she’d really considered. Then again, she had never seen them all congregate into so few villages while fighting a war in Olost.
“One thousand going with Seanev. Leria’s community is now sitting at three thousand, but only a thousand of them are warriors ready for battle. Kerit has close to a thousand civilians and another five hundred warriors. We have two thousand in this village and the neighboring village. These are rough numbers. I only get a rough count because it’s growing impossible for the mativas to manage who is or isn’t in their community. We have to take into account there might be some going uncounted and some getting counted twice. It’s not a perfect system.”
“So, we’re talking seventy-five hundred Andinna left in the world as far as we know,” Mave said softly, crossing her arms. “That’s it.”
“There’s probably another two to four thousand in the Empire, still toiling away as slaves. The Empire is vast. I’m not counting on them, though.”
“Why not?” Mave narrowed her eyes on her king, wondering where his hope was. The Andinna were winning. Two to four thousand Andinna was a boon, and it took their numbers up to at least ten thousand. It wasn’t what they once were, but it was enough to thrive when everything was said and done.
“Shadra is calling for Andinna to be killed if they attempt to escape, not just recaptured. She has bounties on their heads. Females are worth more than males. If this escalates, she might just start killing them off. She did it before the need for slaves was too entrenched in the Empire. It’s one of the reasons Luykas and I stopped going out for the cause to free others and just began trying to keep the free Andinna alive. In the early days, Shadra was fond of purges as a warning to us.”
“Then her people are going to starve,” Luykas said, finally adding his own voice to the conversation. He had stood silently for much of the procession as Seanev’s force left the village. “She’ll have to conscript humans to do ‘slave’ work.”
“You two are defeatists,” Mave muttered, looking at the now empty path. She had faith in the Andinna. They would escape and come to them, even if it was dangerous.
“No, we aren’t.”
“Yes, you are. We will either crush her forces, or we won’t. If we do, we can free our people from the Empire, and we win. Every fight takes us closer to that point.”
“I think you and I had different objectives.” Alchan chuckled. “Every victory takes us one step closer to winning, but the goal isn’t to defeat her army, Mave. It’s to outlast her. We don’t have nearly enough warriors to go against her in open war, which is something she is going to want. We have to look at this differently. While her crops die in the fields because she relied on slaves, we have healthy fields, glad to be used by Andinna once again, flourishing with our blood’s help. Every warrior is also a farmer or a crafter, and every farmer and crafter can also be a warrior. While the Elvasi have trouble with our winter, we find it refreshing to have a moment away from battle. While they go hungry and freeze, we have a celebration, flying over snowy fields. The hardships of their campaign to bring us to submission are boons.”
“Which means Shadra’s strategy is to win quickly, or she’ll lose the support of her people,” Luykas said softly. “Which makes it imperative we keep Andinna out there fighting to keep her out of the mountains during the warmer seasons. Every winter that passes, with the Empire having to feed an army while there’s a bread shortage, will further our cause, not hers.”
“This is why I don’t plan these things,” Mave said, smiling. “You’re both much smarter than me.”
“No, we just have the training, sister,” Alchan said, throwing an arm around her shoulders. “If you ever wanted to, we could bring you in for it, and you’d be one of the best in no time, like you are with everything else.”
“Ha.” She pushed him away, rolling her eyes. She wasn’t into the idea, and they both knew she wasn’t suited for it. He was having a jest. “So, you’re both still feeling good about the rebellion?”
“Good?” Luykas laughed. “Love, it’s not a good feeling. It’s a great one. We might have less than half of the Andinna we did during the War, but we know Shadra now.