Chapter 59: Army without a General

Two full weeks had passed since the battle at Dragonsmourne. Despite the Ak'hims' slow travel speed, they will soon reach Divinatus. At their pace, it will probably take them another week or so. Scouts from Kazakiel's battalion had notified them that there were no armies chasing after them. This pretty much guaranteed that the Ak'hims have another month at least before the Alliance brings down their wrath upon them at Divinatus. It brought them some relief, though there wasn't much point if they couldn't utilize the time given to them well.

Thus, the Ak'hims decided to call for another meeting. To discuss once more what they plan to do once they reach Divinatus. All the remaining officers in the military gathered around the small table with a map of the location on it. Not only officers, higher-ranked troops like Poi, Aki and some of the mercenary leaders and the representatives of the reserve army were there as well.

Harbin viewed the meeting room. Despite the additional invitees, the room felt somewhat empty. Lots of officers and soldiers lost their lives in the ambush at Dragonsmourne. 

Although, at least when compared to last week, the people seemed to be doing well for themselves. Everyone had somewhat picked up the slack and had gotten past the sadness somewhat. They were still sad, but nowhere was the mood as depressing as it was one week ago. Even Poi and Parash who was utterly devastated seemed to look sharper and more determined now.

But not everyone has recovered just yet. 

Harbin looked further in the room and spotted a missing person among the crowd. Klauna, the general of the Seventh Army, was not in the area. The room was silent as they awaited what most likely could be the most important one out of all of them. 

The strategist. 

Though no matter how long they waited, she never came. It wasn’t like Klauna to miss out on a meeting like this. There were times where she would come late and there were the times where she would just attend and do nothing, but at the very least, she shows up— even if it was just formalities. This was the first time that Harbin saw Klauna actually ditching a meeting.

Giving off a sad look, Harbin looked over to the map in the middle of the room. It was then she noticed that something was off about the map. The map that was usually filled with markers and objects was totally clean. It then made her realize, it was Klauna who had always used the map. The other Ak’hims never really bothered to use it other than as a reference or to point out locations within the map.

*Clap

Saladis the Mermaid Queen clapped her hand before saying to all the people in the room: “We have waited enough. Let us not waste any more time and start discussing our plans for the future. The fate of the Kingdom lies with us.” 

Everyone nodded at her and started to discuss among each other, the strategies that they will adopt in defending Divinatus. They based their plan on Klauna’s initial predictions of holding out as long as they possibly could until the humans finally got tired of killing them. It was pretty much the only hope they have, and so they consulted each other on how best to do it.

Hours and hours passed as they talked before everyone went silent at having nothing else to discuss. In the end, nothing of substantial value was proposed. Everyone had pretty much the same idea, and the more non-standard of plans, the Ak’hims could only see would bring failure. Even the non-officers who the generals thought might have something that the officers could not see had zero ideas.

Understandable. They were fighters, not planners or strategists. Aside from combat tactics, they wouldn’t know much or be experienced in the larger scale of combat. Their final blow was when the Mermaid Queen Saladis, the only real leader they have in these moments, came up blank. She was a naval specialist, battles on the land were outside her speciality.

They were truly lost and without a solid plan. They always made fun of how crazy Klauna’s plans were, but they always worked and wow, how much they could use a crazy strategist like Klauna right now.

With nothing left to say, the meeting was declared over. For some reason, they didn’t feel like leaving just yet, still trying to think up something. They soon gave up as they devolved into mindless chatter with each other.

“Poi, Yuupiecca. Are you two doing fine for yourselves?” Lina asked the two.

“...Yeah. I’m fine. I can’t just mope around forever. I need to get something done. It’s the least I can do for him,” Yuupiecca answered back.

“I see,” Lina said before giving a look at Poi. Following her stare, the other people in the room looked towards her as well.

“You don’t have to worry so much about me you know? I’m a grown adult. I can handle this,” Poi said as she pouted. 

“I’m glad to see you are doing fine for yourself,” Medica said to Poi.

Poi smiled for a short while before showing a saddened expression.“... Senior Balestra said that I’m in charge now… I don’t know if I can meet his or the other’s expectations, but I’ll do my best,” she said as she looked at everyone with determined eyes.

“That’s for the best,“ Blackmask responded.

“So… what do we do now? If we are going to defend Divinatus, then I suggest we just speed our approach there,” Natahiniel said to everyone.

“We could, I guess. Can even have a head start at fortifying the place,” Kazakiel added.

“I think that would be the best approach as well,” Cera agreed with them.

“We can use the foresssssttt nearby to delay their movementssssss asssss well,” Shieska said.

“The ocean is my battlefield. We should not have a problem getting surrounded by naval weaponry as long as we are here,” Saladis said to everyone.

“Sami, Parash, you two ok with this?” Aberanis asked.

“Yeah, it’s doable, I guess,” Parash agreed to the idea.

“I have no objections,” Samiyadare replied. 

The idea passed around the table and everyone slowly agreed to the matter. All except one person, who just kept silent throughout the whole thing. She just stared at the map with a pensive expression.

“Harbin?” Poi asked aloud to get a reaction from her when they noticed that she wasn’t really participating in the meeting.

“Um… yeah?” 

“Are you alright? You’ve been awfully quiet the whole time,” Poi asked.

“No… It’s nothing. It’s just that… I’m not used to seeing an empty map like this,” Harbin said to everyone.

“An empty map?” Vargus asked. The minotaur had not been in much war council with Klauna, so the map had always been empty for him.

Harbin let out a soft smile before looking for something to place on the map. A set of red and blue markers. She then placed the red markers over the position where the Ak’hims were located before just tossing a bunch of blue markers all over the map, to signify the Alliance’s location. “I’m just more used to the map looking like this.”

The room was in full silence as the people in it heard what Harbin had to say.

“She would often just take an entire day or night, just rearranging these pieces and when she ran out of pieces she would just pick any random things off the floor. I had to scold her this one time because she used her panties as a marker once. The worst part is that she refuses to clean up. I have to fix the meeting room every time,” Harbin let out a sigh. She didn’t know why, but she just randomly blurted out things about Klauna.

“Yeah… I guess she could be quite annoying at times,” Yuupiecca added on.

Harbin then started moving around the small table. “You know… she would often move into different positions when looking at the map. Sometimes she would even just flip the map entirely. And there are even times where she would cut the map or even change the map entirely. Removing mountains and plains and changing the legends. I keep telling her not to do that. That Lord Klauna sometimes can really be a pain huh.” 

“Harbin…” Medica whimpered. Sad looks could be seen all over as Harbin continued to rattle on.

“I didn’t quite get it back then, but now I think I do. When you are in a situation like this… You have to think outside the box. We are always looking at the current situation, the current map, using the terrain or situation to our advantage. But she… she would always make the terrain. She would always make the situation suit her needs. She would always make the hard decisions.”

The others kept quiet.

“I know we need a decision now. That we are out of time and can’t wait for her. It may be our turn to make the hard choices. But… I want to at least hear her opinion before I agree to anything. I’m going to ask her one more time,” Harbin said to everyone. Her eyes flared with frustration and anger, though a little bit of hope shines through.

“I want to listen to what the true Klauna has to say,” Harbin said as she left the tent in a hurry.

“Harbin! Wait!” Medica yelled out to her before attempting to chase her. But she was stopped by Cera.

“Leave her be,” Cera said to her.

“Cera…”

“It’s about time those two ‘sisters’ talk it out with each other.”

Cera then turned to face everyone. “Is it okay if we postpone our decision to tomorrow. I owe them that much.”

The whole room nodded at Cera. They all owed Klauna and Harbin to a certain degree as well. They are about to die in one month anyway. It doesn’t matter if they slacked off for another day.

Kotohood

Thanks for reading! Next chapter will be on Wednesday, 29th of April 2020