While Amalarys had been interested to hear our report on the skirmish with the limited forces of Malagost city, that paled in comparison to the interrogation of the Mistress. We gathered in a room I’d never seen before, with no windows to the outside world. There were only candles to keep the room alight. It was centered around an oval table, chairs evenly dispersed around the perimeter.

Amalarys had taken up her seat the far end of the table, flanked by evidently her most trusted agents: Ethel, Veronica, Betty and Lenny. They sat off to the side. The cabal now had a confirmed face. There was perhaps one head missing from that group, but it wasn’t as though replacing Javier was an easy task.

The Mistress had brought her own retinue. Her bodyguard, a trusted arena combatant, and the military adviser noted out on the road.

Seemingly as in the role of a mediator my team sat in the middle, waiting expectantly for the deliberations to begin. While we were obviously affiliated with Titan City, our prior conduct with the Mistress put us as the party most likely to help meet the other party’s goals. It was a courtesy for us to even be present for these talks, but that didn't’ mean we would fight against the opportunity. We needed to work twice as hard to compete with the predators. More opportunities to shine were merited.

“Welcome to Titan City, Mistress. I wish we could have welcomed you on better terms, but it seems as though you’ve got a lot to share with your arrival in our walls.”

“They’ve certainly seen better days,” the Mistress quipped back. “Was that a reflection of not being sufficiently prepared for the attack?”

“Don’t you start with us, given you’ve run away from home with your tail tucked between your legs. Do you want us to hear you out or would you rather we reject your stay altogether?” Amalarys replied, slamming the table.

The Mistress sighed, slouching into her chair. “Sorry. Still on edge. Haven’t gotten a proper night’s sleep in days. Please forgive my impertinence.”

“Understood, but don’t speak so carelessly again in my presence, alright?”

“Very well. What would you like to know?”

“Let’s start with what needs to be known the most. Are you officially cutting ties with Malagost?” Amalarys inquired.

The Mistress folded her hands over her lap, teeth pulling at her taut lips. “I don’t know if we can even properly call it Malagost anymore. That city has fallen to its own internal strife. The hate for those with predator beast souls has risen to the point where coexistence is no longer feasible. While in the wake of the initial regime change there was some degree of approved violence, the clime had escalated to outright daylight hunts. Neighbors could no longer be trusted. Bounties were put out. Friendships paled for getting ahead in this new world order.”

While some of the others took notes, I just watched the Mistress’s face, studying the subtle shifts in her features. The sunken eyes, the furrowed brows, the down-turned corners of her lips. While she was keeping a stiff upper lip, her visage threatened to break, held together only by her force of will. All to maintain the image of control that the Mistress had sculpted for herself for all this time.

“They’ve been working on getting a running militia for all the prey beast souls. I don’t know how effective they are, given my people didn’t choose to join them. Every one of my fighters that came with me is willing to fight against their impending invasion, because it’s all but guaranteed they’re going to come to wage war. Especially with that throw-away force they leveraged. Those runners are going to tell about the ruined walls, Perry.”

“They were already going to invade, Mistress. We both know this. I wanted to send a message,” I replied, needing to defend myself from her barbed words.

She sighed, body loosing tension for all of a moment before she tightly reined in her control once more. “You’re not wrong, I suppose. If they didn’t come back that would have been justification enough on their own. What are you doing with the prisoners?”

“They’re locked up, of course. That’s where refuse belongs. In our jail,” Amalarys replied. “Tell me more about the militia though. You have to know more than that.”

“It was quite harder to get my informants to keep on relaying the information to me once they joined. They’re evidently quite effective at breaking down the will of their recruits, because while they were thankfully kind enough to not immediately rat us out, they no longer felt obligated to repay me in turn with knowledge. So I can’t say how effective they as a military might, but they’re certainly devoted to Malagost, twisted image of the city it’s become.”

“Just what we needed, zealots,” Amalarys grunted. “While they certainly could be training their people in preparation for spike feeder attacks—”

“—their actions suggest otherwise,” the Mistress said, completing the thought.

“Well, if war wasn’t already likely, it’s now escalated to on the precipice of occurring. The nobles are aware, mind you. Couldn’t have some sabotage from their absence of knowledge. I may be reckless at times but I’m not that foolish to try and incite my city’s backers to fuck everything up.”

She was incensed, her last words getting louder and louder. She had left her seat, slamming the table to punctuate her rage. The room was growing far too heated for my blood.

“Let’s sidestep your city’s internal strife for a moment,” the Mistress said, seemingly in an attempt to deescalate the matter. “”What’s our plan to handle this war?”

“Our plan?” Amalarys said, residing back in her seat once more. Her face was still red but she was back in control.

“Yes, our plan. I thought it was clear we were throwing our lot in with yours.”

“Oh, it was. I just liked to hear it said again,” Amalarys replied, wearing a toothy smile.

The Mistress wasn’t one to be upset by such a thing. She was tempered under stress. Mere trifles wouldn’t compare.

“So, what do you have? I presume you’ve prepared something for situations like this?” she asked, unable to be deterred.

“Well, our plans when it came to potential conflict with Malagost had been a little more sparse, by nature of the geography. We’re naturally at the higher ground. There’s reasonably one way from there to here, which is the very road you came from.”

“What’s the unreasonable path then?”

“The very same spike feeder infested forest. The question is whether they’d be more willing to risk whittling their forces down on the monsters lurking in the shadows, or if they want to try to approach through the obvious route.”

“We can’t assume that they wouldn’t do so. War means taking calculated risks. Perhaps they would think it prudent to go against the grain.”

“But would they think that we think that they would do so, and therefore they would just go down the main road? We can’t recklessly allocate our resources,” Amalarys replied.

“We need some sort of modular defense network. Scouts to reposition the troops, although I think the core positioning would be along side the road. The issue with that is if they commit to one side, while we have our troops split on both sides.”

“I agree. It’s a matter of sufficiently knowing what the enemy is going to do, lest our troops get stretched too thin. We’ll have to win the intelligence game lest we get overrun in our ignorance.”

The pair sighed, while the rest of the room looked in, struggling to keep up with the momentum of the conversation.

“What can we do then, if we are being so indecisive or unsure about preparing for the assault?” Ethel interjected.

“We’ll have to be more prudent about what we can protect then. Perhaps we focus less on heading them off and develop scouting forces to harry them, while our main contingent is outside of our walls. The refugees obviously need to be ferried into the city. There’s likely not much more time to reconstruct the walls either, meaning we need to allocate our forces to guard the perimeter. Even if the walls are partially ruined, what still stands is present and a means to drive the enemy into taking a path that we can plan around,” Amalarys said.

“Where are going to put everyone then? We didn’t finish repairing all of the housing. There’s still refugees outside the city this moment,” Ethel replied.

“I guess they’re going to have to go to the training grounds, like we initially had after the spike feeder attack. We might even need some of our citizens to volunteer to take others in. We’ll have to see how much space we have in the end. It’s really quite unfortunate to be attacked this soon to our last attack.”

“That’s one way to describe it. I would say it’s an opportunistic moment grasped by the enemy,” the Mistress replied.

“I didn’t want to be so discouraging to our team here, Mistress, but you’re quite right. They saw our exposed flanks and decided to act upon the opportunity. Despicable. How strong are your troops?”

“There aren’t as many as you have, but the ones that are present are potent fighters. At least, they’re well trained compared to most of Malagost’s new guardsmen, although to what extent is uncertain.”

“Perhaps we can use those as part of our defenses. It’s not as though you’re familiar with the territory. Having you in our woods might bog down our scouting party, but learning a new city where you’ll be entrenched might be a requirement,” Amalarys thought aloud.

“I think that could work. I’ll speak with the boys,” the Mistress replied.

“Ethel, Veronica, Betty. You’re going to be my scouting party heads, as usual, alright?”

“Understood,” the girls chimed in unison. “Classic hit and run tactics?”

“You know it. Don’t get caught but do cause harm. We win the war by surviving, not by getting caught and dying.”

“Can’t say this is the first time I’ve had to fight other people,” Veronica said, “but it will be the first time that I won’t hold back. They’ll learn not to mess with Titan City.”

“I hope so,” Amalarys sighed. “I don’t know if we even have enough people to fend off a siege on the city as it is. I’m thinking we might need to do something a bit reckless. If our people are going to be under attack, we may need to recruit them into our fighting forces as it is. Our walls are decrepit. There’s no real way to guarantee the enemy won’t breach the perimeter.”

“You’re saying we need to setup a militia?” Betty inquired.

“You’ve got it in one, Betty. Lenny, I think you’ll do some basic training for any of our citizens who are willing to prepare for the invaders presence. We obviously can’t train them to our regular standards, but we can perhaps teach them some useful tactics, some basic applications of their beast souls for combat purposes, and work on a plan of warfare to avail of their presence within the city. I’m sure you can think of something.”

“I’ll have to, won’t I?” he grunted, scratching at his bald head. “What are your thoughts on explosives?”

“Let’s table that discussion for later,” Amalarys said, glaring at the shark man. “We’re not done with our overarching details. Mistress, what do you think our time line is with regards to their invasion?”

“Given the nature of moving an army, it could be within the next week. Going from here to there with no stops takes a day and some change, but if they’re risking going through the woods, navigating to the higher level will take even more time. My conservative estimate is within three days, while my hopeful estimate is the end of the week. It depends on what their plan of attack is.”

“I guess we’ll have to start sending out our scouts then as of tomorrow,” Amalarys replied, rubbing her temples. “Just as a precaution to see if their own forces are doing their own scouting. It’s a shame we won’t realistically be able to get any further information from your leftover sources, but I’m sure anyone going towards Malagost will be treated with scrutiny, and anyone leaving it perhaps even conscripted into their forces. Even then, the amount of time to get there and back is essentially the same timeline for their attack on our city. There’s just not enough time for any further intelligence work. We’re in the realm of guesswork and luck now, really.”

“Well, we’re a strong city, Amalarys. I’m sure Titan City will endure this attack, much as it endured your prior one.”

“Hopefully we’ll endure better this time,” Amalarys replied with a grim stare. “I didn’t like our losses then, and I don’t want to add to those losses now. Mistress, Lenny, Betty, Veronica, Ethel, you’re with me after this meeting. We’re not discussing the particulars. The rest of you go get some rest, as your duties will start up tomorrow, understood?”

Those of us not named rose to our feet and departed the room, trudging towards the looming future and the latest crisis that threatened to upend our lives. Conflict was at the doorstep of Titan City once again. This time I wouldn’t let it get harmed to the same degree. This time I would work harder and faster to ensure that everyone came out fine. This time.