Chapter 595: Targeting The Innocent?
"Thank you, Lord General," Ashlynn said with a warm smile for Thane before she surveyed the other leaders gathered around the table. Savis seemed to be recovering from his earlier clash with Thane and was looking at the map as if it were a side of beef, ready to be carved up into choice targets that he would be able to sink his claws into. Tausau, sitting next to him, had been very attentive, listening to the plan as Ashlynn unfolded it and committing each piece to memory.
Several of the people around the table who knew Ashlynn the best were waiting to learn their own roles to play in what was to come. Zedya knew that these opening moves weren’t the right place for her to contribute, though she wondered if her Lenny would be called to assist with Tausau’s Mongrels. As a veteran captain, he could be useful in coordinating, while a low-risk hunt might also be ideal for the new vampire to exercise his newly awakened powers.
Silently, Zedya made a mental note to speak with Ashlynn and Thane about it if neither of them brought up a need for Lenny in this opening phase of the war. She didn’t expect that they would neglect him deliberately, but if they thought he needed to train in the Vale the way Ashlynn seemed to intend on training her witches, Zedya was willing to speak up for something different for her progeny. After all, though she hated to see him face danger, she hated the idea of him going into battle with dull fangs that hadn’t been honed in the hunt even more.
Of everyone gathered at the table, however, Ollie looked the most uncomfortable, shifting nervously in his chair and appearing at several moments as though he wanted to speak but held himself back instead.
"Ollie?" Ashlynn asked before she resumed her explanation. "You seem troubled by something."
"Mother Ashlynn," Ollie said, sitting up straight in his chair and struggling to choose his words with exceptional care. During his trial to become the Cypress Witch, he’d been haunted by a nightmarish sun that burned in the night sky, destroying crops and slowly starving his people to death. Now that it seemed like Ashlynn was about to inflict the same cruelty on their enemies, he found it difficult to accept such a cruel form of warfare, even if it was needed to fill the bellies of their own people.
"This isn’t so much a question about the plan. I understand what we’re hoping to achieve and why, and I believe that we’ll be able to succeed," he began, wanting to distance himself from the older men in the room who seemed to question the viability of Ashlynn’s plan.
"But, what will happen to the common folk in the baronies?" Ollie asked hesitantly as all eyes in the room gathered on one of the youngest men present. Of everyone attending the meeting, only Hauke was younger, and the future Frost Walker lord had already worked to diminish his presence as an observer rather than a participant, leaving Ollie as the youngest person here with a right to speak.
"Are we condemning the farmers, the servants, and tradesmen of the baronnies to a slow death this winter in order to feed ourselves?"
Just asking the question, particularly phrased the way it was, felt like a test of his virtue of courage as he felt the weight of everyone’s gaze. Savis’s golden eyes and raised brow seemed to be silently asking Ollie if he was concerned about stepping on ants, while Marshal Jakob seemed to nod a bit too eagerly, as if he had found an unexpected ally in the conversation. It was the burst of hostility from the seat directly next to his, however, which put the most pressure on the young knight.
"Those common folk include the common soldiers who drove hundreds of villagers from their homes this summer," Virve pointed out, tapping loudly on the table with the sharp tip of a claw. "Even the farmers are grazing their cattle on lands that once belonged to our clansmen and neighbors, little more than a hundred years ago. If they suffer for choosing to settle on stolen land, why should we be bothered by it?" the Oak Witch said bitterly.