“How are you today?” he asked one particularly brave child.
“Good,” the young male said, swallowing, obviously not used to the attention of anyone as dominant as Luykas.
“That’s good.” At least someone is. “Well, you all have a fine day and don’t give Leshaun any trouble, okay? He’s a good friend of mine.”
“Yes, sir,” they all chimed at different volumes of enthusiasm.
He headed for the war room. He knew his brother would already be there, and probably the advising team. He didn’t see his brother first. Before he made it inside, he was stopped.
“Good morning, Luykas,” Kenav said stiffly. “I wanted to speak to you.”
“About?” Luykas raised an eyebrow. “Is it something we can talk about inside?”
“No. I wanted to talk to you before taking my idea to Alchan. I want to lead another campaign to hunt down the Elvasi unit that attacked Seanev.”
“How many warriors would you want?” Luykas already knew his answer, but he wanted to know just how ridiculous the idea was.
“Fifteen hundred. Obviously, a thousand wasn’t enough—”
Luykas laughed, the best laugh he’d had in days, maybe weeks. He doubled over and laughed until he cried, his shoulders shaking.
“Fifteen hundred!” He couldn’t believe it. “We have…probably about six thousand, five hundred Andinna. That’s it.” He laughed, trying to breathe as tears came to his eyes. “And you want to take fifteen-hundred of them out and possibly get hundreds of them killed. That’s the most comical idea I’ve heard in ages. Thank you. No, if you take that to Alchan, you’ll take it to him alone. I’m not going to support that.”
“It’s a morale issue. We need a big win after a big loss.”
Luykas sobered. Kenav was right, but it was impossible. A big win meant meeting Shadra on the battlefield in open combat. They couldn’t allow that to happen. The Andinna couldn’t take big losses when Shadra had thousands more soldiers to throw into the next fight.
“I don’t disagree with the sentiment, but we’re not the strength we used to be. If they could get the drop on Seanev, who has been doing this for much longer than either of us combined, what makes you think I’m going to send you out with even more warriors?” Luykas scoffed. “Losing Seanev is just as much of a blow as losing nearly a thousand warriors if we include the missing small teams. This is a morale issue, but it’s a lot harder to deal with than just throwing more bodies at it.”
Luykas shook his head and walked past Kenav, heading inside. He looked at his brother across the room and hated the joy he saw there. He couldn’t bring himself to feel it. Did his brother not see the writing on the wall? Luykas could. He saw it when he saw what was left of Seanev’s campaign, when he saw Seanev, being held by Mave and missing an arm.
Luykas could make plan after plan to help his Andinna family, but he could only see one end—only one, and it wasn’t the one he wanted.
Alchan, how are you still smiling?
Beside Alchan was Seanev, what was left of his right arm hanging useless. Seanev said something and tried to point, growling as he remembered his problem and used his left hand to do what he needed. Around the room, unit commanders talked. Luykas walked through them, reaching his brother’s side.
“I told them about the ideas we had yesterday, and they’re already trying to work out some real plans. I told them to start formulating their own ideas that you and I can tweak. We can’t micromanage dozens of small missions if that’s the route we’re taking.” Alchan ran a hand over the map. “I wonder if we might be able to with a large winter campaign, though. Something to consider.”
“Spring worked well, but we can’t keep doing big campaigns. Too many Andinna are vulnerable,” Luykas said softly. “Winter might be an option if we were only worried about casualties, but it’s also a supply problem. Warriors on the road need to hunt, which is hard over winter. Game gets scarce, and most healthy options need to remain, so they can breed in the spring. We could send them out with what we have, but then we risk their food spoiling and leaving them to starve. It would also mean we’d need stricter rations here, and we risk people getting thin and sick.”
Alchan sighed. “I was hoping you wouldn’t say all of that. I knew you would,