David stared out of a window high up the keep, watching Greg, Thoko and the strange werewolf walk away. He wished he could go with them. The weather looked like it would be a nice day, and the last thing he wanted was to be stuck inside the stuffy room where George Louis was holding his war council.

But such was the life of a royal advisor.

David turned back to the room where the duke and the keep’s captain had already taken their seats along the big table. About half of the nearly twenty seats were taken, with George Louis at the head. He had saved the seat to his right for David, even though there were higher-ranking lords present.

One of them was Marquess Picot, which surprised David. Even more surprising, the Lord Warden of Breachpoint had actually been in his city during the attack. That was far more dutiful of him than David had expected.

And there was Marquess Rover walking in. Great. If Malemaines showed up, too, they’d have the whole set of Coast Wardens. Rover sat down across from Picot and glared at the two empty chairs to George Louis’s right and left.

The other seats were quickly taken by what one might call the military elite of Loegrion. Not that there really was such a thing. But everyone within this room – aside from David himself – had served in the Grande Armée during some campaign or another, usually in a command position.

The last person to walk in was a very old, very tall and gaunt man. He was missing an eye and leaned heavily on a walking stick, limping slightly.

“Ah, Lord Clermont,” George Louis greeted the man, rising. “I am very glad you chose to join us today.”

Clermont paused at the door and looked at the people already gathered around the table without saying anything in reply. The scarring around his missing eye made it hard to decipher his expression. One corner of his mouth was perpetually twisted downwards. Finally, he turned to stare at David. The old man’s good eye seemed to pierce him as they sized each other up.

“I don’t think you’ve met my advisor, Lord Feleke?” George Louis offered helpfully.

David and Clermont had indeed never met, but David had found out as much about the retired general as he could, after the duke had mentioned in Eoforwic that he wanted Clermont to command the Loegrion troops.

The old lord had been born at a small barony in the very south of Loegrion, a second son who hadn’t inherited anything. So instead, he had joined the Grande Armée, fighting and commanding armies for the Roi Solei all around the Empire for almost four decades. David had looked up his campaigns, too, and Clermont was one of the most successful, but also one of the most careful generals of the Roi Solei. One scribe had written that he never picked a battle he couldn’t win.

The question was where his loyalty lay today. As far as David had been able to find out, the general had lived for most of his life outside of Loegrion. Why would he turn his back on the Valoise after all his loyal years of service?

Then again, he had chosen to retire here.

“The hero of Oldstone Castle,” Lord Clermont finally said. “I don’t think we’ve met, no. But word of what happened here already got around.”

“An exaggerated version, I’m sure,” David replied.

Clermont sized him up again. “It’s rare enough for soldiers to praise their commanding officers,” he stated calmly. “If they do, it’s seldom undeserved.”

“Yes, yes, well done, I’m sure he did a good job executing His Highness’s plan,” Marquess Rover interrupted. “Can we get started now? I do not wish to stay in this ruin any longer than necessary.”

David hesitated for a second, wondering if he should tell the Marquess what he thought of him, but then decided against it. The whole bloody meeting was sure to last even longer if he started a fight before it even began.

Instead, he just took his seat to the duke’s right.

With so many nobles in one room, there were of course a bunch of pleasantries that needed to be observed. David listened only with half an ear while George Louis introduced all the very important men, and servants passed out refreshments. Therefore, he didn’t realize right away what the duke meant when he finished with: “I think we should begin with a report on the battle by someone who actually witnessed it.”

Only when all eyes fell on him did he understand what George wanted from him.

David groaned inwardly. “My pleasure,” he lied.

He’d already given a report on the battle for George Louis and the keep’s captain yesterday. What did George have that scribe take notes for, if he was just going to make David give the whole report a second time?

Speaking in front of large gatherings wasn’t something David had much practise in. When all the assembled nobles stared at him, he felt himself duck his head and hunch up his shoulders without thinking about. It took a conscious effort to straighten up and face his audience. His mouth was dry, too, and he had to clear his throat twice before he could describe what it had been like, fighting against the Rot with the help of the werewolves, which tactics had worked and which hadn’t.

When he finished, Lord Clermont braced his arms on the table, leaning forward. “You said that those – elder – werewolves on the walls transformed at the very moment this – Morgulon? – gave birth. Do you agree there likely was a connection?”

What a weird question, David thought. Hadn’t he made that abundantly clear?

But he only said: “Yes.”

“How do you think this battle would have turned out if the timing had been different?”

“We’d have lost,” David replied, still wondering where the old general was going with this. “On the other hand, if the attack had happened just one day later, Greg would have been back with the elders he found at the Argentum Formation, which would have turned the fight back in our favour.”

“So if you had to fight the same battle tonight, how do you think it would go?”

David paused. “As in, we get a message that there’s a second fleet coming right now, with no reinforcements beyond who we have here at the keep? We’d probably lose. Half our werewolves are too injured to fight, we have no more of the incendiary cannonballs or burning oil, and our fighting force of regular soldiers is down to a third of its original strength. Even three new elders and the fact that tonight isn’t new moon won’t make up for the sheer difference in numbers.”

“I see,” Clermont said. He looked at George Louis. “How many human sacrifices did you destroy here?”

“There were eighty-two of them,” George Louis said.

There was a hush around the table. David could see the other lords stare at him with raised eyebrows.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

“Eighty-two?” Clermont repeated, his voice full of doubt.

“At the very least, yes,” George Louis said. “Because of the nature of these creatures, it was impossible to count them once they attacked. We could only count how many times we felt the priests sacrifice someone. They might have killed more than one victim at a time.”

“What do you mean, you couldn’t count them?” Marquess Rover asked. “Surely a man standing up here in the keep with a spyglass would have been able to see all of them?”

“Any man standing up here, staring at them through a spyglass, would have lost his eyesight at best, his mind at worst,” George Louis said calmly. “I suppose an elder werewolf would have been able to, but we didn’t have any to spare for a duty that low of a priority.”

The duke looked at Clermont, who was rubbing his chin.

“What do you think, Lord Clermont?” asked George Louis. “Will you be part of this endeavour?”

Clermont grimaced. “Tell me, Your Highness, your men have barely beaten back the Valoise once, when all they sent was four small ships. What makes you so certain that you might be able to do it again when you might be facing a force three of four times as big?”

“We’ll be stronger, next time.”

“They could easily be back next new moon. You truly think your – assets – will have recovered by then?”

“They’ll have recovered enough,” George Louis said firmly.

Clermont promptly looked at David. “Do you concur with this statement?”

David hesitated only a second. “If you give me a month to prepare the battleground, I’ll take on a couple of hundred of those human sacrifices right here.”

Silence fell around the table. Even Marquess Rover, who’d been speaking to his aide, fell silent.

“That seems – overly optimistic,” Clermont said dryly.

“Hardly,” David said. “True, we’re down three elder werewolves, but we have three even more powerful ones to replace them. More importantly, if the Valoise really do try again next month, we’ll know what is coming. We’ve learned that the giant Rot monsters aren’t particularly fast, so we can lay charges around the Castle against them. With enough warning, fresh soldiers, and some of the younger werewolves recovered, I am positive that we can hold Oldstone Castle. Or any other fortified city in Loegrion.”

Clermont stared at David a little longer, before he turned back towards the duke. “I fail to see what you even want me for. I am not a commander of monsters, nor have I ever fought an army of the Rot as your man here has. You seem to have all you need right there, Your Highness.”

David laughed when the old general gesticulated towards him.

“Hardly, Lord Clermont. I am not a commander of men, and that is what we will need once the Grande Armée lands here, rather than a handful of mage priests. I have never come up with a plan of attack that involved more than fifty people, nor have I ever dealt with the logistics of a military campaign. My whole knowledge of conventional warfare stems from history books, and I didn’t particularly care for them.”

The old general looked at him again, and suddenly, a smile appeared on his face, made lopsided by the scars.

“A man who knows his limits. Fine, then,” he said, extending his right hand. “I can lead the conventional armies of Loegrion. But you will have to deal with the werewolves and all the other supernatural stuff. Agreed?”

That was not what David had expected. But when he glanced over to George Louis, the duke gave a tiny but urgent nod.

Well, he had already promised Morgulon, anyway, hadn’t he?

So David gripped the offered hand: “Agreed.”

George Louis couldn’t quite hide his relief when they shook. In fact, there were a lot of lords all around the table exhaling deeply as if they had held their breaths on the old general’s decision.

“Your Highness, you were also going to appoint a new head of the Loegrian Navy,” Marquess Rover said over the murmur. “Has the decision been made yet?”

David wanted to groan but bit his tongue instead. That explained why the two commodores D’Aubigny and Giffard were also present. He had really hoped that George Louis would make this announcement sometime he wasn’t around.

“Of course,” George Louis said. “May I present to you the new First Lord of Admiralty, Admiral D’Aubigny, and the new Fleet Commander – though he will mostly be tasked with building said fleet – Admiral Giffard.”

David bit his tongue a second time, this time to stop himself from grinning like a loon at the shocked face of Marquess Rover. The only man even more surprised than the Marquess was Lord D’Aubigny himself. Quite obviously, the duke had neglected to give him a warning in advance.

Marquess Picot did beam at Marquess Rover and rapped the tabletop with his knuckles, which started a round of applause from everyone but Rover.

“I –thank you for your trust, Your Highness,” D’Aubigny finally found his voice. He glanced over at Giffard, who nodded eagerly. “We will, of course, serve Loegrion to the best of our abilities in these difficult times ahead.”

George Louis accepted that with a mild smile. “With these questions answered, perhaps it’s time for a break,” he said. “We shall continue this council after lunch.”

David jumped a little and stared at the clock in the corner of the room. It was, indeed, already noon.

Marquess Rover just sat there, looking shocked, while everyone else filtered out of the room. David headed downstairs straight away, glad for the chance to stretch his legs more than out of hunger.

He spotted Andrew in the refectory, sitting at a table close to the door. With a plate of today’s stew, he sat across from his brother.

“How’s it going?” Andrew wanted to know before he had taken the first bite.

David grimaced and quickly surmised what had happened. Andrew thought it was all rather funny, of course.

“If you aren’t careful, George Louis will have you run all of Loegrion by the time the war is over,” he warned, grinning. “I bet if you play your cards right, he’ll make you Prime Minister, or something.”

“And if I play them wrong, he’ll have ample reason to foist the blame for anything that goes badly on me,” David groused, and quickly changed the topic: “How’s Nathan?”

“Same idiot as ever,” Andrew said and smiled unhappily. “The healers kicked me out an hour ago because he keeps demanding I take him outside again, even though he tore open that chest wound yesterday.”

“Great.”

“As I said, same as usual. And, just so you know – there’s a bunch of herbalists setting up shop in the courtyard outside. Alchemists, too, and some tinkerer selling silver amulets, ‘guaranteed’ to keep the Rot away. And even the stuff that actually works is completely overprized, one of the healers said.”

“Great,” David repeated. “Make sure you let the soldiers know?”

Andrew waved that away with his spoon. “The soldiers are far more interested in the women that came to sell their services, and the cart with the beer. No, the issue is that the healers could actually use some of that stuff the herbalists sell. Also, I think there’s someone who’s got a question for you.” Andrew looked at someone behind David. “Boris, wasn’t it?”

David turned in his seat far enough to spot a very nervous werewolf.

“Have a seat,” Andrew already said. “We don’t bite.”

The guy stared at him with a hint of panic.

“That was a joke,” Andrew sighed. “Seriously, have a seat, we’re eating.”

The werewolf sat down, leaving two empty seats between himself and David. After a moment he seemed to realize that this would require him to shout his question over the general noise of the refectory. David decided to just wait until he made up his mind and turned towards his bowl of stew.

When he complained to Andrew: “This is nearly as bad as Nathan’s cooking,” his brother wordlessly reached into a pocket and offered him a salt shaker with a cap on top.

By the time David had added some modicum of seasoning to the bland food, Boris had made up his mind and taken the seat next to him, but pushed it as far away as the other chairs would allow. David glanced over to him. The werewolf nervously tugged at the uniform he’d been given, and then blurted out: “They’re breaking up our pack.”

David paused, his spoon halfway raised to his mouth. He finished the movement, put the spoon down, and waved the werewolf to go on while he chewed.

“They want Bernadette to stay here until she’s better, but they want me to go back to the railway tomorrow, with that new elder, Ragna. And Fleur is to go to Deva.”

“Who said that?” Andrew asked, before David could.

Boris wasn’t sure. “One of the duke’s men,” was the best answer he could give. “Two of them went around this morning, when they handed out the uniforms, to tell us our new – new deployment, they called it.”

David groaned. “I’ll figure out what that’s about,” he promised Boris. “Can you write?”

“I – uh, yes?”

“Good. I’ll need a list of all the packs and their members. Give it to Andrew so he can pass it on to me right away.”

That gave Andrew pause, too. “You want me to just barge into that council meeting?”

“Yes,” David said. “If George Louis wants me to deal with everything werewolf-related, he’s going to have to live with that, and if the first werewolves are to move tomorrow, we better get this sorted quickly.”

Boris looked at Andrew uncertainly, but said. “I’m going to need something to write on.”

“Ask a quartermaster. Tell them I sent you. If they give you crap about it, find Andrew,” David added, before Boris could protest. “But I don’t think they will.”

“I – thanks. I’ll get to that.”

Boris almost jumped out of his seat and hurried away.

“You’re going to need an aide of your own,” Andrew noted.

“Are you volunteering?”

Andrew puffed out his lips. “Ask Nathan first,” he suggested. “That’d give him something to do. Keep him from brooding.”

David shook his head. “Nathan would hate that job. And he’d be awful at it, too.”

“Don’t underestimate him,” Andrew said.