ZENPAN, KADAINA, AND ITE WERE IN THE PLANNING ROOM. The three of them sat at the chessboard, with all of the birch and ebony pieces cramped up in a single corner of the board. Kadaina stared at this formation with a notable disdain. Ite didn’t seem to be mentally present during this encounter either, her mind obviously preoccupied on other similarly dire matters.
“So,” Zenpan said, breaking the silence, “do you need some ibuprofen?”
“No,” Kadaina answered. “I’m not worried about my hangover anymore. I’m trying to find out how to make this siege work, but everything seems to be coming to a blank. We’re low on forces with Mahando taking half of our regiment. Not to mention we’re missing one of our most crucial pieces.”
“Would it be possible to try to infiltrate the fort before the siege?” Zenpan suggested. “Perhaps we could whittle their forces down from the inside so we don’t have to worry about them fighting back with much success.”
“That’s highly unlikely to work,” the mage replied, shooting the idea down. “Fort Yaoseyun is armed to the teeth and guarded almost as heavily as Fulon and the palace of Antemouth. Anybody that isn’t directly authorized has no chance of getting in there, and there’s no chance of somebody from Akuni getting that authorization, let alone one from the Akuni military.”
“And so this is your plan?” the general asked. “We should just try to keep our men posted outside of the fort and starve them out? Might I remind you that Fort Yaoseyun is one of the biggest resource hubs in all of Aotoshi?”
“Isn’t that all the better then?” Kadaina refuted. “If Fort Yaoseyun runs out of resources, then the whole of Aotoshi’s military takes a hefty loss from this. When you drain an ocean, it’s hard to sustain all that fish in a pond.”
Zenpan paused for a second before letting out a slight hum.
“Impressive,” he replied.
“Not to mention that, with whatever resources remain in the case that the fort surrenders, a push directly into Antemouth might be possible, assuming that all goes well on General Mahando’s end.”
“But what does General Mahando have to do about all of this?” Ite suddenly chimed in.
“I beg your pardon?” Kadaina replied.
“What is his role in this whole operation?” the archer continued. “Doesn’t he have an entirely different task from us? What does his work have to do with ours?”
“I don’t think we’re ready to disclose that right now,” Zenpan stated.
“What does that mean? What’s with all the secrecy?”
“It doesn’t pertain to you,” Kadaina continued. “The point of the matter is that we’re not the highlight of this operation. Mahando is. And as for the details, we need to be wary of anybody that isn’t in our most confidential circles.”
“Wary of me? I’ve been with you for how long now? Why would you need to be wary of me?”
Suddenly, a sound came from the window. Kadaina and Zenpan rushed to it and looked out. Just as they got to the window, they caught a fleeting glimpse of a man in the attire of the Aotoshi military running for cover in the nearby forest.
“That’s why. If we had told you, that Aotoshi spy would’ve reported it back to Kunshu and the entire operation would be a bust. Now do you understand what I mean?”
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Ite sat back down at the table while Kadaina and Zenpan began to formulate the specifics of the plan. The plan was completed in its proper form roughly half an hour later and was presented before the 154th Regiment of the Akuni Military marched off toward Fort Yaoseyun.
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Fort Yaoseyun was housed in the open plains between the cities of Jidi and Murenda. The army had to navigate around the city of Murenda due to its largely desert setting and its proximity to the Fulon POW camp. Jidi, however, was also a risk due to the heavy military presence there at all times. As a result, the 154th regiment went through a city just between those two, passing by a small township called Suijidan.
The landscape of Fort Yaoseyun was barren except for the namesake fortress, which measured out to nearly twenty thousand square feet and stood at roughly eleven stories. The main entrances of the fort were similarly grand, about three stories tall and about thirty feet wide on its own. Upon seeing the gargantuan fortress, the 154th regiment knew immediately the difficulty of the feat they were trying to accomplish. As a result, the troops had constructed a trebuchet to help with trying to break through the walls.
While the troops began to figure out how to block anybody in the fort from exiting, Kadaina approached Ite.
“Are you holding up alright?” Kadaina began.
“Not really,” Ite began, “but I can put it aside for the time being.”
“I know you really want to rescue Yukan,” the co-commander of the 154th Regiment began, “but we really don’t have any other choice for the time being. If we scrapped everything just to go on a wild goose chase for him, then it could very well cost us the war.”
“What’s more important then?” Ite scoffed. “Your friend or the war?”
“You wouldn’t like my answer,” Kadaina replied. “But just because I would prefer not to lose this war doesn’t mean that I don’t value my friend. I value all of my friends. And that’s why you need to stay behind for this battle.”
“What?!” Ite yelled out. “Why not? What will that accomplish?”
“It’ll keep you from being killed, first of all.”
“You’re kidding me! I can defend myself just-”
Ite was suddenly cut off by Kadaina pulling out a knife and bringing it up to her throat. The mage shook his head as he returned the knife to its sheath.
“You’re too distracted,” he remarked before heaving a sigh. “I just don’t want your story to end in tragedy. I’m worried about how incredibly reliant on each other you are. I worry that, if one of you goes down, the other would gladly go down with you. You can do better than star-crossed lovers. And I can do better than the posterboy of survivor’s guilt. I’ve already lost enough this year. I don’t want to have to add two of my closest friends to that list. And if that means keeping you out of harm’s way while Yukan is away, then so be it.
“Look. I look at you two and I see solace. The two of you help keep me grounded in this world, help me stay in the present and not fall into some sort of neurosis. When we’re out here, we’re surrounded by death. But with you and Yukan, I see the last remnants of life trying to fight its way out of the tides of rot and decay. I don’t want to lose that, just as much as you don’t want to lose Yukan and I’m sure Yukan feels the same way. Once we’re done here, we’ll do everything we can to get Yukan back. I promise that I’ll do whatever it takes. I swear on Brildinjr.”
Ite stood in silence for a moment before silently nodding and heading away from Fort Yaoseyun. Kadaina kept a reassuring smile on his face as he went back towards Zero, letting it slowly turn into a more calculated expression as he approached his co-commander.
“We’re spreading our forces a bit thin,” Zenpan remarked.
“It’s the only way for us to surround the entire fortress,” Kadaina replied. “If we didn’t do this, we could get flanked from behind. We don’t have any better options and we’re out of time.”
“True as that may be,” Zero began once again, “do you think keeping Ite out of this is a good idea?”
“Her head isn’t in the right place,” the mage told his general. “It’s for the best. Now, we need to get this started.”
Zenpan nodded and gave a signal to the other people in the regiment. The horn sounded and the Akuni army unleashed a volley of arrows onto the fortress. The trebuchet was launched at the walls and the stones hit the walls of Fort Yaoseyun with a loud crash. Despite this, the wall stood firm.
Ground troops began to close their position around the fortress in an attempt to mitigate their thin formations, moving closer and closer to the walls as they anticipated the eventual arrival of the Aotoshi defensive. Once it eventually arrived, however, the 154th Regiment suffered greatly.