Sen looked around the large tent where he’d called together the leadership of the mortal army and cultivators. He saw many grim expressions and so skeptical looks. Master Feng looked thoughtful. Sen had explained his misgivings and had Xu Xiao Dan repeat his thoughts. At first, everyone had been skeptical. As they continued the explanation, Sen was surprised to see that it was the mortal generals who seed most receptive. The cultivators, perhaps out of pride, didn’t seem to take the threat as seriously. He wondered if they actually believed that the threat had been reduced to dregs. It seed like it should have been the other way around.
The cultivators were ard with more information about and experience with spirit beasts. If anything, they should be more conscious of the threat. Warier. Either that, or they just think they’ll be able to beat back an army of any size, thought Sen. Damn that cultivator arrogance. He was relieved to see that the cultivators who had been with him from the beginning appeared to be taking the matter seriously. He supposed that enduring that siege had left an indelible mark on them. It was one thing to hear about a battle involving tens of thousands of spirit beasts. It was sothing altogether different to have fought in it.
Sen did his best not to let his gaze linger on Song Lan. Her face was a rigid mask, but her hands were locked around the arms of her chair. Sen could hear the wood creaking under the strain of her grip. He supposed her reaction wasn’t much of a shock. Of all the cultivators there, she knew best what the cost of failure against the spirit beasts looked like. Even Xu Xiao Dan’s Clear Spring Sect hadn’t suffered such catastrophic losses. He imagined that the prospect of another crushing defeat under overwhelming odds was almost more than the woman could bear. Sen knew he needed to steer the conversation away from thoughts of losing.
“I didn’t call you all here just to deliver bad news,” said Sen, drawing everyone’s attention.
“Lord Lu,” said one of the generals.
He was a lean man with deep lines around his mouth and the corners of his eyes. He wasn’t from Sen’s kingdom. They’d picked him up fairly early, though. Early enough that he’d earned at least a modicum of trust. Sen was fairly confident he’d heard soone call the man…Had it been Hu Kai?
“General Hu?” Sen hazarded.
The man’s expression didn’t even twitch, so Sen must have guessed right. Or the general had masterful self-control. It could be both, Sen thought. While he’d seen plenty of outbursts from mortals, so of them were shockingly disciplined about what they let show on their faces. The general paused, seed to gather his thoughts, and only then spoke.
“The situation you suggest is waiting for us, even if only as a possibility, is deeply troubling. Foreknowledge can allow us to avoid being taken by surprise. Yet, I struggle to see a good way to avoid it. Nor do I see any way that knowledge will let us benefit in a direct battle. The prudent path would be to stop moving forward and consolidate your control over the territory you already possess. That would allow you to enlist and train more soldiers. Enough that this clash would not be the death sentence it seems to be now.”
“Coward!” snapped one of the cultivators. “Our strength will more than make up for your mortal weakn—”
“Enough,” said Sen. “I did not call you together to bicker. I called you here to think. Consider. Plan. If you find yourself incapable of carrying out the basic tasks of thinking and being civil, then you may leave.”
A tense silence descended after that proclamation. The cultivator who had spoken swallowed hard and then bowed.
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“Forgive , Lord Lu. I will apply myself to these tasks.”
Sen gave a shallow nod and said, “Good. Now, General Hu, you were saying?”
“Lord Lu, you now control a truly vast territory. More than two-thirds of everything this side of the Mountains of Sorrow. It is an empire in truth. But assuming control and keeping control are two separate matters. Even if we disregard this potential threat, it might still be wise to slow your pace. Reinforce your rule over what you already possess. If the spirit beasts remain in force, we can always attack them again when we are stronger.”
The man wasn’t wrong about most of what he was saying. Stopping and solidifying his hold over the land he’d conquered was the prudent course of action. At least, it was if Sen’s final goal was to create an empire. History had recorded more than one kingdom that had been undone by expanding too much, too fast. If the spirit beasts were another kingdom that simply wished to capture and control territory, it was what Sen would do. Unfortunately, an empire wasn’t Sen’s final goal. It would be a byproduct. And the spirit beasts weren’t just another kingdom trying to seize territory. If they waited, they might arrive to find every man, woman, and child in those lands had been butchered. Before Sen could voice that, Song Lan spoke.
“If we do as you wish, General, we will find nothing but corpses when we do finally take those lands. The spirit beasts don’t want to suppress humanity. They want to end humanity. That is why Lord Lu has been racing from kingdom to kingdom, killing every spirit beast he finds. He’s trying to save the people he can before the opportunity is lost forever. If we wait, they will all die, as my people died. They will die beneath the teeth and claws of the spirit beasts.”
“Surely, the spirit beasts won’t butcher all of them,” objected General Hu. “That would be madness.”
The man sounded like he wanted soone to reassure him that the tales of genocide were exaggerations. It was an understandable reaction. The very notion was difficult to accept because it broke with so much of what humanity had co to expect. Conquerors killed, but only until they seized what they wanted. Once they had the land, they wanted people to farm it or mine it. They wanted craftspeople making crafts. Killing everyone was wasteful. But all of that assud that the conquerors wanted to rule the land. No one wanted to rule over a land of the dead. The spirit beasts wanted none of that.
They didn’t need farrs, miners, or craftspeople. The last thing they wanted was more humans cutting back the wilds to make room for fields or cities. That was to say nothing of cultivators who had long made a practice of hunting spirit beasts for their cores. The fewer of them there were, the happier the spirit beasts would be.
“Song Lan has the right of it. If we wait, we are likely consigning every man, woman, and child south of here to death. So, as wise as your advice would be in other circumstances, General, I will have to ignore it unless no other choice exists.”
Even admitting that he might have to halt his advance out of sheer necessity was hard for Sen. However, advancing into what could well be certain defeat and getting his entire army killed wasn’t a superior option. While he imagined that so in the room wondered where this newfound caution ca from, Sen saw understanding in Master Feng’s eyes. He had discussed the specifics of how he’d overco that siege with his teacher. The chances of the heavens sending him more storm clouds filled with heavenly qi to steal were abysmal. The chances that the spirit beasts would overlook such a thing a second ti were even worse.
That ant that Sen had to plan around the power he and those around him possessed. Given how low his reserves were after raising that city, Sen was not confident in taking on another army with a hundred thousand spirit beasts in it. Nor did he think his mortal army and cultivators could overco such terrible odds. Not if they ca at it without a plan.
“Let reassure everyone that I won’t march us into certain death out of pride,” continued Sen. “But I’m also not even going to consider halting our advance until we’ve explored every possibility. So, start thinking it through. What do we need? Where can we get it? How do we fix those problems?”
There was another lengthy pause before General Hu spoke up again.
“Information. In a war, information is always crucial. We’ve been getting by largely on superior force for a while now, but it seems that situation may change abruptly. I don’t know how realistic it is to learn this, but we need a clearer sense of what kind of numbers we’ll be up against. That ans sending scouts out much farther ahead than we have been. But do we even have scouts who could do that and co back alive?”
“Good,” said Sen, casting a aningful look around the room. “What else?”
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