midway down the table.
“Consider this your Battle Brief,” Mira continues, side-eyeing Ridoc as he
scrambles back into his chair. “This morning was about a quarter of the patrol
we’d regularly fly, so normally we’d just be getting back about now and
reporting our findings to the commander. But for the sake of killing time, since
we’re in this room as the reaction flight for this afternoon, let’s pretend we’d
come across a newly fortified enemy outpost crossing our border”—she turns to
the map and sticks a pin with a small crimson flag near one of the peaks about
two miles from the Cygnisen borderline—“here.”
“We’re supposed to pretend it just popped up overnight?” Emery asks,
openly skeptical.
“For the sake of argument, third-year.” Mira narrows her eyes on him, and
he sits up a little straighter.
“I like this game,” another one of the Montserrat riders says from the end of
the table, lacing his fingers behind his neck.
“What would our objective be?” Mira glances around the table, noticeably
skipping Xaden. Last night, she’d taken one look at the rebellion relic on his
neck and walked by without saying a word. “Aetos?”
Dain startles from where he was glowering across the table at Xaden and
turns to face the map. “What type of fortifications are there? Are we talking a
haphazard wooden structure? Or something more substantial?”
“Like they had time to build a fortress overnight,” Ridoc mutters. “It has to
be wooden, right?”
“You are all so fucking literal.” Mira sighs and rubs her thumb over her
forehead. “Fine, let’s say they occupied a keep that’s already established. Stone
and all.”
“But the civilians didn’t call for help?” Quinn asks, scratching her pointed
chin. “Protocol calls for a distress signal this far into the mountains. They should
have lit their distress beacon, alerting patrolling riders, at which time the
dragons on patrol would have told all available dragons in the area. The very
riders in this room would have mounted first as the reaction force and the others
would have been woken from their rests, allowing the riders to prevent the loss
of the keep in the first place.”
Mira scoffs and braces her hands on the end of the table, staring us all down.
“Everything you’re taught at Basgiath is theory. You analyze past attacks and
learn those very…theoretical combat maneuvers. But things out here don’t
always go according to plan. So why don’t we talk about all the ways things can
go sideways, so you’ll know what to do when they do, as opposed to arguing
