The next few weeks were hard and miserable. The snow had started to batter us, a little bit early, I thought, but I had lost track of the time and date by now. By the time that we got there, all of my men were looking haggard, and I along with them. Ani’sja only grudgingly allowed me to use his tribal forces, as I had more sway over the forces now than he did, apparently. Or at least that was what the chiefs told me. Fortunately for me, I did not always believe them. I would not have my humility wiped out because I was trying to be the uniter. I knew, not-so-deep-down that I was not the uniter, I was just a fraud. At the same time, I had to put on a show to unite the world. That was really the only way.

At night, I pained over the fact that I was lying to the very people that I had grown up with, had shared my happiest and saddest memories with, had seen my pains and my greatest joys. But in the morning I realized that it was really the only way. If I did not do it this way, then I would not win in the end. Humanity needed to be united to face a common threat, like an illness. That was what the elders had said.

When we got there, all of the chiefs set to ordering their men around and I met up with some other chiefs. In just a few days, we were set to be in a planning session that would cover the whole war, including what the elders (and ultimately, my father) had set out for me to do.

But first, I decided to order people around to make sure that my authority was not wholly fraudulent and that the men would actually follow me, if not into battle, to unpacking their things and setting up their barracks. (All of the women and the children had to go into the city, except, of course, me.)

“You there.” I would say, “I’ll help you.” and “We only have limited time so do it faster.”

Most of them would not follow me and so I decided to include that in our Council of War. If I was not to be obeyed by the common soldier, then I was a figurehead. And figureheads had never done any good for anyone.

The stronghold was often called the Stronghold of Glory, and for a very dreadful reason: heroes had fought their glorious last stands in this stronghold. Would this stronghold be where I fought mine? I asked myself time and time again, even though I tried not to dwell on thoughts such as these. But they kept on coming up, time and time again, however much I tried to silence them. Even so, the answer was empowering to me: not if I have anything to say about it. The question was: would I have anything to say about it?

The stronghold itself was little more than a military city built into the mountain of Juio’o, a life-filled mountain that hardly seemed to be the place for such legends that the tribesmen spoke of. It had a large wall around the half-circle that was the stronghold with four towers placed around it and an even larger tower that would look out over the battlefield, when there were battlefields here. All of the tribesmen seemed to hate being in a stronghold, and they cited that the golden ages had fallen in strongholds, not in tribes.

“Only people who like Death’s own face hole themselves up in strongholds.” One of them said, then spat.

I had asked for barracks, not a chief’s chambers, for I had heard from the Shantu: “The true uniter shall not sleep in beds of chiefs, rather in the beds of the common people.” And anyway, it was basic common sense that, as the uniter and as someone who had not had a good relationship with the people, I should like not to separate myself from them in that way. It was just because: who would I follow: the man who put himself on high and said that he was better than everyone else, or the man who tried to come down to my level and was relatable? The answer was simple: the latter, not the former.

And so while sleeping on wooden beds was uncomfortable to me, as well as smelling the other soldiers’ feet when I was trying to go to sleep, it was what was needed for me to unite the world.

None of that, of course, was to mention the tribesmen’s blatant hatred of me sleeping where they slept, thinking that a woman should not sleep with soldiers, but they eventually accepted me as part of their group.

The meeting was on the Glory Day of ‘Uio, the day that it had made its glorious last stand in this very stronghold. It seemed a day that would be very auspicious for the enemy, but we had a meeting on that day anyway. The day before all of the other chiefs that had not been present before had brought their armies into the stronghold. They were still getting them settled but the chiefs said that they themselves were ready to plan.

The planning session, or ‘Council of War,’ as it was called, was held in a dark room with windows to illuminate the map on the table. Maps. It was ironic that all of us could read maps, which could, in theory, span the whole world, but most of us had to have books read to us, which often only spanned towns. We all gathered around the large table to plan our efforts, especially our battlefield efforts, even though this map was a large map, created by the builders of the stronghold to defend the surrounding area.

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The first order of the planning session was to establish that I was the uniter, which, even though it was completely fraudulent, was what we all agreed on, even if some of us knew the truth.

The second was to determine what we would do if we were attacked here, and for that, we spent hours and hours planning. We planned to put a stop to our weaknesses in the fortress and the battlefield. Since this was in the legendary land where horses were said to originate, we decided to take advantage of the opportunity and bring horses to the battlefield. Tribe ‘Jio would send out half its army to get horses. It was a very risky move, but it was the move that was needed to win. If we had calvary, they could sweep in when we were enduring a long siege and needed reinforcements and reinforcements that could strike deep into the enemy’s ranks easily. In fact, as horses were only used by the horse tribes which were much higher in the continent than any of the tribes officially recognized by the Council ever did, they would never know what to expect. Still, it would be hard to actually get the horses. The easiest way was through the horse tribes, but only if they would cooperate, which the horse tribes rarely did. However, they did take bribes and they could be persuaded, if not by threats, and it would be good to get into their good graces. They were a people that I had to unite with all of the rest. However, there was another way. There were various wild horses close to us, I suggested, and perhaps we could tame some of them. That suggestion, though, was immediately struck down as they said that it would be extremely hard for them to actually do it and so the chiefs went for the former way of going about it.

The next order was to plan out what we would do if we were met in battle with a reduced force when we were out of the stronghold. It was decided that for the time being, we would stick to the mountains so that we could strategically place forces in the mountains. This would allow us to be able to sweep in and surround the enemy. The only problem was that we could be surrounded ourselves, which was a risk that the chiefs were, apparently, willing to take. However, it was planned that we would only do that when we had received word from tribe ‘Jio’s riders that they would be there soon. Unfortunately, that meant that we would most likely be holed up in this stronghold for the next year.

The next part of the planning (and the one that took up the bulk of the day) was to decide what to do after we had all of that, assuming that we survived the winter and got the horses that we needed. It was decided, after about an hour of arguing, that we would attack them at their weakest point and make it look like we were less strong than we actually were. That would give us the advantage as they would send about half their numbers to take us out which we would be able to totally obliterate. It was also decided that Chief Jui’sji (as he was our best warrior) would train an elite force of fighters that would be our best warriors. They would be able to go behind enemy lines to attack the commanders and take them out so that the battle could end as quickly as possible. All of this would be needed as defeating them would cement our place as a power to be reckoned with. Before all of this, I would go to them asking for peace, peace to unify them, peace to make sure that there would be no bloodshed, and if they did, it would be equally profitable. We would bring in those tribes into our ranks and with my spy network already set up (which I had had someone else do), I would be able to easily insert spies into their ranks, too, hopefully close to the chiefs.

All throughout the proceedings, I was mostly directing them, for I knew that sometimes leadership does not mean directly leading people, but rather directing them. It was what my father had sometimes told me, anyway. Maybe he knew that I would eventually need that advice to lead someday. If so, well, that was not good and maybe he had been using me, but for a good purpose. I might not like it, but, well, here we were. I simply could not allow my course to be set by my feelings. I had made that choice a long time ago, and I was going to stick to it, even if it meant sacrificing my own well-being for the sake of others.

After this, the planning meeting was adjourned. A man who I somehow hadn’t noticed who had been in the corner, handed us all notes on the meeting.

“Why do I need these?” I asked. I myself could hardly read a small scroll that had the most basic words on it. How could I hope to read a scroll with much harder words on it.

“You are the uniter.” He answered simply. “That is all.”

He bowed and walked away.

The next year was crowded with different planning sessions and unease. None of the tribesmen seemed to be happy with staying in the stronghold, even the chiefs. Almost immediately, the chiefs had put their own people in the defenses, and there had been fights about whose people would be put in which towers. Currently, we had about eight tribes and so I suggested that there would be two tribes for every tower. I thought that that would stop the fighting, but it only made it worse. Finally, I had to force the chiefs to threaten their men to stop them from fighting over the most minor things, like who would get the first drink. The main threat was food, which, in some tribes, was actually pretty good. (I knew that because I sometimes sampled the other tribes’ food for my breakfast.)

For some reason, I had conveniently forgotten to mention my complete lack of authority in the ranks of men. But I could allow that minor inconvenience to bother me for a while longer as it might benefit me in the future. After all, if I was someone just like them, not some mythical uniter for a while, they might follow me more when I was truly revealed than if I did not do this.

On the morning of the first day of spring, I awoke to the sound of horns blaring. I immediately got up as did the other soldiers who hadn’t got up at that time. Outside, a man was yelling orders to the soldiers so quickly that I couldn’t understand them. A feeling of dread immediately filled me. I knew what was happening, but I didn’t even want to think of it.

The stronghold was under siege.