Chapter 39: Preparation for a Meeting
Personal System Calendar: Year 00012, Day 15-28, Month VII: The Imperium
Imperial Calendar: Year 6857, 15th to 28th day of the 7th Month
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The Elder Council's Preparation
While the recruitment drive had been the talk of the village for a day and a half, the Elder Council had been conducting its own business in the assembly chamber with the focused attention of people who understood that the diplomatic situation developing to their north was not something that would wait for the excitement to settle.
The council chamber was cooler than the plaza had been during the recruitment, owing partly to its stone construction and partly to the shade of the trees planted along its eastern wall some years prior that had now grown tall enough to do what they had been planted for. The chamber's seating was arranged in a semi-circular tier, rising like steps, with the highest seat at the top and the podium below for anyone who wished to stand and address the full room. The elders occupied their established positions in that tiered arrangement, with Red at the head and the remaining seats filled by the full council, which was rare enough to communicate without words that this meeting was being treated seriously.
Red opened it simply. "Let us begin. The agenda is the diplomatic mission to Kirka Village and our approach to the Kingdom of Ogind. Elders, I would like to hear your final thoughts before we move to a decision."
Elder Osmund Meadowbrook spoke first. He was a man whose expertise was in pasture management and dairy production, which did not sound like the background for a foreign policy opinion, but which had given him a particular way of thinking about the long-term consequences of decisions made in the present. He had been watching the situation develop for weeks and had clearly been organizing his thoughts into something more structured than his usual practical directness.
"I will start with my proposal," he said. "It is in the village's best interest to develop a closer relationship with the Kingdom of Ogind. We already have the groundwork for this. Our trade relationships with settlements throughout their principality territory are well established and productive. We are also a close ally of Millhaven, which sits within the principality's borders and has ties to Count Gremory's seat of power. These connections mean we are not approaching Ogind as strangers asking for favor. We are approaching as people who have already demonstrated that we are worth our own weight."
He paused, and the pause carried the weight of what was coming next.
"However, I have heard the concerns my colleagues share, and I share them too. We are currently at odds with the Sovereignty of Arwen. Their recent behavior suggests they are willing to act against neutral parties in their rivalry with Ogind. We are not a party to that rivalry. We should not become one. Our geographic position places us physically between the two, closer to the principality's borders than to Arwen's, which means that if open conflict were to resume between them, we would be in a location that neither side could ignore. For the Kingdom of Ogind we may become their shield against such aggressions, while for Arwen, if we grow too close with Ogind, they would treat it as us being their allies and we could be pulled into their future conflicts depending on how we approach this. So we should act with careful consideration on how we will proceed with the upcoming talks."
He looked around the table. "So my recommendation is this: we approach Ogind with warmth and with the genuine interest in a closer relationship that our existing connections already support, but we do so while making clear that we remain a neutral settlement. We make it clear to them that our previous commitment in Kirka Village was a promise between the Baron and our Supreme Commander, a personal commitment, not a village-level military alliance. However we would lean closer toward them because our circumstances already lean that way. But we do not lean so far that we become something Arwen could legitimately point to as an act of alignment against them. The difference between a good trade partner and a military ally is one that we must communicate clearly."
He set his hands on the table, which was how Meadowbrook signaled that he was done.
"I also recommend we draft a formal protest to the Sovereignty of Arwen regarding the harassment of merchants on the roads approaching our territory. We know it is them and they know that we know. A written protest does not resolve the situation, but it puts the matter on record and communicates to anyone who is observing that we have handled this through appropriate channels before escalating further. It puts them on notice without giving them a pretext. We gather more evidence in the meantime."
"On the question of who should represent the village at the meeting in Kirka," he continued, "Chief Red is the appropriate person to lead the delegation. Any elders who wish to accompany him should be welcomed. I would suggest we limit the number who leave the village so that administrative functions are not disrupted. Each sector should have at least one representative if possible — agriculture, hunting, construction, and even our craftsmen. This is a diplomatic meeting, and the village should be represented by the breadth of what it is, not just its political leadership."
Red nodded when Meadowbrook finished and looked across the table. "If anyone has additions to what Elder Meadowbrook has laid out, or concerns he has not addressed, this is the time to do so."
Elder Gorin Stonehammer, the master stonemason who represented the construction sector with the particular authority of someone whose hands had shaped a significant portion of what the village stood in, raised a point about the gift preparation. A diplomatic delegation without appropriate gifts was a delegation that communicated carelessness, and carelessness was an impression that did not serve a village trying to establish itself as a serious partner. He proposed that the gifts reflect what the village actually produced rather than what could be purchased: premium beast materials, specialty goods from the forest, items that demonstrated the village's unique capabilities. Things that could not be obtained anywhere else, which was the clearest possible demonstration of value.
Elder Jorik Carpenter agreed with Stonehammer's reasoning and added that the presentation of the gifts mattered as much as the gifts themselves. If they arrived carrying things in a Finn household basket, the impression would be different than if they arrived in properly crafted containers that reflected the quality of the contents. He offered the carpentry department's contribution to the packaging without making it a formal proposal, which was how Jorik usually contributed to things he felt strongly about.
Elder Donnel Archer raised the practical question of the security detail. A diplomatic delegation leaving the village needed protection, and with Talon One now managing its recruitment transition and Team Mandibles deployed on the southern road operations, the available escort pool required thought. He proposed that the Talon One members who had returned from the academy form the core of the security detail for the delegation, excepting Angeline, Adam, Hiraya, and Adarna who were unavailable, and supplemented with a selection from the Guard Escort Division.
No one objected to any of it. Red called the vote on the approach framework, and the result was what Meadowbrook had recommended: a position of warmth and engagement with Ogind, explicitly neutral in the broader conflict, tilting toward the relationship that existing circumstances already supported but not so far that the tilt became an alignment to one side.
The practical preparations began immediately after the session closed.
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The Announcement
Three days after the recruitment, the plaza received the Talon One announcement the way the village received most formal announcements: at the posted board in the morning, read by the first people who passed and then communicated outward through the living network of neighbors and colleagues and households that carried information through Maya Village faster than any official channel.
The eleven new members were named.
Rael Sundfang, a Kotoko beastfolk warrior who had been in the village since the Kotoko integration and had spent three years quietly becoming one of the security division's most capable close-range fighters while making almost no noise about it, which was precisely the kind of person the team needed. He would fill a tank and defense specialist role.
Oryn Thalwell, a human from the first major wave of refugees after the Beast Dominion Wars, an all-rounder with a wind element that he had developed with the patient consistency of someone who understood that wind was underestimated by people who had not seen it properly applied in combat. He would cover the versatile warrior position under the leadership tier.
Cassa Venn, a human woman who had arrived with the second wave and had spent her time in the village working within the security division, specializing in mid-range combat with a crossbow modified to her specific preferences and a lightning element that she used with the economical precision of someone who knew exactly how much power each situation required and never used more. A ranged combat specialist.
Daret the Battleborn, one of the dwarves from Mount Domble-Bah who had arrived with the group of seventy-two, a brother to Thorgal. He had immediately made himself indispensable to the village's blacksmithing and materials handling operations while also demonstrating, during one of the security division's joint training exercises, that dwarves who spend their lives swinging hammers in tight mine corridors have an extremely practical understanding of close-range combat that does not require a manual. He would serve as a secondary tank and close combat specialist. The fact that he was a dwarf meant his physical profile in a mixed-team environment provided advantages that the team had discussed at length during the deliberation.
Yeva Stonemark, a human outsider who had arrived as a temporary resident some months prior and had, during the recruitment process, answered the screening questions with the specific directness of someone who had thought about these things before being asked. Her healing capability was genuine, her light element development was impressive for someone without formal training, and her background in field medicine from her previous life in a border territory that had experienced its share of conflict meant she understood triage priorities. Support healer and medical specialist.
Nilo Mak, a human from the hunting community, a second-generation resident whose parents had arrived in one of the early groups and whose entire childhood had been conducted in proximity to the Great Forest in ways that had produced excellent tracking instincts and a particular comfort with operating in conditions that most people found stressful. Scout specialist.
Piri Longwhisker, a Lokoroko beastfolk woman whose element was earth, developed with the specific stability characteristic of Lokoroko who had grown up in territories where earth manipulation was a practical skill rather than a magical curiosity. She covered the versatile warrior role under the sub-leader tier, with the additional capability of providing terrain modification in combat that the rest of the team could work around.
Solvan Drek, a human outsider who had cleared the financial management assessment with a score that made Nina raise her eyebrows, which was the specific reaction from Nina that communicated genuine surprise rather than polite acknowledgment. He had managed merchant accounts in two different cities before arriving at Maya Village and had a head for numbers that he combined with a tactical awareness that came from years of navigating situations where the wrong financial decision had immediate physical consequences. Financial manager.
Belta Ashwood, a human woman from the village's established agricultural community, whose logistics background was the most practically comprehensive of any support candidate who had applied. She understood supply chains, she understood resource management, she understood what an operating unit needed to sustain itself in the field over extended periods, and she had the organizational discipline to make those things happen. Logistics specialist.
Fen Mirros, a human man who had been a traveling merchant before the circumstances that brought him to the village, and whose experience with information gathering, route assessment, and the specific social skills required to get people to tell you things they had not planned on telling you made him the team's intelligence support specialist. He had passed the Juan Tamad observation test, which was the unofficial standard the team had adopted for this role and which involved Juan watching the candidate for two hours in a social setting without their knowledge and reporting on what he saw. Fen had, according to Juan, demonstrated instincts that were worth developing.
And the eleventh, which had produced the most deliberation and the most reservations and the most prolonged conversation around the hearth: Princess Mee-rka.
The blood oath she had sworn to August was not a trivial consideration. Her combat capability was not in question. Her loyalty to the people she chose was established beyond reasonable doubt. The question had been the one Elder Meadowbrook's framing of neutrality had made more pointed — a princess of the Southern Beastman Tribes on the village's special operations team created a political dimension that would need to be managed carefully. But Mee-rka herself had addressed this directly when she came to August the following morning, before the announcement was posted, having apparently calculated from the previous night's household energy that the question was being considered.
"I know what you are thinking about," she had said, without preamble, standing in the doorway of the household with the expression she wore when she had decided something and was informing rather than requesting. "The tribal obligations. I have already thought about it. If you choose me for this, I am here as Mee-rka, not as a princess of anything. My tribal duties do not disappear, but I will manage them around my commitments here, not the other way around. You have my word, which I think you know the weight of."
August had looked at her for a moment.
"Yes," he said. "But I will have to visit your father for this. So for now you will be a temporary member."
She was the eleventh.
The new team was ordered to report to Talon One's training grounds near Zone Four the following morning. The old team would meet them there and begin the process of turning eleven capable individuals into something that functioned as a unit.
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The South, Part On
The caravan that had been carrying the letters from Maya Village reached its first destination in the southern territories on a morning that was considerably hotter than anything the north was currently experiencing, because the south during summer made its intentions very clear to everyone below the sun.
The letter to House Arbe was received by Patriarch Aldrin in his counting house, where he spent most of his mornings reviewing the merchant accounts that had become his primary occupation since leaving the forest. He read it once through quickly, with the professional speed of a man who processed documents constantly, and then set it down and read it again slowly, with the expression of someone who had been holding a piece of information at arm's length for a decade and had just been asked to stop.
The letter described what Maya Village was now. What it had become in the years since they left. The walls, the zones, the trade partnerships, the imperial protectorate status, the population, the beasts that lived alongside the people, the children who had been born there who had never known anything else. It described August's experiences after that night, how he had come back after the massacre and rebuilt everything from what was left, which was almost nothing, and who was now inviting the three families who had carried the grief of leaving to come back if they chose.
If they chose. The letter was careful about that. It was an invitation, not an obligation, and it did not perform the guilt that an obligation would have carried.
Aldrin sat with the letter for a long time.
Some of the grief came out, which he had been expecting. The grief was not new; it had been living in him since the morning they had walked away from the village with the other three families and watched the forest close behind them. What was new was that the grief now had somewhere to go, a destination rather than just an accumulation that had been slowly eating him inside out across eleven years. He was not certain how he felt about that. There was joy and pain mixed together in a proportion that did not resolve cleanly.
What he was certain of was that the decision could not be made instantly. He had a household here. A business. Obligations. People who depended on him. The life he had built in Swolenburg was not a lesser life because it had been built in exile; it was a real life with real ancient roots, and uprooting it now would require bravery from him and his family to once again leave what they had made, along with the honesty it takes to name what was actually being chosen.
He drafted a reply to the other two houses through Arbe's commercial network, which was the fastest reliable channel available to all three. They would need to gather and talk. The letter demanded a decision, or at least a direction, and that was something the three families had always done together, a method ingrained in them from the village and maintained even in exile.
At the Nebe household in the Duchy of Heran, Patriarch Gerold read his letter with the hollow eyes of a man for whom the worst possibility had always been that the grief was unnecessary, and who was now discovering that this was exactly what it had been. Maya Village had survived. It was alive and growing. And they had spent eleven years building substitute lives in places that were not home, because they had believed there was no home to return to.
He shed no tears. Gerold Nebe had not cried in some time. He simply sat with the letter in his hands and felt the specific weight of years spent being wrong about something important.
At the Bern household in the Kingdom of Talvasia, Matriarch Elena read her letter standing up, because Elena Bern had not sat down to read a document in years. She stood, read it through twice, set it down, and went to find her eldest child.
"Read this," she said, and left the room.
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The South, Part Two
In a lavishly appointed dining hall a considerable distance from where three family patriarchs and matriarchs were wrestling with decisions that deserved the weight they were giving them, a much less dignified process was underway.
King Justavous Arwen the Fiftieth was eating. This was the usual state of affairs at this hour, and the particular quality of his eating today, aggressive even by his standards, was a reliable indicator to everyone present that the news being delivered was not good.
The head on the floor was the second of the morning. That one had belonged to the incompetent general responsible for the latest failure. The minister who had delivered the news was still attached to his body, which meant he had correctly assessed that delivering the news was survivable but that saying the wrong thing next was not.
Minister Erfet Joyce Mir, who occupied the specific role of confidant and advisor that required navigating the king's moods with the precision of someone defusing an elaborate device that reset itself unpredictably, had been present for both heads and was taking careful stock of the current situation.
"Are my people genuinely this incompetent?" the king said, to no one specific, which was the conversational register he used when he wanted agreement rather than information. "Should I simply remove everyone and find replacements? Is that what you would recommend in this situation, Minister Erfet?"
"If you did that, my lord," Erfet said, with the professional calm of someone who had been having versions of this conversation for years, "you would be left with whoever remains, and whoever remains would be the people who survived your selection process, which at this point produces individuals notable primarily for their survival skills rather than their operational competence."
The king ate several more bites and processed this.
"Send the assassins," he said without much thought to it. "To the village and kill their entire leadership."
Erfet took a measured breath. "My lord, the use of our specialized units would move this from a covert operation into something that could be attributed directly to the Sovereignty of Arwen if the operation ends up in another failure. But if we maintain our current activities, it cannot be traced back to us with certainty. An assassination conducted by our elite units is a different matter entirely. If the empire's investigators were to find a connection, the consequences would be significant."
"Bah, the empire." The king said it the way someone says a word they have decided means nothing to them. "The emperor can kiss my ass. I am a sovereign. He has no authority over what I do in my own territory."
"My lord, the village is under imperial protection. An attack on it could be construed as an attack on imperial interests. The emperor's response to that kind of provocation has historically been comprehensive."
"I do not want to hear your counsel anymore, Minister. Get out of my sight."
Erfet left, because the instruction to leave was the clearest possible signal that the decision had been made and that no further intervention was possible without becoming the next head on the floor.
The order was given to the Sovereignty of Arwen's shadow unit before the morning was out: an elite assassination squad, trained by the crown for exactly this kind of operation, dispatched with instructions to reach Maya Village and eliminate its leadership.
The village had been managing harassment. It had been managing it with the restraint of a settlement that understood the diplomatic value of not overreacting to provocations designed to produce overreaction. It had been fighting a careful, measured engagement against an enemy that was careful and measured in its application of pressure.
What was coming now was neither careful nor measured. It was an inebriated king's order, given in the specific way that drunk kings give orders that sober ministers cannot fully stop. And it was going to arrive at a village that had no idea it was coming, but had truly been underestimated this entire time. The village had every capability to handle what was about to come knocking at its doors. It just did not know yet that something was on its way.
The person who might have warned them was walking away from the dining hall with the expression of someone calculating how many days it would take a fast courier to reach the north.
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The Prince Moves
Far from the dining hall of Arwen's seat of Power, a considerably more composed royalty was taking brisk ride with his stead, the Crown Prince of Ogind was on the road to Kirka with a column of a thousand royal soldiers loyal to the prince itself, it was his own retinue and it was supplemented by the forces of Count Gremory riding alongside him. The escort was appropriate to his station, which was how princes traveled, and it was not ostentatious beyond what the route required, which was how this particular prince traveled. They were also traveling toward the most forward settlement of the kingdom and its principality, the gateway to the north or south depending on where you are coming from. It is a place where bandits were more prevalent than anywhere else along the road network and a substantial escort was simply practical rather than decorative.
He had read the village's reply through the royal messenger bird they had sent before, and he found it to be exactly what he had expected from a settlement that had built itself inside the Great Forest and achieved imperial protectorate status in the process: direct, warm without being deferential, and carefully specific about what it was and was not willing to commit to. The neutrality framing was clear. The interest in a productive relationship was equally clear. The combination communicated a village that had thought carefully about its position and was not going to be moved from it by charm alone.
He found this more interesting than if they had simply agreed to everything.
The road to Kirka was good now, it was repaired and maintained since the liberation of the village from the bandit occupation. He traveled it with the measured pace of someone who was not in a hurry because being in a hurry communicated something he did not want to communicate, and he would arrive at the outskirts of Kirka Village on the timeline he had intended.
The meeting had not yet happened. Both delegations were still in transit. But the pieces were all moving now, in their separate directions, toward the place where they would finally occupy the same room.
One of those directions would reach the room for a conversation that could shape the village's relationship with the largest kingdom in the north for generations.
Another was still sitting with a letter and a decision that could not be rushed.
And the third was moving through the wilderness without a banner, under orders given by a man who had not been sober enough when he gave them to fully consider what he was sending toward.
Maya Village was, as always, preparing for what was coming without knowing exactly what it was. That had always been sufficient and it would be again.