[Stories] Plans & Don't Outsource

[Juzmik]

((I wanted to write, but I've been so caught up in my new job that I don't have much time or energy. I've written two little things as a result...very little things. Emphasis on little. The first is for Juzmik, the second is Theenie.))

[Plans]

Back bent over plans, candle burning low. The waxen remains of its predecessors hardened against the grain of the wooden desk. Sarjen touches his shoulder, grips it lightly, leaning over the bare opposite. He waits, quietly, for Juzmik to come to his own conclusions about the latest strategy. The fourth night in a row, bags under the general’s eyes, and they’d – he’d – come no closer to a solution that hadn’t been voided, ousted, ruled impractical. They argued tactics, troop movements, numbers; how many menders, how many archers, how many would the Zul front for in the vanguard?

In the end, it’s Juzmik’s call; the first and only chance to prove to Tiombi that he could do this, that he was – is – the only hope for the old guard of Gor’Watha to rise again, for the Warband to have a Warchief again, not just some pseudo-Chief, more concerned with sticky fingers than spirited troops. The Amani is adamant he can’t lead if he doesn’t make the plan himself, if he isn’t the one to decide.

He still tips his head to the side and listens to the frozen whispers in his ear, sweet with strategy.

---

[Don’t Outsource]

Athena strides through the brush and sludge, bone fingers gripping her dress at the thighs, uselessly lifting the hem from the worst of the muck. Nilem scurries behind her, the wretch of a wastrel, hoisting the lantern for his mistress. The Ghostlands had experienced a recent rain, a deluge of a downpour that slicked the Scar. The wreckage of her supplies had been torn to pieces by the relentless, mindless ghouls, but she had been assured that the cart had merely gotten lost on its way to the Undercity, and that the insurance and, of course, reordering of the items would see them delivered safely to her office in the Apothecarium.

Several vials littered the diseased ground, the box that had secured them shattered. Behind it, a tiny, ashen green corpse, half-eaten. The Forsaken priestess let loose her grip on her dress, clutching instead one of the shattered vials, congealed blood still flecking the glass. She gestured in a harsh swipe to her companion, who raised the light toward it. Athena gripped the lid and ripped it from its flimsy casing. She breathed an inward sigh of relief before dismissing her servant back to the wagon on the other side of the Scar.