Medith took the crucial gift and tapped the Emerald Hawk’s dopey head, like patting soft moss under moonlight.

It leaned in and rubbed her cheek hard, like a warm feather sweeping dew.

“Mm?” She noticed a scroll tied to its leg, like a ribbon on a swift reed.

She slid it free, her jade-white hand trembling like a leaf, and scanned quick as a dragonfly over water.

It was a troop map, crisp as frost on glass, with numbers, arms, gear, and patrol routes marked like pins on a chessboard.

“This?” She saw it was real at a glance, like matching stars to a known sky.

The spots she’d glimpsed earlier mirrored it, like echoes across a valley.

“What is it?” Sais leaned in, her shadow spilling like ink, then fell speechless like a struck bell.

“Go!” Medith rolled the map and tugged Sais toward the war room, like pulling a kite into the wind.

...

The women had just bathed and were ready to sleep, steam fading like mist off a pond.

Medith called an emergency meeting, and Delaia didn’t mind, like a night watchman greeting the moon.

They meant to stay up anyway, and boredom lifted like a fog before a wind.

“Me… Commander, what’s wrong?” Iling almost spoke Medith’s name, then swallowed it like a pebble sinking in a well.

“This just came in.” Medith spread the map, the parchment blooming like a pale lake.

They took one look and couldn’t look away, like moths pinned by starlight.

“Gods, where did this come from?” Delaia’s shock snapped like ice.

This was top secret, the kind of edge that lets you arrange troops like stones in a river and cut currents clean.

“I don’t know. It was tied to the Emerald Hawk’s leg, like a message on the wind,” Medith said, puzzled as a cloud crossing the sun.

The hawk was clever and fast as lightning; a run from the Royal Capital to Xurenks takes days like a long winter road, yet it had crossed back and forth like a shuttle in a loom.

Catching it would be like netting a thunderbolt—so who caged its wings and made it carry letters like a tame dove?

As she wondered, the Emerald Hawk hopped to the map, like a green sprout on snow.

It nodded hard at a corner by the city gate, pecking like rain, a mark on a lonely house that seemed useless as a dry well.

Medith lifted it and set it on the sill; the hawk tilted its head wide-eyed like a child, as if asking why thunder got no answer.

“I’ll read it… 15,000 Mountain Bandits,” Medith said, voice steady as a blade on a whetstone.

“8,000 Segireneto guards,” she went on, ranks stacking like bricks.

“1,500 heavy infantry in Capital Grade Armor,” she read, a wall of steel like a cliff.

“800 in Northern Kingdom armor,” another ridge like dark pines.

“500 heavy cavalry, and 300 light cavalry,” she said, hooves in her mind like a coming storm.

“Known Regido users number 134,” each name like a spark in dry grass.

“Heavy Cavalry Commander Erig. Light Cavalry Commander Sinis. Allied chief Manto,” three stones in a river, key crossings to break.

“These three are priority targets,” she said, the words landing like nails in wood.

“Manto especially—he’s the backbone, like a spine under armor, battle strength unknown,” she read, a shadow behind the tent’s canvas.

“Erig is formidable, likely above Nessos,” a mountain looming behind mountains.

“Sinis’s strength is unknown but not low; he’s cruel and cunning, a snake in tall grass—be careful,” she said, her breath a thread of frost.

“The rest are ordinary guards and loose rabble,” she read, a scatter of pebbles on a road.

“The bandits have little true fighting power,” dry twigs before a wet storm.

“They have three Blackblood War Chariots,” she went on, iron thunder like black waves.

“Over a thousand Wind-Cleaving Arrows,” a sky’s worth of fangs in flight.

“The cavalry’s warhorses wear defensive Impado barding, tight as a carapace, with only eyes, nostrils, mouth, and hooves bare, like lantern windows in armor.”

“The cavalry’s defense is Capital Grade Armor-level,” a shell thick as winter bark.

“They’re equipped with armor-piercing [Piercing Divine Lance], and even Capital Grade Armor can’t stop a full-force thrust,” a comet drilling through night.

“Segireneto has ace-army discipline and reflex,” she read, quick as a hawk folding its wings.

“They hold a demonic faith, like fire locked in a shrine,” she said, voice low as dusk.

“They believe Ogathas IX was framed by a sky-splitting conspiracy, which led to the tragedy forty years ago,” old blood like rust on iron.

“They crowned themselves beyond the wall, and we don’t know what forces still nest out there, like wolves behind pines.”

“But they surely hate everyone in the Eastern Nation,” venom pooled like ink in a well.

“You won’t believe what I saw…” the line trailed off, like a candle guttering before dawn.

“Hope the above intel helps you,” it ended, neat as a stamped seal.

When she finished, sleep blew away like ash, and cold sweat beaded like rain on stone.

Their fresh baths felt wasted, like scent lost to a storm.

“Total, 2,300 elite infantry. 800 cavalry. Thousands of irregulars,” Milia counted, her voice thin as a reed.

“Those Blackblood War Chariots kill by the dozen with one shot, and a thousand arrows hit like a B-rank Sprite’s full draw,” she said, the numbers piling like snow.

“My god… with that kind of strength, a straight assault on Sya might not even fail,” she whispered, dizzy as a turning lantern.

Her small flame of hope hissed out like a candle in wind.

Medith bit her pink nail, thoughts circling like a hawk: fear first, then focus like a drawn bow.

“These are small problems. The key is how to stop 800 cavalry on the charge,” she said, the word “charge” like a tide against rocks.

A cavalry charge is terrifying, a flood with iron waves.

The buildings will cramp them like thorns in fur, but the walls won’t hold, brittle as dry reeds.

Impado horses will punch through, and maybe we cut thirty percent of the force, like blunting a blade’s tip.

“I can handle infantry,” she said, laying stones like a mason.

“We seize every high ground nearby, and set shields and spears in a defensive line,” a palisade like a spine.

“That should hold an hour at least, time enough to feel for a seam, like fingertips finding grain in wood.

“The key is heavy cavalry,” she said, the words heavy as rain.

“With too few hands now, one Impado charge could leave us without graves, like leaves scoured from a stream.

“My lord, do you have a better way?” she asked, eyes steady as night stars.

Delaia’s mind spun fast, like wheels on frost.

“If they split up, not so scary; massed, they’re a hammer,” she said, a drumbeat in the chest.

“Erig was a former Knights Commander, so he knows cavalry like a smith knows iron,” she added, heat under calm.

“I think their main field will be the front of Lachesis—right where that secret chamber sits,” she said, pointing like a compass needle.

“Likely 500 heavy cavalry push from the front,” a dark river over stone.

“We send 1,500 to lay as many traps as we can,” teeth in the grass like hidden thorns.

“Front row, 600 shield-bearers to block,” a wall like a turtle shell.

“Second row, 400 spearmen to brace,” a hedge of spears like winter reeds.

“Rear, 500 archers on high ground to shoot horses,” a rain of thorns from cliffs.

“That’s the main field because it’s the front,” she said, flat as an anvil.

“The other three approaches get ad hoc works and obstacles,” wicker and stone like ribs.

“Split 2,000 there, roughly 666 each,” she said, the number tasting like iron, “and it still feels…”

She sighed, long as a night wind.

The women’s hearts went ash-grey, like coals after rain.

The gap in numbers was a canyon, wide as a dried sea.

“My lord, are you sure the main field is the East Wall?” Medith asked, doubt first, then reason like water.

“If we deploy wrong…” The memory of Nessos rose like a scar.

One wrong ground choice, and without traps and terrain, they’d never have let them reach the gate, like wolves stopped in a ravine.

“I’m sure,” Delaia said, firm as a stake in earth.

Medith still hesitated, like a bird on a branch before storm.

Kasda threw in a hard pledge, like a spear in the sand.

“If my lord is wrong, I’ll fix it on the field myself,” he said, voice bright with trust and pride like a morning blade.

Light touched Medith’s eyes, like dawn on armor.

“In that case, I’ll fully support my lord’s moves,” she said, resolve settling like a helm.

“Lord Kasda, I trust your strength. Please follow these orders to the letter,” she added, her tone a taut string.

...

After a long exchange, Medith laid out her plan, each step clicking like locks in a gate.

The others praised it, voices rising like larks.

Her use of their trump cards felt ruthless, like playing thunder as a flute.

Phiby listened and, remembering her past, felt the chord resonate like a drum in her chest.

“Phiby, Iling, Milia—split to the three approaches,” Medith ordered, calm like a still pond.

“Don’t overstep. Without the local captains’ leave, you’re guests, not masters,” she said, the boundary clear as a painted line.

“Even so, I’ll transfer command to each captain,” Delaia said, handing reins like passing a torch.

“That’s best,” Medith nodded, a seal pressed in wax.

“It’s settled. Prepare for tomorrow night,” she added, the words a bell at dusk.

“Everyone else starts on traps and works,” she said, posts and pits like teeth growing from earth.

“That’s it for tonight,” she finished, weariness pooling like ink.

They stretched with soft groans, like cats after rain, and finally could sleep.

They drifted off to their small rooms, pairing off and curling together, like swallows in eaves.

Delaia only shook her head and chatted with Kasda till dawn, words like embers keeping the dark at bay.