Season 3: Episode 1 – Before the First Move

This series contains mature themes and is intended for adult listeners.

POV: Bryn Tal

> Begin Porta Cor imprint.<

Memories are the only things I can cling to in this empty cell.

I continue this imprint with the moment we left Che’el de Velg’lan, heading for the port city of Graywood to stage our battle to retake Teithia from Mallaidh.

Our capsule got close to Teithia, but not close enough for their spotters to see us. Our sources told us that the roads in and out, especially at the west gate, were heavily watched.

Everything was quiet on the roads. Too quiet.

We turned off the road miles before the spotters could see us, moved farther south, and finally turned hard east until we reached the shoreline.

Our capsule started to turn south again when Kylah said, “I’m stopping the capsule.”

My pulse quickened, and I looked out all the windows.

Then I noticed Dahlfia looking at Kylah. “Why?”

Kylah started moving, grabbing her gear. “I have an idea.” 

She gave us a grin that made me feel uneasy.

I opened my mouth to speak, but she stepped out and sealed the capsule behind her.

I watched her throw her pack over her shoulder and walk north.

Her silver-haired ponytail swayed behind her, and she still wore her desert attire.

I looked at Dahlfia, “Do you have any idea what that was about?”

Dahlfia laughed, “No. But it is Kylah. We should assume it changes everything.”

We arrived at Graywood not long after, and Oswalt came rushing up to greet us.

He looked between us both and then back to the capsule as we got out. “Where’s Kylah?”

“A fair question,” Dahlfia answered dryly.

He looked confused for a moment, then motioned me toward a building. “We have everyone set up inside here. Councilor Gaffdyn of Linton and Councilor Myr of Eleri have agreed to lead the parties into Teithia, as you requested. They only ask that they be allowed to choose the fighters that go in with them from their own armies.”

I walked with him, and Dahlfia took up stride just slightly behind me. “Agreed.”

“The other councilors have also gathered, and some like me will be staying in the administration portable shelter, where I assume you will also stay.” His little legs were trying to keep up with my longer strides as we approached the building.

“Maybe.” I deflected, and I heard Dahlfia cough behind me. I didn’t look back at her.

I straightened my shoulders and stepped into the doorway. All the councilors were gathered around a table with a small 3D version of Teithia laid out on it. “Councilors.”

Oswalt sank into a chair nearby to take notes. I moved to stand at the table with the other councilors. Dahlfia remained standing behind me.

Myr put her hands on the table and leaned forward slightly toward me, “We had reports that Che’el de Velg’lan was attacked.”

“Yes, Mallaidh split her army to attempt to shut us down there.”

Gaffdyn smirked at me, “But she was too slow.”

“She has caused damage to the community of Che’el de Velg’lan. How much, we don’t know yet. But we need to use this time while her army is split in half to attack Teithia.”

Councilor Dymuniad of Alban held up her hands, “Wait. We are still waiting for a couple more forces that are marching in from the west. We still don’t have the numbers to match half her army.”

Myr added, “And we are still waiting on a shipment of explosives from Thantos for one of the gates. We only have enough for two gates right now.”

Gaffdyn told Myr, “We need to move now.” And their conversation became drowned out for a moment by everyone talking amongst themselves. It felt like buzzing in my ears.

I glanced back at Dahlfia, who stood quietly watching, but she was watching me and not them.

I said, “We move now, while we have the advantage.”

If this fails, they all die because of me. I thought.

Dymuniad shook her head at me, “You’re putting a lot of lives at risk here.”

“I’m aware of it, but waiting could pose more of a risk to us than pressing forward.”

Dymuniad frowned, “Why are you rushing this?”

I leveled my gaze at her, “Because when the other half of what’s left of her army leaves Che’el de Velg’lan and rejoins, we will not have near the advantage we have right now. We move forward.”

Each councilor nodded, some more hesitantly than others. Finally, Dymuniad rapped her knuckles on the table lightly to show her compliance.

Oswalt stood up now, “I have a report that an unknown party commandeered the wagon from Thantos with explosives.”

Gaffdyn snorted, “Unknown party named Mallaidh’s party.”

“Well, we are not getting that third set of explosives now, for certain.”

Oswalt was looking for his glasses, and I grabbed them off his head and handed them to him.

During the exchange, he dropped some papers on the floor.

I turned away from him as he scooped up his papers and was reading. “Gaffdyn and Myr, I understand you wish to select your own people to fight with you as you enter the city, and I approve that request.”

Oswalt started flipping papers in a way that started to annoy me slightly with the noise, and I turned to look at him curiously.

He put his glasses down on his nose and began to read, “From the logs of Councilor Cyntaf, I had the architect of the city gates leave a mechanical housing unit outside the city on the north side. In this housing unit, I had them design a device that would open the north gate from the outside, so that my armies and I could enter the city from the outside during times of need or war, in case the gates could not be opened by an ally from within. This was approved by the first council of Teithia, 430, and put in place 445.”

He stopped reading and looked up at me.

The other councilors around the room looked surprised. Apparently, no one had heard of this before now except Gaffdyn moved to the paper Oswalt held and touched it. Cyntaf was her distant relative, one of the founders of Teithia.

“I remember my grandparents telling me about a way to get into the north gate from the outside. I think it’s that shed over near the willow tree grove toward the west side of the gate.” She stopped looking at the paper.

They were all looking at me.

“If it’s the shed that I’m thinking about, it will be difficult to get someone there without being seen by the spotters. We will need a very stealthy person, and only one person, to go in there and open the gates. You have someone like this in your command, Gaffdyn.”

She nodded to me, “I have just the one.”

 We spent about an hour with the councilors, filling me in on things like the number in their armies and the types of weapons and siege equipment we had on hand.

By then, we were seated around a table, and administrative helpers, under Oswalt’s coordination, brought us lunch.

“I want the bulk of the forces at the West gate, and I want us to be there loud and in good show. I want them to believe that is the only side we’re taking them from. Mallaidh will know I am most familiar with that gate, as I lived on that side of town and used it most of my life. I know the area around it well and what can be used to interrupt, trap, or forestall us through that gate.” I shifted in my seat to get more comfortable and noticed Dahlfia eating a sandwich in a chair right behind me out of the corner of my eye.

“Gaffdyn, if your stealth person succeeds in getting the gates open on the North side, I want you and all your armies to rush in as an element of surprise. They won’t be expecting the north for certain, never mind that it will be opened from outside the city walls.”

“The best of Linton are with me.” She declared.

“Myr,” she made eye contact with me when I called her name, “I want you to stay behind us when we split to move up the west side of Teithia. Stay back in the mountain pass until we’ve penetrated the west gate, and when most of their forces are busy engaging us there, you will come up and blast open the south gate and take it. The blast will grab attention, so have your fighters ready to engage once the rubble clears.”

Myr was about to say something when Kylah burst into the room, sweaty and out of breath. Somewhere, she changed her clothes back to her usual dark gray ones, but that unusual knife was still at her side.

“Fuck yeah,” she said as someone offered her some water. She gulped it down, spilling half of it down the front of her shirt. Dahlfia tried not to look amused but failed.

I quirked an eyebrow at her, waiting for her to finish this very loud scene that had every single councilor watching her.

Finally, she drained the glass and wiped her mouth off with the back of her hand.

“Two of the thirteen tunnels I know about under Teithia are still open, and they appear to be unwatched.” She blurted out without waiting.

I lifted an eyebrow at her curiously. “Did you attempt to traverse all 13?”

She nodded. “Yep. And then stole a capsule and hauled ass back here.” She grabbed a sandwich off a plate and took a bite. While chewing, she continued, “Four of the tunnels are completely collapsed, looks like some of the damage Teithia took when we fled. One had a Draigcarthffos in it. I could smell it well before I reached it, nasty sewer dragon.” She made a face.

“The other six had guard posts outside them. I could hear them talking.” She swallowed her bite.

“You can probably fit a small elite group of fighters into each tunnel without causing a scene. I wouldn’t send any more than 2 dozen per tunnel, though. Some places get tight in them.”

She took another huge bite of her sandwich and continued talking while chewing, “One leads to the center of town, Market Square, under the healing vendor’s stall. She’s closed and gone.” She swallowed and then took in a big breath, still winded from her journey, “And the other leads east of Market Square, closer to the Council Headquarters.” Then she belched. “Pardon.”

She continued to eat, and Myr leaned forward, interested. Gaffdyn and Dymuniad exchanged a whisper.

“It would be nice to have two groups of elite fighters coming to greet us at the North and South gates, so whatever comes up against Myr and Gaffdyn’s forces gets it on two sides,” I said.

The councilors seemed to agree on this one. Dymuniad spoke up, “Bryn, I think between your army and mine, we have the elite fighters we need for both. Who will lead these two groups into the tunnels?”

“Yes, we do have the necessary fighters between us,” I said, watching Kylah grotesquely shoving the whole other half of her sandwich into her mouth, and Dahlfia watching her with mild amusement still.

“We will send one group under Kylah’s leadership and one under Dahlfia’s,” I said to a shocked and silenced room.

I saw Dahlfia turn her head toward me. The weight in her expression was unmistakable, held there but not spoken. I held her gaze for a second.

I knew what that meant. The council placed her at my side to be my personal guard. I knew exactly what I was asking her to do at that moment.

“Dahlfia makes sense in this instance.” Dymuniad agreed, and then her gaze lingered on Kylah. At that moment, Kylah gave me a thumbs-up since she couldn’t speak with her mouth that full.

Myr spoke up before I could say anything, “Kylah just survived exile to the Plains of Du’Roi, a brutal fight to the death in the desert, and she has been Teithia’s tournament fighting champion for 189 years of the last 275. She killed nine guards in Bryn’s house by herself. I cannot think of anyone better.”

Dahlfia’s reports, which she circulated about Kylah, evidently did their job.

Kylah stopped chewing, hearing all her praises uttered out in one sentence like that, as if she was surprised to hear all her accomplishments laid out in front of her.

I stood up, “Well, let’s get moving. Everyone, to your places, and we head to Teithia.”

Everyone stood up and filed out. Outside, I could hear the councilors moving their armies and setting them in motion to the planned locations. Dahlfia remained seated.

“Kylah, why don’t you ride with Oswalt, and he can show you where your fighters will be waiting for you outside of Teithia?” She grabbed a second sandwich and a cup of water and gave me a mock salute with the sandwich before following him out of the building.

Once we were alone, I faced Dahlfia.

She was calm, but I could feel the tension underneath her cool surface.

I waited.

She waited.

“The council that you created as their first official order of business mandated that I would protect you at all costs.”

“Yes, they did.” I acknowledged.

“And commanding a group of 24 elite fighters into a tunnel underneath Teithia will remove me from that function.”

Her tone conveyed no anger, fear, or emotion at all; it was pure logic. In this moment where I could feel the tension that wasn’t in her tone, I wished I could tell her how much I loved her.

“Yes, I am aware of it. I will be in the Headquarters shelter with Oswalt, the other non-combatant councilors, and all the administrative staff coordinating the Porta Cor transmissions. If danger comes to us there, we likely have many more problems than you guarding me could solve.”

She stood up then and walked up to me. She stood barely an inch taller than me with her green eyes locked onto mine. Without blinking, she held my gaze for a couple of minutes.

I could sense she still felt hesitant, but realizing my logic was sound, she finally said, “Very well. That is what you have ordered, and so it will be.”

She began to turn on her heel to walk out, too, but as she did, I reached my hands out to hers. For one split second, I wasn’t sure she would acknowledge my gesture. But she did, taking my hands into hers and holding them there for a moment. Gently, she picked up my right hand and kissed it, let it go, and then walked out.

> End Porta Cor imprint.<