“I will act as Dias’s proxy in the field, overseeing our activities,” Aymer continued. “Should we enter battle, however, Mont will take over.”
This was a covert operation first and foremost, she explained. Diplomatic trouble was to be avoided wherever possible, and she was against the idea of leaving everything to a military man.
“More importantly, I believe I am right in stating that neither Mont nor any of his forces understand the native beastkin language. And what about me, you ask? I studied the dictionary we received from the Peijins and should be able to communicate without issue should it come to that!”
Aymer puffed out her chest a little. She looked mighty proud of herself. Mont looked like he wanted to say something, but when he opened his mouth no words came out. Instead, after a little thought, he nodded—albeit a little reluctantly—to show he agreed to Aymer’s terms. Alna saw the interaction and grinned.
“I think we’ll all feel relieved with Aymer in charge,” she said. “She’s been with us since the early days, and she lives in our yurt. She’s heard the stories you’ve shared with us of your time in the war, and she’ll know what decision you’d make in pretty much any circumstances.”
Alna looked at me expectantly. Truth be told, I was a little relieved too. I thought sending Aymer in my stead was a much better idea than sending me, and I was confident she’d see us through to success.
“Well, all right then,” I said. “If Aymer’s willing to be the commanding officer, I want to put her in charge. I know it’s a little extra pressure on you two, Mont and Marf, but I want you to listen and follow her instructions. Seeing as we’ve pretty much settled on a plan of action, we’ll need to fill Iberis in on the details. He’ll be transporting more than just supplies though, so we’ll need to prepare boats for them. Everybody okay with that?”
Everybody around the table nodded, and Marf dashed from the yurt like lightning to bring Iberis over. Once Iberis was up to speed, he put a hand to his chest and addressed all of us.
“You don’t even have a responsibility to your neighbors, and yet here you are, prepared to save as many lives as you can. There’s nothing else to call it but awe-inspiring. It would be an honor for us goblins to aid you in your efforts, and we will give it everything we have.”
You could hear the pride in every one of his words.
With the key points covered, Aymer hopped right into action.
“Well, we’ve got Iberis on board, so now we need to confer with the onikin and the Peijins,” she said. “Our whole plan is a wash if we don’t have the onikin concealment magic, and we’ll need the Peijin family’s support to be at our most effective. If we can’t get both sides to help us, we’ll have to start over from scratch.”
Aymer was going to have Sahhi send word to the onikin and the Peijins. In the meantime, she’d get to work on a way to mask the expeditionary party’s scent. Concealment magic hid targets from sight but did nothing for the other senses. Aymer hoped to mask their scent with whatever foods were popular in Beastland, or otherwise spices and perfumes.
“I’ll need your help with our preparations,” said Aymer to the lostblood brothers. “We’ll have to be able to fool your noses if we want any hope of working covertly across the border.”
Aymer then turned to me.
“What’s important before we start on anything else, however, is deciding how this ends. I propose that our longest period over the border be two weeks, but if we’re able to efficiently weaken the insurgent forces, we’ll return home earlier. There’s no need for us to see things through to the very end. If we do have to be there any longer, it’s probably over for the Beastland Kingdom as we know it. Oh. On that note: Ellie, will you please do a rough calculation of how much you expect two weeks’ worth of food to cost?”
Mont, Hubert, and Ellie all followed Aymer as she bounded out of the yurt, then split as they received their instructions. The air around them spread through the village, and suddenly Iluk was once again bustling. The excitement showed no signs of stopping, and I found myself wandering off.
Eventually I saw the temple come into sight, and not far from the building side was Uncle Ben. He was sitting on a length of carpet and talking to some baars, and they were lying around listening. As I got closer, I saw that it was Ethelbald and his wives. His wives were looking very plump now, and I had a feeling they’d give birth right in the middle of winter.
I bet their kids are going to be just as rambunctious as Fran and the others...
“What’s wrong? Why the long face?”
Uncle Ben called out to me when he noticed me staring at the baars, and I wasn’t sure exactly what kind of face I was wearing, so I told Uncle Ben about the discussion I’d just had.
“I see,” said Uncle Ben, stroking his beard thoughtfully. “Look, Dias, here’s what it comes down to. You’re the type of person who likes a battle where you know exactly what you’re protecting. Back in the war, you were looking out for Goldia and your friends, and by extension the nation you called home. Here in Iluk, you were protecting the village whenever you fought dragons. And over in Mahati, you fought for your good friend Eldan. And while on one hand you could look at what’s happening out west and say you’re protecting the Peijin family, there’s nothing attacking them directly, is there?”
Uncle Ben had hit the nail on the head. He knew that even though we were helping the beastkin people, it was their own nation that had chosen the path towards insurgency. We didn’t have anything to do with it, so essentially we were just butting our noses in.
“Now I know you, and I know you want to help Peijin and Kiko,” said Uncle Ben. “I know you want them to live in peace next door. But no uprising has actually really taken place yet, and while you’re all moving to stop it before it starts, in your heart you can’t help thinking that this is their responsibility, not ours. You feel the way you do because your mind can’t quite grapple with what’s in your heart, so you can’t put it into words. It might’ve been different if you’d actually visited the Beastland Kingdom yourself, but regardless, that’s where you stand.”
“Yeah...maybe that’s it,” I muttered. “But even now that you’ve explained it all to me, I don’t feel any real relief.”
For some reason, my defeated comment only brought a grin to Uncle Ben’s face.
“If we break it down, then basically it’s like so—if we’re only thinking about ourselves, we should take action. Still, your heart can’t get behind that idea. In all the battles you’ve fought until now, you haven’t had to give fighting a second thought—you’ve just thrown yourself right into the fray. Now it’s different. I think part of it is that we’re planning to hide what we’re doing. We’ll be working undercover, and that doesn’t sit right with you.”
Uncle Ben explained that if I were speaking for just me, I probably would have voiced my opposition to Mont’s plan. But now that I was a domain lord, I had to value the opinions of my subjects, and that was weighing on me.
“Let me share some advice with you, Dias. Your ability to take action without hesitation is a virtue of yours, and if something’s stopping you, then you should listen to that feeling. But if you still can’t come to terms with things, then look over here...towards the bellies of the baars. You see what Ethelbald’s wives are asking of you? They want you to be here with them, to protect them. You can see it in their eyes. I know you’re a busy man, so I try to be here with them when you’re at work, but make no mistake—it’s you they want. So stay here, Dias.”
Set my mind on the baars was the lesson here, more or less. In fact, don’t even give myself time to think about anything else.
“Now go and make sure the carpet’s ready at a moment’s notice, you hear?”
I looked from Uncle Ben to the baars, and all of Ethelbald’s wives looked sad—on the brink of tears, even—and they were bleating in this pleading, begging kind of way. To be honest, it all looked a bit forced to me. But even though I knew it was probably an act, wouldn’t you know it, I still felt like a weight was lifted. I felt like I could smile again, and I went around giving each of the baars a good pat on the head.
“Yep,” I said. “I’m going to do exactly that, Uncle Ben.”
Uncle Ben looked mighty pleased.
“You just leave all that ruckus next door to the others,” he said, nodding. “They’ll do a better job out there than you could any day of the week, and they’ll see that everything comes to a fitting end.”
I knew he was right, but boy was he blunt about it. That was when Alna ran up to me.
“Dias, you didn’t look so good when you left the assembly hall. Is everything okay?” she asked. “I’m sorry if it feels like we forced your hand. If you don’t like the way things went, we can always talk things over again. We can work out another way to do things. Wait a second... Why do you look so content all of a sudden? What happened?”
“Thanks, Alna,” I answered, “but it’s okay now. I’m just going to leave the Beastland matter to Aymer. Meanwhile, I’m still plenty useful here, so I’ll do my utmost to support Etheldia and the others. Some of the dogkin are pregnant too, right? There’s still lots to be done right here at home, and that’s all I need to be worried about.”
I put a hand on Alna’s head to reassure her, and after a brief instant of surprise at my sudden change of mood, she broke into a great big smile of her own.