Tennech
Aldis Tennech walked out of the stifling grasp of the underground and found himself embraced by the waiting arms of evening. He closed his eyes and took a breath.
Ah, he thought with a smile, there she is.
Like the smell that came before rain, the air tonight was thick with a familiar sensation. It was one that he knew and one that he welcomed.
War.
She was coming.
***
“Give me the lay of the land,” Tennech said.
“You’ve seen most of it,” Djozen Yelto replied. He gestured to the walls of the stronghold that separated them from the desert outside. “There is not much to the defense of Khadje Kholam.”
Spoken like a man who has never commanded troops, Tennech thought wryly. “Let me clarify,” he said, turning to face him. “Do you have archers? Light infantry? Heavy infantry?” He glanced around the compound. “Where are the weak points? Where are they most likely to come from? Where can we defend most easily?”
Djozen Yelto looked as if he had just eaten poison. “Ah,” he started. Turning his head, he shouted for his guards. When two dark, stocky men reported and dropped to a knee, Yelto barked, “The general has questions. Answer them,” and turned to walk away, seeming to have suddenly become preoccupied by something else entirely.
***
After gleaning from the guards what intelligence he could, Tennech finally had a feeling for what he was up against and how he could best defend the stronghold in response. The endgame, he knew, was to defend the prison that lay below; everything else was disposable.
The holding cell of the Ghost of the Morning was the single best-defended space this side of the Wastes, and Yelto had made no secret about it. Tennech didn’t know why this woman was so important, and he didn’t care. The “why” was inconsequential; it was the “how” that concerned him.
To address that concern was a matter of threes; he always looked at it like lighting a fire.
First, came the posturing and planning, like gathering fuel for the fire: tedious but necessary.
The land around them was mostly flat desert, offering no substantial advantage to either side: the defenders could clearly see them coming, but the invaders knew exactly what they were walking into. Therefore, setting a perimeter defense would be paramount.
To do this, they would line the walls with archers to pick off the first wave. Then, below the walls, they would position the light infantry to repel any invaders who made it over. It was a fairly straightforward structural defense, a strategy that Tennech had studied and excelled at during his time at the Valurian military academy. But from what he gathered from the guards, whose Khôl accents were still strong, there were an undetermined number of invaders they kept calling “beast-men.” He wasn’t sure what it meant, but the guards spoke of them with reverent fear.
Strategy could only take them so far, Tennech knew. He hoped preparation would trump terror.
After gathering fuel for the fire, then, came the next step: arranging the fuel and getting it ready to burn. This consisted of establishing orders and a chain of command.
Tennech quickly identified troop leaders: Hullis plus three on the walls and Dhrostain plus one inside. The six were given overarching orders and a general strategy, and would pass along any relevant commands to their troops. They were to be the relay for any real-time orders that had to be passed as well. And, as such, they would also be held accountable for any failures; Tennech made sure this last point was driven home. When he was sure that all of them understood, he sent them on their way.
Next—last—came his favorite part. When all was said and done, when the pieces had all been placed and the battlefield set, there was only one thing left to do: set it ablaze.
Smiling, he turned west to watch the sun dip below the horizon and to listen to the far-off echoes of approaching footsteps. He knew what was coming, and the feeling in the air gripped him even tighter.
Strategy and planning were merely a tired preamble: a mindless gathering of tinder for the spark, hardly enjoyable. There was no flourish to it. Everything was rigid and moved along predetermined lines.
But the execution—oh, the execution!—now that was a thing of beauty. It was where the spark met fuel and caught fire, becoming wholly unpredictable. It was where skin met steel; where blood, sweat, and bone sang out; where lives were lost and chaos reigned. For, no matter how carefully laid the tinder or how expert the spark, the flame paid it no mind; it simply burned what it wanted.
So when the first of the invaders crested the horizon with the largest pack of wolves that Tennech had ever seen, he looked to Sera and grinned. He knew this blaze would be particularly bright.
There was fuel enough to burn for days. There would be flame enough to pale the stars and darken the skies with its ashes.
And upon those ashes Aldis Tennech would build his empire.