Sword and Snow

Once Emery was in her battle gear and ready to go, things moved fairly quickly.

There was a fairly short series of goodbyes as Emery, Avuri, and Vale all walked down the line of lined up children. “Good bye”s and “good luck”s were repeated en masse, and hugs and “I love you”s were shared one after another.

Emery was thankful that they were hurrying along, because she knew if she spent too long at this she would absolutely get teary eyed, if not cry. All of which would be wasted time and energy because they would be back in a few days.

And she really didn’t want to blubber in front of her kids like that. She was supposed to be the cool mom, while Avuri was the more motherly one. Though she had to admit that those roles didn’t hold up as much as she would maybe like. And as they were saying their good byes, Avuri seemed much more in control and less on the verge of tears than Emery felt.

Once they had left the basin and Vale took to the air with the women riding in the crook of his arm, Emery and Avuri both leaned into each other for comfort though. Both were fighting misty eyes after the long farewells as they hooked arms around one another’s waists. Thankfully, they had some time before arriving at the city to try to either clean up after the tears or get them under control.

“Oh, good, you’re here.” Eiry said, looking up from the mess of papers and reports on the table. “We’ve got just a few hours before they reach average Qi distances, or so I’m told.”

“It’s still accurate.” Vyne and Ieji replied in unison. Eiry nodded and waved Emery, Avuri, and Vale in.

Emery and Avuri were happy to walk in and sit down next to Mica, Cove, and Glenn who were already seated at the table. Vale had been forced to land a ways away from the city to keep the whole dragon issue under wraps for now still, which left the three of them to run their way from a few kilometers out of the city to the large fortress that sat in the highest part of the city, right in the middle of it all.

The run itself didn’t take all that long, but everyone wanted to be in peak condition before the coming fight, which meant a little while to rest their legs would be appreciated.

“Everyone already knows the rough battle plans for today, but shall we go over it one more time?” Eiry asked the room once everyone had settled into their places.

“It can’t hurt.” Lyn agreed.

Ray scoffed. “I’ll listen again, but I still think when we show up we should demonstrate our strength, not just wait for them to attack first.”

“Rayeon,” Vyne said, rolling his eyes, “for the last time. The whole point of us even showing our dragon forms is to deter the fight from happening at all.”

“And I disagree with that.” He returned, crossing his arms petulantly.

“Ignore him.” Cyril waved his hand dismissively. “He’s just been itching for a fight and is upset he’s hopefully not getting one.”

“I’m gonna be the first one out there if something goes wrong.” He muttered, sounding so much like a child that Emery had to stop herself from laughing. He sounded just like some of the kids when they got upset. “I’ll leave you all in the dust and get to that fight so fast…”

Eiry rolled her eyes at his mutterings, but gathered the attention of the others in the room before continuing on with the explanations for the day’s plans.

“Alright,” Eiry took a deep breath before beginning her long winded explanation. “Based on what Vyne and Ieji have gathered, the enemy force will arrive within a few hours. Given Ieji’s original report regarding their intent to force us to stand down through force of numbers, we expect them to take up a post within fifty kilometers or so of the walls. We’re not expecting them to make any sort of offensive moves to begin, assuming they want to take the city itself without damage.”

“What they do from there is up in the air. We plan to already have everyone stationed in front of the gates. Emery, you’ll be up on the central parapet over the gate, ready to perform your show if they make any sort of move to attack. Avuri, Mica, and Ieji - you three will remain in a guard post inside the walls, but not too far away. Especially if you two,” she looked between Emery and Avuri, “are to remain linked.”

The women nodded the affirmative before Eiry continued. “What we do from there will depend on the Deposits’ people. If they immediately call for talks, you three will head out in our place. Avuri, stay connected to Emery so you can relay information as quickly as possible, especially if anything goes wrong. If they don’t act at all, we’ll do nothing as well. If they attack, we call in the dragons.”

“Are there contingencies? Or ideas for other routes they could take?” Mica asked.

“Not so much.” Eiry sighed. “We don’t really know what their plan is, so it’s hard to come up with too many contingencies, so we’re keeping it as simple as possible. I don’t think there are too many options they could take beyond those three options anyway, at least in broad strokes.”

“So I should appear and call you in if they make any offensive moves at all?” Emery asked.

“Yes.” Eiry nodded seriously. “You showing up and calling us in shouldn’t trigger any actual attacks if we simply appear without attacking.” She glanced over at Ray before continuing, “And calling us in as threats and back up will be better done sooner rather than later. From you, Emery, a knee-jerk reaction is fine. For us,” she looked around at the Elders and Vale, “we need to exercise caution. If we jump in too early, it could cause a bloodbath.”

“If they make any moves to attack one of ours, I’m not holding back.” Ray barked. “I will intervene.”

“And if they do make to attack us, that’s fine. Good even.” Eiry confirmed. “Just make sure the first move is not ours. Understood?”

“Yes ma’am.” Ray rolled his eyes.

The table quieted down for a moment after that as everyone thought about what they had to do and their role in the whole plan.

“If we do end up in talks with them, is there anything we can immediately agree to?” Mica asked. “Like bare minimum terms you would be willing to accept without us needing to retreat to talk to you?”

Vyne spoke up from there. “If they want to talk about entering a trade agreement, you are allowed to agree to set up a more in depth conversation. But I don’t think any of you know enough about how the city is run to make any sort of actual agreement on the spot, unfortunately.”

“If they’re actually serious about doing business with us, they’ll be willing to allow you to excuse yourselves to confer about any offers made. Especially when only three of the Elders are in attendance.” Cyril added. “If they try to force you into making a decision on the spot, then they aren't likely to approach the business in good faith and you can feel free to decline their offer.”

Lyn nodded in agreement. “If they try to force a decision immediately and you turning them down starts a fight, that is fine.” She smiled then, a sly thing that looked almost excited. “We told you not to worry about this coming to blows and that we could handle it if it does. I just wanted to reiterate that for you three. And promise you that if that’s what comes to pass, it is not your fault. Don’t blame yourselves.” She looked distinctly at Mica and Avuri while saying so, less worried about Ieji who was used to this sort of work.

In support of Lyn’s statement, Ieji added, “Discussions like that break down all the time. Even under perfect conditions when everything should go right, sometimes one thing will get said and everything spirals out of control.” They offered something akin to a reassuring smile, that likely just looked awkward to everyone except Emery. “I’ve seen communication break down for all kinds of silly reasons at talks like this. If we cause a fight because they weren’t letting us leave to discuss our options, that’s about as well as we could’ve done.”

The room fell under a thoughtful quiet after that, as everyone considered how many ways their individual parts could go wrong.

“I don’t want to sound defeatist or anything like that,” Cove began, “but given how many failure points there are to getting everyone through this without a fight, why not just go with Ray’s plan and jump them first?”

Ray sat up straight, excited to hear even just a little bit of support for his offensive strategy, but Eiry shut it down pretty quickly. “There’s a number of reasons, but the most important is probably how we appear to other major cities and traders. We don’t want to be known as the people who struck first, especially if they’re willing to talk first.”

“We’re mainly a city of artisans and traders, after all.” Vyne added. “Our reputation matters a lot when it comes to business dealings with other cities.”

“That makes sense.” Glenn said thoughtfully. “Better to be the defenders than the instigators.”

“Right.” Vyne said, then scratched his chin in thought as well. “We hadn’t really talked about it at all because it was pertinent to our situation, but it will be interesting to see what this whole situation does to The Deposits’ business opportunities.” He said to Eiry.

“It’s a good question. They’ve interacted nicely with us up until now, same as everyone else. If this gambit of theirs fails, they may have trouble on the horizon if the other cities they trade with turn them away, worried about a similar attack.”

“We should be doubly careful, then.” Ieji cut in. “If they’re particularly clever, they may try to bait us into attacking them early to gain a sort of reputational upper-hand. I didn’t see that level of cleverness in the camp while I was there, but it doesn’t mean they don’t have at least one cunning leader.”

“Good call. Keep that in mind everyone, and let’s all make sure we don’t make any early moves. We wait for them to make the first attack, no matter what.” Eiry commanded. “I’ll spread the word among the guards and hired Cultivators as well. We need our side to be as cohesive as possible for this battle.”

“They’ve already been told to wait to engage until a charge is called.” Ray said. “Do we really need to say more?”

“I’m not sure.” Vyne said. “We can’t exactly tell them that dragons will show up and to not attack until after the enemy has a chance to process that. Even if there are already rumors flying around to that effect.”

“We should just put out a blanket ‘defend only’ order.” Lyn said. “Only attack when attacked. Otherwise do not engage. If we join the battle ourselves, it will be easier to fight if our own Cultivators aren’t under foot anyway. Keeping them near to or on our walls is a good idea, I think.”

A chorus of agreements flowed around the room.

“Very well.” Eiry said. “We hold our forces back unless they are attacked first. Emery will make a show and call us to the battle as the enemy forms up outside and try to force them to back down or call for peace instead. If we can send Avuri, Mica, and Ieji for talks, we do. That will get complicated, so we’ll have to play that plan by ear. Otherwise, we will wait until they attack first before engaging. If they strike, we rout them, plain and simple.”

Eiry took a deep breath to steel herself for battle. “Understood?”

“Yes, ma’am!” Everyone barked back.