“David has graciously agreed to help us,” he interrupted. “Isn’t that nice?”
David set a hand over his heart. “I am nothing if not nice.”
Lips tight with displeasure, Bowenn sat in silence while Kywyn hid his smile behind a cough.
Sean lowered himself into the same chair he’d used yesterday, and David pulled up one beside him. “We sorted everyone by race yesterday and started assigning them into squads,” Sean explained to him, though they’d already discussed this.
“How big are the squads?” David asked.
“Five or so,” Bowenn answered without looking up from his current stack of papers.
“Shouldn’t you consider making some larger squads for bigger areas?”
Bowenn’s eyes slowed on his current page. “Perhaps. Or perhaps we combine squads for areas that need greater coverage.”
“You have hundreds of warriors here,” David said, gesturing to the table. “That makes for dozens of squads. They’ll need to be grouped with a common commander.”
“This is what my Shamans will do.”
He dipped his chin. “And what about squad leaders?”
“The squad member with the most experience will lead,” Bowenn said with finality.
David picked up a sheet of paper, his long fingers careful with the page as he studied its contents. “Experience doesn’t necessarily equate to leadership skills.”
Bowenn opened his mouth.
“Look at Sean, for example,” David said, the corner of his mouth quirking a smidge.
The pixie answered with a frown, “He’s an exception.”
David’s gaze stole toward Sean. “You hear that? You’reexceptional.”
He shrugged, making a show of skimming his document. “I tried to tell you.”
David cleared his throat, more serious now. “Leaders should be assigned by aptitude, not experience.”
“I must say,” Kywyn interjected, “I do agree with him, Bowenn. Devas, particularly, do not make the best leaders, no matter their level of knowledge.”
Bowenn grunted. “Because all they care about is fucking.”
Sean snorted, but David gazed upon the pixie with exaggerated adoration. “We’re going to be friends, Bowenn,” he said. “I can tell.”
After that, the tension eased, though Bowenn still eyed David with suspicion at regular intervals. Within a few hours, they’d made more progress than the previous day. Sean stretched and yawned while Kywyn organized their work into piles.
The next day, Bowenn laid out a large map of Viterra. “Tell me,Ashanta, where will we place these outposts?”
Sean gazed at the map, David at his side, and considered the sheer amount of space depicted. They didn’t have enough manpower to conquer the entirety of Viterra. The outposts needed to be strategic, positioned in places of high enough Indy activity to be efficient without incurring excessive danger.
He and David discussed at length, avoiding certain cities while arguing over others.
“Not there,” David would say. “They’ll be slaughtered.”
“That’s too far from the city,” Sean would point out. “It’s a waste of time.”
Luxoria had almost three hundred squads to send into Viterra. Ideally, at least a third could be on duty at any given time. That meant they’d need at least one hundred outposts.
As they considered exactly what this meant, both David and Sean fell silent.
