Shadow War (Outsider Book 13) by Aiden Phoenix

Author:Aiden Phoenix [Phoenix, Aiden]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2024-05-02T00:00:00+00:00

“Tomorrow at noon, then,” Carnon said. “That'll give us time to plan the details of the mock battle and make sure we have adequate judges and the means to simulate damage on such a large scale.”

Dare cleared his throat. “If that's settled, we need to ensure all your people understand fully that going to Independent means either joining the Crusade or remaining our guests until the Consortium is defeated. We don't ask for oaths from support personnel or families, but they should know that opportunities to leave will not be provided for them until they can do so without putting themselves or the rest of us in danger.”

“Opportunities to leave,” Jind said with a snort. “You're squirreled away in a place that forbidding?”

Dare simply smiled, and the leaders of the new recruits exchanged uncertain glances before scattering to their forces to spread the word of the mock battle. Leaving him with Carnon.

“You think this is a stupid idea,” his second said without preamble.

“Nothing you do is stupid, my friend,” Dare replied. “Or rash, for that matter. And I have a very good idea of what you're about.” He paused a beat. “That said, if you lose this I'm going to be incredibly embarrassed for you. Not for getting beaten by close to six times your numbers, but for making a bet that could so drastically impact our purpose here.”

“I'll be incredibly embarrassed for myself. But it needed to be done to bring them around to respecting our authority.” Carnon smiled thinly. “Small worry about losing, in any case. I respect their fighters, and with training we can whip them into shape as peerless Crusaders. But at the moment they're three disparate forces tripping over each other trying to match our streamlined, cohesive raid.”

“You mean they're two disparate forces and the Irregulars,” Dare corrected. “Who outnumber you three to one all on their own. Don't underestimate them. Our training is top notch, but we've only tested ourselves against Consortium forces we greatly outnumbered, whose habits we'd extensively observed and in locations we'd carefully scouted out.”

“We kicked the Consortium's ass on the raid to get Thilenor, even through their little “trap,” his friend said with a grim smile. Then he hesitated, eyes darting to Dare's arm.

Dare shook his head. “If we take the same ratio of casualties against our new friends in this mock battle, they'll wipe the floor with us and still have half their army to spare. And Malin has the resources of the entire continent to call upon, so our losses today were more costly than we could afford, and would've been even if we'd managed to kill three times as many enemies.”

Carnon grimaced. “Point taken.” He squared his shoulders. “But our Crusaders won't fail in tomorrow's mock battle, you have my word. We're going to pull out all the stops, use every trick aside from the bullshitapults.”

Yeah, probably best to not eradicate their new allies in a mock battle.

Dare sought out Koru and playfully swatted her tight round ass.

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