“Yes. But first it must be war. Come. I’m due at the war council.”
Catherine had been absent from the daily meetings the last few mornings as she’d been at Tzsayn’s bedside, but she was determined not to miss another.
Ffyn, Davyon, and Hanov, the most senior of Tzsayn’s generals, led the war council. As Catherine arrived, General Ffyn, newly promoted to replace Lord Farrow as leader of the Pitorian army, beamed at her across the map table.
“Good news, Your Majesty. A delegation from Calidor arrived this morning. They will be joining us shortly.”
“At last!”
It had been a month since Edyon had set sail for Calidor with Catherine’s warning about the threat posed by the boy army and her request for an alliance against her father, and the silence since had been so deafening she had begun to fear that the message had got lost.
“Perhaps you can update me on the general situation while we wait for them to arrive?”
“There’s no change, Your Majesty. The Brigantines are holding their positions around Rossarb and on the Northern Plateau.”
He pointed at the locations on the map, almost as if he didn’t expect Catherine to know where they were.
“But under there is where most of the action is,” Tanya said, gesturing to the Northern Plateau. “In the demon world, I mean.”
Ffyn looked at Tanya and then to Catherine with raised eyebrows. Tanya was not officially on the war council.
As matter-of-factly as she could, Catherine said, “I’ve promoted Tanya to position of dresser. I welcome her views on all matters.”
The general cleared his throat. “Of course. Whatever you think best, Your Majesty.”
“And Tanya’s right,” said Catherine. “My father is con-solidating his position on the plateau and busily farming the demon smoke. He has exactly what he wants—a secure supply of smoke and time to train his boy army. When that’s ready, we won’t stand a chance.”
“I like to believe we’d put up a little more resistance than you seem to expect, Your Majesty,” General Ffyn replied stiffly.
“You’ve seen how the smoke works, General. We all know an army fueled by demon smoke is unbeatable, even if it’s an army of boys. There’s no shame in admitting it. The shame would be in not having a plan to deal with it.”
Ffyn shook his head. “Our numbers may be down due to this damned fever, but we are over that now. We have a good position on high ground. I believe we can hold this line if the regular Brigantine army attacks.”
“However, one of my men returned from Brigant last night,” General Hanov, who controlled the spy network, interjected. “He reports sightings of boys’ brigades—”
“The boy army?”
“Not exactly, Your Majesty. The brigades are small units—there’s at least ten of them, with a hundred boys in each. These boys are brutal, strong, and fast . . . and improv-ing their fighting skills all the time.”
“And where are these brigades?”
“At least three are with Aloysius near Rossarb.”
“And the rest?”
“We think they’re near the border with Calidor.”
Catherine looked up from the map. “Calidor? Do you think they’re preparing to invade?”
Hanov shook his head. “That’s just a few hundred boys. All of Aloysius’s best troops are still at Rossarb. There are no signs of them moving south.”
“Even if the boy army were to go in first, Aloysius can’t take Calidor without support from his regular army, Your Majesty,” Ffyn explained. “He needs boots on the ground to occupy the country once the fighting is over. I still see nothing to indicate an imminent attack against either ourselves or Calidor.”
“I agree with you, Ffyn,” Davyon said. “Except there’s the matter of the Pitorian Sea.”
“The sea?” asked Catherine.
“The Brigantines may not be confronting us or the Cali-dorians on land, but they are attacking our ships,” he said. “We’ve had to bring most of our fleet into port. The Brigan-tine ships are bigger and faster than ours and now have almost total control of the waters between us and Calidor.”
Catherine inwardly cursed the meetings she’d missed. She’d been busy with Tzsayn and the finances, but her father was never still. What was his grand plan? She looked at the map again. “If the Brigantines are free to move anywhere around the Pitorian Sea, they could invade at any point along our coast! We must regain control.”
Ffyn looked irritated. “Yes, but how? We can’t take control of the sea if we don’t have the ships.”
“So we must get ships—better, faster ships,” Catherine said, but even as she spoke her heart sank. It was all very well