The room filled with excited chatter the instant Surelin declared the meeting concluded. Kara wasted no time with leaving.
“I’ll take this week to purchase as many wagons and animals I can get my hands on,” she told Surelin. “And maybe I’ll even collect some of the essential supplies you’ll need, though I can’t buy too much. Wouldn’t want to raise any suspicions.”
Surelin gave her a warm smile. “Thank you so much, Kara. I really don’t deserve such a loyal friend.”
Kara winked at her. “I’m just protecting my investment. There’s a village a little ways west of the city. I’ll store everything I can get my hands on there.”
A village? Gideon thought with surprise. Is she talking about Logger’s Crossing?
She waved goodbye to Gideon as she left the room, with a purposeful spring in her step. Edwin and Corrina soon followed her out, speaking with each other in low voices too quietly for Gideon to hear.
“I’ll start making the arrangements, ma’am,” Len said while getting to his feet. “I should have a preliminary report ready for you this evening.”
“Thank you, Marshal.”
He left after giving a respectful nod to Edea and Celaena, who remained seated. Once he'd left the room, Celaena turned to give Gideon an icy glare, and Edea addressed Surelin.
“Granddaughter. I wish to speak with you.”
Her tone sounded neutral to Gideon, but Surelin reacted with mild alarm.
“What about, Nana?”
“Your choice of companions.”
Surelin glanced at Gideon. “You mean him?”
“Correct. Send him away for now.”
Gideon angrily narrowed his eyes at her and leaned up, taking a few steps towards the table. Celaena locked onto him and lowered her hand to her hip.
“I’m not going anywhere,” he growled.
“If he is to be the topic of discussion, then shouldn’t he be here?” Surelin asked incredulously.
A small frown appeared on Edea's face, but she gave in without a fight.
“As you wish.”
Surelin gestured to the table with a concerned frown. Gideon walked over and took the seat directly across from Edea.
The old witch is up to something again.
Edea launched straight into it. “Why has he returned? When we last spoke about him, the three of us agreed to endorse his actions as a measure of discipline. That discussion did not include his eventual return. And I thought it well understood that he no longer had a place with us.”
Surelin seemed startled at the accusation behind Edea’s words. “I invited him back because we need every trained warrior we can get. Has something about our situation changed in the last ten minutes that I haven’t been made aware of?”
“He’s a mercenary, ma’am,” Celaena said. “You’ve invited someone with mixed motives into the fold at a moment of extreme vulnerability for us. He has no stakes in our struggle, and you've put him in the best possible position to betray us and destroy everything we have sacrificed for.”
“The fuck I am,” Gideon snarled.
“That isn’t true,” Surelin spoke over him. “He has demonstrated on multiple occasions that he has our best interests at heart. Do I really have to remind you that he joined the assault to rescue Edwin? Without asking for any form of payment?”
“You have known this man for less than six months,” Edea shot back. “Allowing him to return at our most desperate hour is an act of gross negligence.”
Anger appeared on Surelin’s face. “Are you questioning my judgment?”
“I am questioning your competence as a leader.”
Edea’s words had an extreme and immediate effect on Surelin. Her anger disappeared just as quickly as it appeared, replaced by a look of stunned injury.
“In your arrogance you have decided to give your trust to a violent stranger,” Edea continued. “A dishonorable man who assigns his loyalty to the highest bidder, one who kills thoughtlessly, with—”
Gideon slammed his palm down on the table. “You’ve got just as much blood on your hands as I do, you fucking hypocrite! And I’ve risked my ass for your movement multiple fucking times with no expectation of a reward!”
“The blood we’ve shed has always been in defense of our people,” Celaena sneered. “You kill for money, and failing that whenever it happens to please you!”
He had no answer, and simply glowered at her. As they glared at one another, something about her finally clicked into place.
She’s a killer, but she’s not really a soldier, he realized. She’s a servant who openly wields a bloody knife on her master’s behalf. Someone who believes completely in the justness of what she’s doing. An assassin.
Surelin seemed to have recovered a bit from Edea’s admonishment. “...Yes, he used to kill for money. But that’s exactly why we can trust him now. Do you know what he told me yesterday? He said that fighting for us is the first thing he’s ever done that felt right to him. His desire to help us is genuine.”
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Edea shook her head. “No. Open your eyes, darling. Everything he’s done for you has been based on a juvenile obsession. He hopes you will see him as a potential romantic partner. That is his motive.”
Gideon’s mouth fell open with outrage. That’s not fucking true! Well, I do want that, but this bitch really thinks that’s the only reason?!
Surelin was flustered. “T-that’s not—um.”
“You have got to be shitting me!” Gideon exploded. “You really think I risked everything just for that?! How absolutely fucking stupid do you think I am?!”
Celaena’s face fell slightly and she glanced at Edea as Gideon continued. “Here’s what I think, you nasty old snake, I think you’re just throwing a tantrum because you can’t monopolize Surelin when I’m here!”
Disgust tugged at the corners of Edea’s eyes. “Don’t be ridiculous.”
“And I’ll tell you what else—you’ve been trying to use her as a tool for your stupid fucking political games! You think I can’t see it?! And you’ve been doing it from the moment she got here!”
“Surelin is doing her duty to her family and the people of Forelia,” she replied coldly. “Whatever I may have personally gained from her actions is entirely circumstantial.”
“That’s enough—” Surelin began.
“What an amazing excuse you’ve come up with for treating her like shit! Quit hiding your self fucking interest behind her duty.”
“That’s enough!!!” Surelin screamed at the top of her lungs.
Her scream took Gideon completely off guard, and he looked over at her with alarm. She moved an errant lock of hair from her face and took a deep breath before looking to Edea.
“Thank you for bringing your concerns to my attention, grandmother. You are dismissed.”
For the first time since he’d met her, Edea showed outward signs of shock. He expected her to protest, but instead she silently got to her feet and left the room, avoiding Surelin’s gaze. Celaena looked stunned as she got up to follow her.
Once the door shut behind them, Surelin let out a heavy sigh and began to rub her forehead.
A dishonorable man. No stakes in our struggle.
Gideon looked down at the table in front of him as he turned their words over in his mind.
“I don’t want you antagonizing her, Gideon,” Surelin said wearily.
He nodded quickly. “Alright.”
“A fight between you two is the last thing we need right now. That I need right now."
“You’re right,” he said, then looked up at her. “Hey, Surelin.”
“Yes?”
“I don’t want to be a mercenary anymore.”
She seemed taken aback. “...Okay?”
“I still want to fight for you, but not as a mercenary. How do I do that?”
“...Gideon, I don’t think you’ve been a real mercenary for a while now. Doing what you’ve done for free is pretty much the opposite of what a mercenary does.”
“Yeah, but I want it to be official. What do I have to do to become a Forelian soldier?”
A wry scoff left her. “Grandmother would probably say, “be born in Forelia.” But times have changed. I’ll talk to the Marshal about the procedure for inducting foreigners into the army in an official capacity.”
“Okay,” he smiled. “Thanks.”
“Of course. It wouldn’t just be for you, though, there’s plenty of Losoans and other foreigners fighting with us at the moment.”
“Yeah.”
She gave him a rueful smile. “You do understand that officially joining the army would make you subordinate to grandmother?”
He winced. “Uh…yeah, I guess that’s true. But I still want it.”
“Hmm. I think it would be for the best to simply make you my second advisor on military matters. It’s what you’ve been since the beginning, anyway. It wouldn’t make much sense for you to become one of the rank and file.”
“Whatever you say, your majesty.”
She rolled her eyes and stood up. “Come on, then. There’s too much work for us to do, and not nearly enough time to do it.”
----------------------------------------
The next week was a blur of meetings and frenzied preparations. Len suggested to Surelin that the first fires be set in the market sector in order to motivate the senior hussar commanders to withdraw from the slums, and she agreed. The first fires would be started there, followed soon after by the Elysium hills and then in the middle class neighborhoods west of it. Fires in the slums would only be started after the uprising had begun.
After a tough back and forth argument between Len and Edwin, Surelin decided not to set the entire city alight—just enough of it to keep the hussars distracted. Len’s reasoning was that if the entire city was burnt to a crisp, the surviving hussars would have no reason not to pursue the slaves. Edwin felt that burning the entire city down would cause more casualties amongst the hussars and thus would make them easier to defeat, an idea that Surelin and Edea almost immediately disagreed with.
The most important part of the overall plan was the attack on the grain silos in the south west corner of the city. The consensus on Surelin’s council was that they would definitely achieve initial surprise during the attack and defeat the defenders, but an argument arose over whether to burn whatever food supplies they wouldn’t be able to loot in time. Edwin and Celaena claimed that leaving food in the city would only help the hussars pursue them, if they chose to. Edea suggested that destroying the food would force starvation on any slaves who did not manage to escape the city, and for once Gideon found himself in agreement with her. Surelin sided with Edea and Gideon, much to Edwin and Celaena's chagrin.
The viability of the plan after leaving Loso depended heavily on Kara’s ability to scrounge up enough carts, animals, and drivers to carry whatever grain they did manage to acquire. She mostly disappeared from the dyeworks, only showing up on occasion to give Surelin an update on her progress. Kara claimed she would have forty carts prepared outside of the city for the migration, not nearly enough to carry everyone but perhaps enough to carry the sick and wounded. Acquiring enough carts within the city in time to carry the grain would be vastly more difficult, and Surelin offered to send a small detachment of troops with her for that effort, which Kara graciously accepted.
Through it all, Gideon remained at Surelin’s side, offering advice when he could and keeping himself out of the way when he couldn’t. He eventually learned that the resistance movement had only three hundred troops—one oversized warband, essentially—healthy enough to bear arms. Surveillance of the grain silos revealed that roughly fifty hussars had been stationed in the area as guards, which confirmed that seizing it was an achievable goal. However, reinforcements could arrive at the silos very quickly from other parts of the city.
Gideon and Len suggested that they devote the vast majority of their force to the attack on the silos in order to quickly overwhelm the guards. Attacking with overwhelming force would give them a decent chance at wiping out the hussars before they could send out a request for reinforcements, along with minimizing their own casualties. Edea pointed out that sending only a handful of troops to start the fires would jeopardize the entire plan, but Edwin countered that slaves all across the city would be eager to help spread the flames.
It soon became clear that no amount of careful planning could account for all the problems that might occur. The fire attack was an idea borne from desperation, and once it was underway the only way for the resistance to succeed would be to react flexibly to whatever problems were sure to occur.
The seventh day arrived in a flash. In a strange twist of fate, it happened to be the day of the winter solstice. Surelin commanded that all non-essential operations be suspended, both to give everyone involved a chance to celebrate the solstice and to allow them enough rest for the sleepless night to come.