Everyone sitting in the room flinched as Campmaster Pauline slammed her fist on to the table before her. Which, thought Captain Aziz, was rather impressive, given that half the people here were from the Assembly. “Listen to what you lot are saying! We don’t know why Liamar is attacking us, we don’t know how the Worldshaper is raising his forces, and we don’t know how to improve our own! We might as well not know how to eat and drink then! It’ll make that god’s life easier at least!”

The Campmaster tossed the papers she was clutching onto the table, and turned to the people from the Assembly. “Isn’t that Demigod Nox a chosen of the Human God? Where the hell is he when we need him most? So many of your citizens died from these…monsters, and he hasn’t appeared at all!”

“He’s still busy recuperating from that assassination attempt.” A woman stood up and replied. Captain Aziz narrowed his eyes — she was clearly someone from the Southern Houses’ younger generation, but he couldn’t remember her name.

“Cassandra de Varita,” Colonel Marie whispered into his ear. “She’s a Knight of the younger generation, from the still-intact city of Elinaris. She’s quite the diplomatic person…”

As opposed to Campmaster Pauline, eh? Subtle…

Captain Aziz shook with silent laughter as the Campmaster took on a wide stance, her arms akimbo. “Sure, he’s recuperating. But surely, he is able to speak and think, no? He must have known about Liamar’s descent. Why is he not saying anything? Or is he hiding somewhere, and you lot just don’t know where he went?”

“He is in Lumari,” replied Cassandra.

“And?” the Campmaster pushed. “Since you know where he is, why aren’t you asking him anything? Or are you waiting for when those red soldiers march into the city, and then you’ll ask?”

“That…” She glanced at someone else, the subtle movement drawing everyone’s eyes, including that of the Campmaster.

“You.” Campmaster Pauline’s eyes sharpened to a point. “Yes, you. Speak, or I’ll hang you up and barbecue you over the enemy troops when they next show their faces.”

The girl’s face paled. “The Demigod Nox has shut himself in to recover. None of us have managed to talk to him ever since he was attacked. We’ve no idea what’s going on inside either.”

“Wow.”

Captain Aziz suppressed a grin. Campmaster Pauline’s words were so caustic that they could melt city walls. Her single-worded reply was infused with so much emotion, she could have doubled as an actress on the annual Beastfolk’s Got Talent, and she would win handily.

To his side, Colonel Marie was shaking. Her face seemed neutral, but her fists were beating down on Aziz’s back quickly enough that he was feeling some pain from it.

After a minute, in which an awkward silence continued to persist, the Campmaster picked up the papers she had tossed onto and crushed one of them into a ball. Casually tossing it over her shoulder, where it bounced off the head of one of her guards, she said, “How’s the improvement of our arms coming along?”

A bespectacled man stood up, and started rattling off words. “We’ve managed to improve the penetrating power of the Straight Shots by three percent, for starters. We did this by…”

The technical talk continued, and Captain Aziz found himself zoning out. Most of the audience, by twenty minutes, were twiddling their thumbs as they tried their hardest to follow the entire conversation. Some of them were playing finger games with each other, while others were looking at the ceiling in a daze, as the energetic Campmaster dived into what apparently was the most boring subject a war council could ever hold.

“What’s with Campmaster Pauline?” Aziz whispered to the bored colonel.

She stifled a yawn. “Didn’t I tell you? She used to work in a research cell for low-level artefacts.”

“No you didn’t.”

“Now I did. Do you understand why I don’t sit in these meetings as much as possible now?” Marie stifled another yawn, and cast a piercing look at the captain. “We could have been training, but you just had to appear in her vision and remind her of our existence.”

Aziz rubbed his nose awkwardly. He had been sitting around in the hastily created canteen, exchanging gossip and curses with other officers, when Campmaster Pauline had wandered into the building in search of what looked like tea.

She’d left the canteen after forcing a promise out of Aziz to attend with his immediate superior, a promise that Colonel Marie hadn’t reacted well to…with rather painful consequences for Captain Aziz himself. He’d left her tent with a burning right ear, which had been twisted and turned into shapes that the man didn’t even know existed. The Zigzag Shot artefact, which she’d used to blast her enemy to death, had even made an appearance, under the guise of wanting to research how it moved around.

As Aziz wallowed in his misery and cursed the creator of the Zigzag Shot, the man’s talk came to an end. There was a slight delay, before enthusiastic applause broke out…but the captain was clapping because it ended, rather than for any oratory genius. Colonel Marie was applauding so quickly, her hands had turned into a blur, and for the next minute or so, the tent had been inundated with claps.

The Campmaster held up her hand, silencing the crowd. “There’s no major changes for the military side of things, so the meeting ends here. Distinguished men and women of the Republic, however, please stay behind for a moment.”

Half the tent filed out, and the captain suddenly found it far easier to breathe. He’d probably grown nervous from staying in the same place with the enemies he’d fought against for so long, and Aziz reflected on the absurd circumstances that had forced them to cooperate.

“The investiture of the Republic’s State Council will be a week from now, and we’ll be announcing the positions around tomorrow or two days later,” said Campmaster Pauline. “And then, we’ll be a true nation, in every sense of the word.”

Whispers filled the room immediately, and the Campmaster smiled. “In addition, the finalisation of our Constitution will be done on that day too, and we’ll be making it law throughout our territories. The Assembly will not be exempt from our laws, which opens a whole host of possibilities…”

Aziz exchanged a smile with Marie, as the Campmaster began to lay out how they could interact with the people of the Assembly, or, to put it crudely, how to plot against them. There were only a few days before the next wave of red soldiers came…but it seemed that the Campmaster had larger, more important things in mind.