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"I want you to join us. Not as a soldier, but as a captain," Bassinger said, leaning forward on the wooden crate and holding his wooden cup of ale in both hands as he made his earnest request.

"Commander Bassinger," Milo said, his whiskers twitching in shock as he was momentarily stunned by the offer. "I, I’m sorry, but I can’t" he said as soon as he recovered. "Perhaps there’s someone else from my village, or one of the other Heartwood clan villages that’s further away and didn’t suffer like we did, but. ... I can’t do this."

"Why not?" The bearish commander asked, surprised by how quickly Milo had rejected his offer. "Is it because you’ve had enough of war? I thought that you and your clansmen still wanted a chance to wash away your hatred in Lothian blood. Have these few days changed your minds?"

"No, not at all," Milo said, his gaze growing sharp as his free hand curled into a tight fist. The hand holding the wooden cup remained perfectly steady. No matter how simply it had been carved, no one from his clan would ever lose control of themselves to the extent of harming the fruit of another woodworker’s labor, but his tail thumped the ground several times in agitation.

"I hate them," he said. "I hate them more than I have words to describe. But there are more important things than hating the Lothians. I only came this time because... because several of us were hoping to spill Lothian blood and because we thought we might get to face Owan Lothian’s men again to claim our vengeance. But they aren’t here and we," he said, his tone turning bitter.

"We have been denied our chance to take human lives in the war so far. "

"You’ll have that chance very soon," Commander Bassinger pointed out. "The humans leave their priests and healers in their well defended camps when they send their soldiers to raid a village. We won’t have to be cautious about Loman Lothian anymore. You can kill to your heart’s content as long as you follow my orders about where you stand and when you retreat. "

"I, I appreciate your offer," Milo said after spending several moments sipping the foamy ale and organizing his thoughts. "And we’ll fight under your command until it’s time to return to the Vale. I’m not going to abandon you now just because we haven’t been able to kill our enemy yet.

I don’t have to like it to understand that there’s a bigger picture and we all have to play our parts.

You don’t have to worry, I’ll play mine in the days to come. "

"But after that, you’ll leave the army?" Commander Bassinger asked, raising a bushy eyebrow at the young archer. "Why?"

"Because this isn’t where I belong," Milo replied with a helpless shrug. "I’m sure I’ll find a place to fight in the war to come.

I don’t intend to hide from it. Perhaps, if I’m lucky, I’ll have a chance to kill the men who burned Lako to death with my own hands.

Perhaps I won’t. But, as I said, there are more important things than my hatred. "

"Family?" Bassinger asked, scratching the fur on his cheak with a sharp claw.

"I heard that Old Nan was doing better now that construction on a new village had begun. Or are you planning to start a family? If you need to wait until you’ve had a chance to father a child, I can give you some time," the bearish commander said.

It was something that he had seen many times in the war before.

The more times men danced with death and lived, the hotter the fire in their loins burned to leave behind an heir who could continue their legacy if they failed to return one day.

No man wanted to die childless, esecially not one as recently married as he’d heard Milo was.

"Yes, family," Milo agreed with a nod. "But not like you think. It, it’s Sir Ollie," he said a touch awkwardly. "I know he’ll fight in the battles to come. I intend to be by his side when he does. I can’t do that if I’m responsible for leading a unit of my own. He can’t be here right now because he’s taking care of my family, building our new home along with everyone else’s new home," he said, hanging his head in guilt and shame.

"That was the last reason I came," Milo admitted. "Because Sir Ollie can’t, then I can at least earn some honor for our village in his place. I owe him that and more."

"The lad means that much to you, does he?

" Bassinger asked, leaning back in surprise. It hadn’t been two months yet and already Milo looked like he would march to his death if the red haired human commanded it.

To inspire that kind of loyalty so quickly was no easy feat.

"Why? Why go so far for a human when humans burned down your village and killed your clansmen? "

"Because Sir Ollie isn’t like those humans," Milo said. "Commander, you may know about our traditions, but you didn’t grow up in a Heartwood burrow. You don’t know what it meant for us to loose our homes and everything that made them precious to us."

"When Sir Ollie took me back to our village, the fires were still smoldering and in some places, the embers hadn’t burned out," he said, his eyes growing distant as he remembered the horrifying devastation he’d returned to.

"But Sir Ollie, he knelt in the ash with me and dug through the wreckage with his bare hands.

Even if it meant he might burn himself, he was delicate, and he handled each carving we found like it was one of the sacred relics of his own Church. "

"He brought my mother back from a place of darkness and depression and he’s worked tirelessly every day to give us a new home in the Vale of Mists," Milo said, his tail hanging low on the ground.

"He calls himself a coward," Milo said softly. "But he’s the bravest man I know. He won’t give up on us, even when we’ve given up on ourselves. "

"I see," Bassigner said, swallowing the last of his ale and standing to place a heavy paw on the young man’s shoulder. "In that case, it wounds like you know where you belong. I won’t ask again."

The commander’s eyes lingered on the map on the table for a moment, his expression thoughtful. When he turned back to Milo, there was a hint of challenge in his eyes as he considered the best way to motivate this reluctant soldier in the short period of time he would have him.

"Before you return to Sir Ollie’s side though, let’s make sure you and your clansmen have something to be proud of," he said, hopping that Milo would rise to the challenge. He’d already pushed them to their limits by forbidding them from taking any human lives in the campaign so far.

Since he couldn’t rely on a formal chain of command to keep Milo and his clansmen in line, he’d resort to other methods to encourage them to go along with his plans.

"Your people know more about traps and moving in concealment than any of my captains," Bassinger said, his voice full of praise. "You’ve done masterfully so far, but I’ve as good as placed a muzzle around your mouth and tied you tails to your backs. It’s time to take the restraints off," he said, unrolling a more detailed sketch of the village and the area around it.

"Digging a trench and reinforcing the wooden palisade is a start and my men can manage that," the bearish commander said. "What I want to know is what we haven’t thought of yet. We’ve bought at least two days of time before the Dunns poke their heads out of their fortified camp, maybe as many as five.

What can you do in that amount of time?"

"You mentioned a path to retreat," Milo said, moving to stand over the map as his whiskers twitched in thought. "That means we have to make a path difficult for the humans to approach so they don’t trap us in the village we want to flee..."

As he spoke, the two men grew more and more engaged, each suggesting ideas or refining the ones the other man had put forward.

Inwardly, Commander Bassinger couldn’t help but be a little jealous that he hadn’t gotten to Milo before Ollie had.

But perhaps, even if he had met the cunning young archer first, it wouldn’t have mattered.

After all, while Bassinger might be a fearsome commander on the battlefield, Sir Ollie had conquered the hearts of the people who followed him.

Compared to what Ollie had done, the loyalty Bassinger could buy by offering a chance to claim revenge seemed ephemeral and fleeting.

But when that loyalty was directed to someone who showed as much promise as young Ollie did.

.. it was hard for even the veteran commander to remain jealous for long.