Viyal's chance to join a strategy meeting came a few days later after a group of scouts were captured trying to find the coalition camp. They had been sent from the earthen forts on orders ahead of the general leading the punitive army. Fortunately, they were the garrison soldiers who used numbers to compensate for their lack of specialized training. Not one of them escaped the lookouts, so the location of their camp and the size of their army were still unknown to the Gadat.

From one particularly talkative scout who boasted about the empire's approaching victory, they learned the identity of the veteran general. His name was Mong Rau, the Black Beast. He was a Baagai, a bear-like species living in the permafrost of the far north. Mong Rau was the only non-Samagshin currently holding a high military position in the Omagala Empire. He was a veteran of countless battles not only in the civil war but also against the steppe raiders east of the northern Zarukhan Mountain Range, which had a different culture from the steppe people on this side.

This Black Beast was familiar with the tactics and fighting style of steppe people. If he trained his troops with that knowledge and directed them well on the battlefield, it would be incredibly difficult for the coalition to overcome him even if he commanded lower numbers. Fighting him on an open field was likely suicide when both sides were even, then.

The strategy meeting was surprisingly levelheaded. The chiefs had been torn from their complacency after learning who they were facing. Now, they debated how to approach the battle against this powerful enemy. Viyal watched from a seat at the edge of the meeting space, observing her father and Chief Ivakha closely as they listened to the various speakers making cases for their ideas. Altuna sat beside her and did the same.

Kaharon, a Jagul chief, proposed a pinpoint attack focused on taking down the enemy general amidst his troops to break the army's morale. The Bavadi chief Inalik suggested ranged wave tactics, utilizing their mobility to grind them down from the flanks. Agasahe, the elderly Kandai chief who commanded the Jukhmahan before Amiro arrived, advocated for a careful approach by letting Mong Rau settle down in the earthen forts first before cutting off their supply route and starving them out. In other words, he wanted to continue what they were doing now, even when the enemy matched their numbers.

"I disagree with all of them," Ivakha the Snowblood suddenly stood up and declared. She then glanced at Amiro, who likely already knew what she was going to say. "We do not know what this Mong Rau looks like, so we cannot aim for him amidst his troops. Furthermore, we cannot face even numbers without knowing his capacity as a commander. Finally, letting him enter those forts and link up with the garrisons is not an option. Because at that point, we will be dealing with over forty thousand troops under his command."

The three chiefs who spoke up sat silently, waiting for Ivakha to make her suggestion. She paused for a while and looked across the gathered chiefs as if testing their patience. Viyal knew that was a sign of power over others: When you could command their silence simply by making them wait for you to continue speaking.

"We will split our troops in six and besiege the earthen forts," she finally continued and pointed at the map embroidered onto a giant carpet between the chiefs' seats. Two of her daughters stood up and moved the thirty carved bone pieces representing the various units of the coalition around. There were a total of twelve earthen forts along the nameless river, so one unit of five thousand would besiege every other fort.

"Splitting our forces? Is that not unwise?" Agasahe stroked his goatee and shook his head, causing the crystals hanging in his antlers to jingle.

"And how will we overcome those tall walls? You cannot be suggesting we scale them?" Tobogur, a Rausam chief, chimed in with his deep voice that seemed to vibrate the very air.

"The sieges are a distraction. We have no intention of taking the forts," Ivakha responded, gesturing for her daughters to distribute the pieces of the Gadat army. "Mong Rau will have to split up his forces into six equal parts to save the garrisons."

Her daughters moved the Gadat pieces accordingly, placing them in transit toward the sieges. Viyal immediately noticed a flaw in that notion but remained quiet to see if the Snowblood perhaps thought of it herself.

"We will use our superior mobility to link up and strike the split enemies," explained Ivakha as her daughters gathered up the coalition's pieces into two large forces to stand against the enemy's two outermost detachments. "One after another."

In a sweeping motion, the two coalition armies overran the six enemy armies from two sides and ground down their remnants between them. Viyal furrowed her brow and looked across the other chiefs. They only nodded in assent, expressing how astute Ivakha was to come up with such a strategy. She then stared at her father, who did the same. Did nobody see the issues with this plan, or was she wrong in her assessment? After all, even if she had knowledge from her previous life, it was mostly about history in broad strokes and did not extend to specifics of medieval warfare.

"You seem to have something to say," Altuna whispered beside her. "Do you see a problem with Mother's plans?"

"Do you not?" Viyal responded with an eyebrow raised. The young Shuva stared at her in confusion. "Or perhaps I am overthinking things."

"No, if you thought of something, it would be best to mention it now. Countless lives depend on it," said Altuna with a severe look. Viyal realized that it was better to be exposed as a fool here than be proven right in the worst possible way later.

"Please wait," she stood up and requested. Amiro spun his head around in shock while Ivakha turned toward her, seemingly deliberately slowly and menacingly. Her other daughters stared at Viyal with suspicion and hostility. But when they noticed Altuna glaring back at them beside her, their expressions changed into hesitant confusion.

"This is no place for you to speak, Viyal!" Amiro jumped up and roared, baring his three rows of sharp teeth. She suppressed the urge to flinch under her father's glare and instead returned it with eyes full of conviction. She would accept any punishment later if she turned out to be wrong.

"No, let her say her piece," Ivakha surprisingly came to her help, having noticed Altuna's look beside the young Mosyv.

"Your plan sounds good, but I noticed a few issues," Viyal finally spoke up, emboldened by the Snowblood's endorsement. But the Shaankhor chief's eyes widened into a deathly glare at her choice of words. Gathering her wits, she continued, rattling down her arguments quickly as if expecting to be picked up and tossed out if she wasted too much time. "Firstly, what if the enemy does not split up their forces and strikes one of our detachments with his full army? Secondly, what if they only split into two armies and do the same we have planned but to us? Thirdly, if they do split up, I believe it would be best to gather in the center instead of on the flanks and drive a wedge between their forces so they can't regroup."

The chiefs stared at Viyal silently after she finished. Then, they looked at Ivakha to see her reaction. It was clear that none of them had considered these issues, and judging by the Snowblood's gaze as she looked at the map between them, neither had she. Like beginners in chess, they had thought multiple steps ahead but planned for the enemy to move as they expected.

"Well said, child," Chief Ivakha finally spoke, breaking the tension in the room. Viyal realized she had been holding her breath and sighed in relief. "It would appear that our complacency runs deep. We should have taken every possibility into account. However, the idea of attacking from two sides instead of splitting them down the middle was mine. I admit that it was too self-assured."

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Everybody nodded in agreement and murmured praise for the Shaankhor chief's ability to admit her shortcomings. They then returned their focus to Viyal. If she had only been the albino daughter of Amiro, a mere curiosity until now, she now held their full attention as a person. What must her upbringing have been for her to see something nobody else had?

"What do you suggest we do in the former cases?" Ivakha suddenly asked Viyal. She blinked in surprise, then looked across everybody's expectant gazes. Her father stared at her sternly but then nodded in approval. There were no wrong answers here; she was still a child. If the adults disagreed, they would disregard her input. But if she had the right answer, this was a chance for her to captivate them all.

Viyal thought about it for a moment. She was not the child she appeared to be. Behind her youthful face was Akashi Shizuru, an incredible mind that had always scored the highest in all exams. Her logical deduction and analytic prowess had been on a national level. She ran through dozens of simulations within seconds and came to a conclusion. Whether or not her strategy had merit would be decided by those with real experience in war.

"What if we actually took the Gadat forts?" Viyal began.

Mong Rau was a massive figure, towering far above anybody else in his army. He sat on a cart pulled by four Doja Shou, one-horned, horse-like animals the Samagshin cavalry rode into battle. There was no mount in the world that could carry the old general, after all. His dense black fur was broken up by countless scars. He had been a simple slave soldier and clawed his way up to general. Now, he led the very species that used to treat him as a lesser creature into battle.

He saw the four visible frontier fortresses from afar and found two of them under siege. Over the horizon to the northeast and southwest rose four pillars of smoke, signaling a total of six sieges going on simultaneously. Mong Rau's commanders urged him to send aid, but he was like the immovable mountains of his long-lost homeland. His mind raced behind his inscrutable expression. He had never seen steppe people earnestly trying to take fortresses before. They had always only made feints to draw in nearby reinforcements and force them to fight on their terms, but this time was different.

Steppe warriors scaled the walls on ladders, holding up wooden shields to withstand the crossbow fire from the defenders. Large rams were deployed on the south-facing castle gates. The interior seemed to be burning from the flaming projectiles launched by three catapults. Where had the nomads learned to build those? Trees were almost entirely absent on the steppes, so they had no culture of engineering. They knew how to make simple carts, but effective siege engines required experienced carpenters.

Had they forced captives to build them? Mong Rau knew the average Samagshin was cowardly and lacked loyalty. They would betray their own people if it meant they could live another day. That was the most likely explanation. After all, there were only half a dozen siege engines in total among the two visible armies and perhaps only two dozen distributed across all the besieged forts.

However, knowing this did not change the fact that he did not understand why the steppe people did it in the first place. Perhaps their chiefs had grown scared after hearing that a massive punitive army had been sent here. They wanted to take all the forts and raze them before this new enemy arrived so that they had no place to stay for the winter and were forced to return.

If so, they had made some questionable decisions such as splitting up their forces, ensuring slower progress than if they had focused on a single fort with all their siege engines. And they had not sent out scouts to know track Mong Rau's army, letting him come this close while they were vulnerable.

Still, the general decided to observe the situation for a while longer, ignoring the urging of his officers to send help immediately. One of the Samagshin officers, Fau Tu, felt that Mong Rau's inaction was a sign of betrayal toward the empire. He openly accused him of colluding with the northern barbarians because he used to be one himself. When even that provocation did not get the general to move, Fau Tu turned on his Doja Shou to leave and take matters into his own hands with his detachment of two thousand heavy cavalry.

"If you head out now, I will not even have to execute you for disobedience, for you will not return alive," Mong Rau declared calmly. Fau Tu stopped in his tracks, then turned around with a furious expression. Before he could flare up, the general raised his massive clawed hand and continued, "Have you not read the principles of the great Jun Shuu? Those who rush into battle unprepared when the enemy does something they normally do not are stumbling into a trap."

The wayward officer was humbled by the general's knowledge. Although Jun Shuu's One Hundred and Eight Military Principles was mandatory reading in the empire's academy, many officers in the current military were either nobles who gained their positions through connections or peasants who achieved greatness in the civil war. Fau Tu was of the former type, who looked down on Mong Rau, who was of the latter.

Still, Mong Rau had no suggestion of his own for now and could only watch while trying to get a good grasp of the enemy's numbers. Each earthen fort used to have a garrison of a little over two thousand troops, but they likely had been whittled down to half that number since the steppe people's raids began. The reports spoke of five thousand enemies, but there were perhaps that many just within his field of view.

The bear general grumbled to himself, cursing the fact that the scouts never found the enemy camp to assess their total number. He assumed at least twenty thousand steppe warriors in total, with over three thousand for each concurrent siege. It was more than enough to overcome the weakened defenses, even with their lacking experience, and fend off any reinforcements from the adjacent forts. But now would be the perfect time to strike them in the rear and force them to either stand and fight or abandon their siege engines. Surely, they had not been easy to come by, so that alone would be a great blow to them.

"Hear my command!" Mong Rau stood up from his cart to declare his plan. The officers perked up at this and were at full attention. "Nav Soua, take ten thousand men and circle around from the west. Break the siege at the westernmost fort. Then, take the remaining garrison troops and move on to the next immediately."

The male Samagshin called Nav Soua responded with a beat of his lamellar cuirass before turning his Doja Shou around and riding off to rally his troops.

"Fau Tu, take ten thousand men and do the same from the east. Do not chase if they escape. Focus on breaking the sieges in sequence," the general continued, addressing the obstinate Samagshin officer who opposed him only moments ago. He made sure to warn him since he was a hothead who could easily let the heat of the moment get in the way of his judgment. Fau Tu saluted, almost reluctantly, and rode off.

"What will we do in the center?" asked one of his remaining officers, eagerly awaiting orders. They were itching for battle, either hoping to make a name for themselves or wanting to aid their people in the forts. Mong Rau peered out into the distance and narrowed his dark eyes.

"We will wait and see what the enemy does," he sat back down and declared calmly.

"This is exactly what you said would happen," Tashi commented next to Viyal. They were watching the enemy's movements from a hill beyond the river, just like they had last time. Altuna rode on her Hyarul beside her, staring wide-eyed at the situation unfolding.

"I hope it keeps going that way," the young Mosyv said, nibbling on her lower lip nervously. She did not even notice when her sharp teeth drew blood.

"You cut yourself," Yunil extended a hand toward Viyal and wiped her bloody lip with her thumb. "Don't worry. Our warriors are strong."

"I'm not worried about that. I hope the enemy does not see through the plan in time," Viyal waved off her sister's concern and followed the enemy detachment heading west with her eyes. All would depend on what they did when they noticed the ruse.

After all, the other sieges outside Mong Rau's view were fake. They had already taken the earthen forts several days ago, making sure not a single soul slipped by their encirclement to report that fact to the general. The pillars of smoke were created by bonfires from inside the empty forts to lure the enemies toward them.

The thirty thousand warriors of the steppe had been split into two forces, with the smaller detachment of six thousand genuinely besieging the last two remaining forts. Over twenty thousand of them now waited in ambush inside the emptied-out western forts, hiding until the enemy approached. If everything went well, they would annihilate a third of the punitive force with overwhelming numbers. It would swing the war in the steppe people's favor.

But it was a potentially dangerous gambit. Mong Rau could notice something amiss and attack the two besieging armies. If the detachment in the east discovered the ruse and returned quickly, everything would be thrown into disarray. They would have taken the forts for nothing and have to face the initial issue of fighting an enemy with equal numbers.

Even if everything went well, this was still war. The steppe people would not get through this completely unscathed. Viyal could only pray that those close to her would be spared. With such thoughts swirling around her head, she anxiously watched the situation unfold.