Cont. from Part Forty Three or Story Start/Part One if your just joining
The council rooms were not so large and even with just a handful of people it felt crowded and uncomfortable for Valar.
He cautiously followed Em towards the group of people congregated around a table in the centre of the room..no not a table, it was a map!
The map had figurines representing major assets, soldiers, boats, knights, horses and castles. Some small painted objects were also placed strategically presumably to represent the landscape, i.e. some toy trees representing a forest, some simply painted rocks for mountains, some strange brick shaped and painted for castles, it was crude but good enough to give a snap shot of the world.
The table top map was divided in several places with a kind of stretched out twine, presumably the divides representing parcel of lands or kingdoms. The entire table surface was painted, either brown for earth or blue to represent the oceans, rivers or moats...he had never seen anything like it before, yet it some how made sense.
Far on the left side of the table were some rocks, presumably representing the outer isles, his home. There were a large number of ships and soldier figurines with different coloured painted heads. He knew this represented the forces besieging the last Arkassor city...the city he was suppose to protect.
Looking away from the table he caught site of the lord, he was sitting atop an old wooden throne, a woman was whispering in his ear and they appeared deep in conversation.
An official looking soldier, perhaps a General? brought the crowd to order and he hovered over the table as he began to speak.
“As you know, the battle in the outer isles is only expected to last a few more months. Once the Arkassor forces are defeated the armies deployed will return to the their lands of origin at which time a new internal battle for land and power will become inevitable."
The General paused in thought, he scratched his chin and peered at the table.
“Until such time all the lands are maintained by the governing lords and each have varied strength militia or home guard enforcing their rule" he pointed to various figurines on the map as he spoke.
“To the North East of us is our closest neighbor the city of Krodos. The ruling lord is Marianna, a powerful wizard and her loyal troops are estimated at least 2000 strong.”
The General moved swiftly around the table and continued to speak.
“To the North West is Carrington, the lord ruling is Joshua, renown for his high quality slaves, his troops are estimated between 2000-3000 strong”
The General paused again, this time looking up at the crowd and then at the lord in throne.
“As we are in the far South our new Lord Nathan has decreed we are to conduct a preemptive strike at a neighbor immediately to push further inland. This meeting is to discuss this plan, we must decide whom to attack and determine how we can make this happen quickly!"
A number of whispers and discussions seem to be kicking off now and Em stepped forward to look more closely at the map
"What ya say our troop numbers were General?"
“Good question EM, even combined with you and your people we number around 250 fighters and many are equipped with little more then bow or spear”
The whispers now became full blown arguments sparking around the room, many were shaking their heads and others were arguing and pointing at the map.
It was clear to Valar it couldn’t be done, his mind drifting to his people and how he could get himself home.