Alaric woke up to the sound of someone hammering against his door. He rubbed the sleep from his eyes, the window was still as dark as it had been when he went to nodded off.

Letra’s voice sounded from the other side of the door, he seemed panicked.

“Al, wake up! Emergency meeting with Era, the entire council is being woken!” Something in the boy’s voice had Al jump up.

He retracted the bolt, Letra looked afraid, sweat was covering his brow and his breaths went heavily.

“A message just arrived! Our spies sent their ravens, both of them!” All colour drained from his face as his stomach clenched painfully.

The two operatives in Goldhill had been given two ravens for emergencies, if they sent both to ensure the message was being delivered things must have gone sideways strongly enough for them to rather risk sitting behind enemy lines with no means of communication than for Blackriver to not catch the message.

“Hurry up, no time to waste here.” Alarc ran past Letra towards the main council room in the lower part of the building.

The ways were clear as nobody else was awake yet, Letra barely kept up with him.

Era was waiting for the two of them, lists in front of her on the large round table at the center of the large room.

The other, much older scripts and commanders were already seated around the desk, most of them looking more annoyed than anything else

Her eyes had black rings around them, she had not even bothered to brush her hair.

“Good, close the door and let nobody close to it!” she commanded the two guards waiting next to the door.

Alaric knew both of them, Train and Serra, both of them were Winter’s most trusted soldiers.

The white haired mountain walked in just before the doors closed. With him the entire higher ranks of the Rebellion were now in the room.

“We just received word from Bartholomew, Goldhill has hired an army, they are three days out from their city and will be on us as soon as the pass is free.

Their headcount is about one thousand strong.” The room went dead quiet, Alaric felt like somebody had pulled the ground from beneath his feet, one thousand trained soldiers… this was way beyond their capability of handling.

“Then our path of action is clear I take it? We will issue a surrender within the next week.” Reagel said, the man was head of the merchant guild and one of the men who started the rebellion in the first place.

“He is right!” Another official blurted out, “We cannot defy such an army! Then only path of action left for us is to surrender!” More and more voices began to shout until Era slammed her hand onto the desk silencing the outburst.

“Surrendering now achieves nothing! We will be selling out our future and the future of our children. We started this war for a reason and if we end it now then things will be even worse than they were before!” Her voice slightly shivered as she spoke.

“We knew they were assembling an army, that's why we have been training one of our own. The enemy is still months away from attacking, enough time to come up with a strategy to fight them!” Alaric trusted in Era more than most but even he had problems believing her now. One thousand soldiers were too many to match, not in the four months they had left, not to train an army that stood a chance against professionals.

“What's our informations about the army so far? Anything in specific?” Alaric asked as the room quieted down again.

“Nothing conclusive so far, the number has been an estimate in regards of how many supply runs are being made and the number of equipment issued.” She pointed on the two pages listing the specifics.

Alaric grabbed them and had a look, chain mails and axes were the most common orders together with usual order of bread and jerky for lengthy travels… an extraordinary amount of it in total and that sparked something in him.

These were warriors, not hunters, they marched and fought but had no idea about the land they were in. The western regions of Guidance were mostly plains the people there had cut down most forests to build their cities now they had to import wood from regions like this one.

“We can’t fight them head on.” Alaric mumbled more to himself than to anyone else as an idea formed in his head.

“The kid is right! We need to sue for peace right now! I am not going to risk my life for the idea of a fucking girl that wants to prove something!” Reagel stepped to Era his hand moved to his side where a knife was tucked in.

Before anyone could react Winter hurled his axe over the table and struck the man down. The crunching sound his head made when it struck the ground left little doubt in what had happened to him.

Train and Serra pulled their blades and stepped forward, Alarc jerked back, Era nodded and the two cut down the members of the council before they had time to react.

Letra screamed out and Alaric quickly put his hand over the boys mouth, no need to give anyone a reason to continue this with the two of them.

It was over horrifyingly quickly, within seconds the ten people were slumped in their chairs blood forming a puddle on the ground.

“You were saying Alaric?” Era asked, dead calm, a faint choking from the other side of the table.

Alaric was panicking Letra struggled against his grip until he noticed the boy was slowly turning blue.

He let go and his friend slumped down on his arms and knees coughing.

“I.. I just think..” Alaric tried to form a sentence but the words wouldn’t align in his head, there was blood everywhere.

“Calm down, I have been meaning to do this for a while now, you have nothing to fear.” Era pulled a clay cup closer and filled it with some mead from an bottle on the table.

“Here, drink this and tell us your idea. If anyone manages to find a way to turn the tables it’s you.” She smiled at him and Al nearly struck the cup from her hand when she offered it to him, he had completely misjudged her.

“Winter, have your men take care of the families, no more bloodshed but I want them removed from the city within the hour. Have the scribes take over the business like planned.” Winter nodded and left the room with Train.

Serra stayed behind cleaning her short sword with a piece of cloth she probably got from one of the victims

“Well, I think I found a way to at least slow the enemy down, it looks like they are completely reliant on the supplies from cities. We have barely any orders for bow strings or bows here, arrows, yes but only the amount you would expect from a small group of bowmen.

I don’t believe they have brought many of those since woods make bows less effective than in the plains they come from.” Era nodded her eyebrows were pulled together as always when she was on the brink of discovering something.

It seemed wrong now that Alaric knew what she was capable of, the nice woman he had known had turned into a murderer.

“You want to force them to split up and chase our scouts through the forests putting them into a disadvantage as we know the terrain and have hunters while they are used to open battles.” Serra looked up, her eyes fixating on Alaric.

“The boy has an idea, if we face a couple of them at a time and drive them into ambushes it doesn't matter how many of them there are.” Letra got back on his feet, shaking slightly as he watched the corpses.

“Well done Alaric! That's why I keep you around. Serra send word to the troops we need to get them into the forests as soon as possible have them get the feel for it.

Also, when is Autumn due to arrive? I thought the pyromaniac was supposed to be here a week ago?” Serra snorted at the last sentence.

“Autumn does whatever he wants, you know that as much as me. But he should be here within the week. People have been spotting smoke columns closing in on us.” Era nodded and Alaric was caught at a loss, Autumn?

“Have him test the recruits and scribes as soon as possible, also keep him away from the wooden buildings.”

Alaric was about to ask who Autumn was supposed to be when the doors opened and two more soldiers entered, they were carrying a litter between them.

“Have them burned out back and get the clothes cleaned, I suppose we can sell them.” Era remarked and Alaric decided he would need to figure out who Autumn was another time.

“Al, get your friend back to bed, then return and we can see what strategy you came up with. I expect you to continue your work.”

Alaric turned to go before Era spoke again.

“No word about this to anyone, as far as we know two spies killed them and were then hunted down by Winter and his men.”