a job memorizing every single book and piece of information about our clans, so if we ever lost our books again, it wouldn’t be gone forever.
“Should have known you’d see the logic in having me help in these meetings, Cassy girl,” Sal stated as he shuffled over to sit next to Ballard.
“He calls her Cassy?” Payson whispered to Cole, shocked.
“Yeah, but he’s the only one who can, so don’t even try it,” Cole warned.
“I wouldn’t dream of it.”
Just as I was going to add to their not-so-secret conversation, Becka and Alto entered the room. “Please take a seat, all of you. I can’t have you hovering around the room all day. You’re going to be part of this too.”