Chapter 318: I Know Where I Belong (Part One)
Commander Bassinger’s revelation shocked everyone in the command tent. The number of people in this tent who understood the relationship between the Briar and the Vale of Mist could be counted on the claws of one hand, and even then, those few captains who had heard about Madame Zedya’s lessons from the Mother of Thorns were among the oldest in the tent.
"Has the Mother of Thorns fought the human exemplars?" one of the younger captains asked, blinking several times as his mind struggled to think about how else a powerful Witch from across the mountains could know so much about their human enemies.
"Witches have their ways of knowing," Commander Bassinger said before he pointed a sharp claw at the furry spider on Akshala’s shoulder. "She’s also a member of the Night Weaver Clan for one, so perhaps a Witch as powerful as her is able to send her eight-legged spies even further away than Miss Akshala can. Perhaps she has other methods of knowing."
"I’m not one to question what Lady Nyrielle tells me, especially when it comes from such a reliable source," the bearish commander said. "The important thing is that Loman Lothian displays none of the traits of an Inquisitor or Exemplar. He seems to be an ordinary priest, though he is a talented and strong one compared to what we saw from priests in the last war."
"So, now that we have this information," Milo asked hesitantly. "What do we do with it?"
"For now, nothing," Bassinger said, tapping the map to draw everyone’s attention to the notes written on small bits of paper there. "Our campaign of harassment served another goal. We bought time for Broken Rock Village to evacuate even the elderly. It now stands empty and ready for the next step in our campaign."
"For the next few days, Liam Dunn is expecting us to attack him and he’s making preparations to receive that attack," the commander explained. "We, however, will move to Broken Rock Village and prepare to receive their attack. Most of the residents were from the Horned Clan," he mentioned, giving a few of his captains a look.
"The walls aren’t tall enough to repel a human assault," one of them said, nodding with an understanding of the point his commander was about to raise. "They built their defenses to ward off wild beasts and to shelter their herds at night, not to resist human armies. They probably thought that it would be years before the Dunns penetrated so deeply into the wilderness, if ever."