Chapter 3:

"So, who do we go after first?" Murphy asked.

"Does Pike know that Kongeda is on the march?" Lexa asked.

"Not yet. They've withdrawn to Arkadia," Murphy replied.

"How do you declare war, anyway?" I asked.

Lexa smiled wryly, "usually with one or two well-placed arrows. Possibly a spear or two."

"So what would be Pike's first indication that he was facing your army?" I asked.

"Likely the same yours was. Torches on the hillside at night," Lexa replied.

"They won't march fast," I thought aloud. I glanced over at Lexa who nodded her agreement. "They'll want to conserve their strength for the battle. How long did it take you to march your army from Polis to Arkadia?"

"Four days, but we had no intention of engaging in a prolonged battle at Arkadia, or even a potential siege," Lexa added. "The commanders suggested that a mere show of force could force you to surrender Fi—" she broke off as she saw the dark expression on my face. "I'm sorry," she apologized quickly before shifting the focus of her explanation, "Ontari already knows that Pike has slaughtered an entire army. The Commanders will propose some caution, and that she be prepared for a prolonged battle upon arrival."

"Six days?" I asked.

"Perhaps slightly more: Ontari will be marching with a much larger army than I was," Lexa replied. "She will send advance scouts ahead, however. We can anticipate them tracing the path the main army will take the next day."

I nodded, deep in thought. "That could work for us. If we're able to avoid detection by them, it would help us plan the ambush, and if her scouts report the all-clear in a mountain pass where she gets hit, and hit hard, it would look as if she was outmaneuvered that much worse."

"Yes," Lexa agreed. "It will certainly look that way to them."

"You had the commanders in your head for years. What would they advise Ontari to do under those circumstances?"

Lexa's brow furrowed. "It will depend on who she listens to. Some of the commanders will be more… tempered in their response than others."

"Will it slow her down at least?"

Lexa nodded, "she may stop and adopt a defensive stance, allowing the attackers to come to them, or she may send patrols out to destroy the army she believes ambushed her. In either case, their advance will stop for a time, and if we're successful in producing the illusion that Pike staged a surprise attack, they will move more slowly and cautiously."

"Buying us even more time to deal with Pike," Murphy said.

I nodded, "and Pike doesn't know any of that. As far as he knows, Kongeda has plans to enforce a blockade with a kill order," I continued my train of thought.

"What are you thinking?" Niylah asked.

"I'm thinking we use that," I said. "As far as he knows, he would be challenging a blockade. He'll be sending regular patrols out just to test it. If we make sure that some of his patrols don't make it back, he'll start noticing. I want him thinking that a grounder could be hiding behind every tree and rock between here and Polis, and Ontari thinking pike is waiting around the next bend. If we do this right, Kongeda will slow to a crawl, and Skaikru won't venture too far out of Arkadia. We could buy ourselves just an extra few days where they're not killing each other, but they think that they are."

"Klark," Lexa spoke up. "Pike thinks that a kill order is in place. You understand what that means."

"What is she talking about?" Murphy asked.

I took a deep breath. "It means that we have to shoot to kill for the illusion to work. It means that everybody in any patrol we intercept either needs to be dead, or make it back to Arkadia believing that the Kongeda army was trying to kill them." I looked around at the three faces around me, "we'll do our best to keep the body count as low as possible, but let's be clear on this: it won't be zero, on either side. Some of our people, Skaikru and Kongeda, are going to die, and we're going to be the ones who kill a lot of them. If you have a problem with that, now is the time to let me know. If you have a better plan, one that won't kill anyone, now would be the time to bring that to my attention too."

I looked around at the others. Their faces were somber, but resolved. Nobody raised an objection.

"Niylah," I turned to her. "We need to make it look like Kongeda is attacking Arkadia, and that Skaikru is attacking Kongeda. That means guns and bullets on one side, bows and blades on the other."

"Bows and blades are easy," Niylah assured me, "We always have those available to trade. As for guns and bullets, a man came to trade some weapons he stole from Mount Weather shortly after the mountain fell," she shrugged, "I don't keep them in the front room."

"Murphy, how's your Trigedasleng?" I asked him.

"Not good enough to convince a native speaker, but good enough to get by," he said.

"Work on it," I told him, "when we're attacking Arkadia, it would be a pretty big tip-off if we all started speaking fluent English. There aren't that many Arkadians who are fluent, so the odds are any one of them we meet probably won't understand what we're saying." I remembered learning about Navajo code talkers during World War II. It was supposedly the only code never broken during the war. It's not that I expected it to produce as much of a challenge for the Arkadians, but being able to shout directions and commands where anybody could hear them, but only the intended recipient could immediately understand them, could be a tactical advantage in itself.

"Fostaim oso hod op Kongeda fous. Den oso get Pike daun. [First we stop the Kongeda army, then we scare Pike]," I looked around for agreement.

"Not to be the wet blanket," Murphy spoke up, "and don't get me wrong, I'm on board with the big picture here, but how are the four of us going to stop the entire Polis army?"

"Thermopylae," I replied with a smile. "I hunted these woods for months. There are at least a half-dozen mountain passes that they will have to march through between Polis and Arkadia. None of them are particularly narrow, but narrow enough that an army that size will have to crowd closer together, or add at least a week onto their march while they go around or over the mountains on either side."

Lexa nodded. "They will be careful in those passes, but they will also be trying to move quickly because they do not believe that Pike knows of their imminent attack. A small group will likely escape their notice."

"Niylah?" I turned to the blonde woman.

She looked up to meet my eyes and gave a silent nod of acknowledgment.

"We won't need them yet, but what about horses? Sooner or later, we're going to be traveling back and forth between Arkadia and Polis a lot, and it's unlikely that we'll manage it on foot."

"We have some," Niylah replied. "Fast enough to make the round trip overnight."

"We'll also need some grounder clothing," I nodded at Murphy's clearly Arkadian garb in particular. "We don't have any quarrel with any of the grounders hunting or gathering in these woods, and if we look like we're just passing through, they should ignore us." I looked over at Lexa, "I think also it goes without saying that we'll have to hide your face somehow."

Lexa nodded her agreement, "yes. Even those who have never met me are likely to recognize my face. But it is not just me who needs this protection, Wanheda." She emphasized my title.

Shit. She was right. Lexa was a threat, to be sure, but she wasn't really a threat to Ontari until the loyalty of her followers was broken. As far as her followers knew, Lexa was already dead, and while it would definitely be bad if she were ever captured, or worse, killed, I was Wanheda. And the power of Wanheda in Ontari's hands was truly the nightmare scenario. She would command such fanatical loyalty that she would be unstoppable. On her orders, her warriors would not hesitate to throw their lives away in a suicidal assault on Arkadia if it meant that they could bring victory to their commander. There's no defense against that kind of fanaticism. I mentally cursed myself for not realizing it sooner. I was so focused on keeping Lexa alive long enough to reclaim her throne, I'd completely overlooked how valuable I would be if I were dead, captured, or both.

"You're right," I admitted. "Whatever happens, we can't let Ontari have the power of Wanheda." I paused, looking at Lexa, "you understand what that means."

Lexa nodded, her lips a tight, thin line.

"Now what are you talking about?" Murphy asked.

Now it was Lexa's turn to explain. "She means that whatever happens now, we cannot allow Klark to fall into enemy hands," she said, "our highest priority should be to prevent her from being brought before the commander as a prize. She means that if we must, we should kill her ourselves to prevent Ontari from claiming the power of Wanheda."

"No," Niylah shook her head in vehement denial, "we can't do that."

"Niylah," I said gently, "it's not my first choice either."

"Isn't it?" She asked. "You forget, of all of us, I'm the one who saw you when you were living in these woods."

I have to admit, she had a point there. It wasn't much of a stretch to describe me back then as having a death wish, so I tried a different tactic. "Be honest: what would happen if Ontari's followers knew she had killed me?"

Niylah chewed on her lower lip for a moment before she spoke. "It would be a massacre," she admitted, letting out a long breath, "and nobody would ever dare challenge her for the throne. No army would dare stand against her. Her reign would last for decades if people believed she held your power."

"It's my life weighed against that," I told her. "That shouldn't be a hard choice to make."

"Clarke…"

"Niylah," I gently gripped her shoulders as I looked deeply into her eyes, "this is how it has to be. If the commander captures me, she's not bringing me back to her tent for a chat. At most, you'd be shortening my life span by a few hours, and you'd be saving countless lives, not only in this battle, but in the years to come. Whatever happens to me, I will not be used as a trophy to empower her."

"I won't kill you," she insisted.

"Fine. Lexa will," I nodded in the former commander's direction. I looked around the room. "Any other objections?"

I was met with silence.

"Okay, then," I said, "here we go."

-x-

The big advantage of being an army of four is that you can move way faster than an army of thousands. Even being careful not to be seen, we made first sight with the Kongeda army less than fifty miles out of Polis. Marching a large army isn't a matter of pointing them in one direction and commanding them to start walking. Just getting that many people to start moving in the same direction is a logistical challenge in itself.

Meanwhile, the four of us were covering easily thirty miles a day. It was a push, to be sure, but with four people, carrying minimal gear, over terrain that three out of four of us knew very well, it was manageable. Even Lexa, who barely forty-eight hours ago had been in bed recovering from a gunshot wound, was able to keep up. Not that that came as much of a surprise to me. I'd seen her basically walk off stab wounds, slashing wounds to her limbs and an attack by a giant, angry gorilla.

It was with some mild surprise that I realized that Niylah and I knew these woods better than Lexa did. As commander of all grounder clans, and inheritor of all the knowledge and wisdom of the commanders that preceded her, I'd just assumed she must know everything about the land she surveyed. But she, and the commanders before her, were a warriors and leaders, whereas I'd hunted these woods for three months. For those three months, knowing every rock, tree, cave, valley and river had literally been a matter of life and death for me. I logged that little tidbit away for future use. Ontari may have had the wisdom of all the commanders in her head, but I had the homefield advantage.

I left the three others behind to track the advance scouts that Lexa assured me would be there. It was surprisingly easy to find and stalk them. There were four of them, but they were warriors, not hunters, so they weren't aiming for stealth, and assumed that any army that Pike would have at his disposal would be doing the same. As for me, silently stalking prey had been practically a way of life for those three months, and your typical cougar or bear was on much higher alert than these guys were. If they ever looked in my direction, the piles of skins and fabric that Niylah had piled on my body transformed me into a shapeless mass if I flattened myself on the ground next to a tree or boulder. From a distance, I looked like a mound of dirt, and if I stayed still, I looked like anything but a person or animal. I tracked them until their path became clear before I broke off to rejoin the others.

It took me about an hour to make my way back to them. They weren't far away, but I wanted to make sure that the scouts thought they hadn't been seen. That meant moving slowly and meticulously at least until I was far out of earshot.

"Are you ready to move out?" Murphy practically jumped when I spoke up behind him. Lexa, I'm pretty sure, already knew I was there.

"Do you have a route?" Lexa asked.

I nodded. "There's a pass a couple of miles from here. They're headed straight for it." I knew it well. I'd tracked a bear into it a couple of months ago. The bottom of the valley was flat and wide, with tall granite mountains rising on either side. They were pock-marked with caves and crevices where we could hide and strike from, and with only four of us, it was unlikely that they'd spot any one of us. It made sense that Ontari would be heading for that one. The size of the army she was moving would have demanded it. Most of the others were narrower, making them that much more of a potential death trap for her warriors, the ones that were as wide or wider required her to go quite a ways out of her way. This particular pass allowed her a fairly direct march on Arkadia, and even if they were attacked, they would at least have some maneuvering room.

-x-

The sun was well passed the middle of the sky when we arrived at the mountain pass where we would make our stand. The floor of the valley was rocky, but covered in a loose gravel. The mountain walls on either side were steep, but not vertical. Enough for us to get the higher ground without exposing ourselves to enemy fire. It had a slight cant to the north which would hide the two of our people we put at the far end nicely. I scanned the rock faces on either side. I'd camped in the caves that dotted them on more than one occasion. They were deep enough to shelter me from the elements, they absorbed enough heat during the day that they radiated it back out nicely at night, and they were hard enough to access that it was unlikely that predators would happen by. In this case, that translated to "hard to see from the valley floor."

I turned to Lexa. "How does this look?" I asked her.

She scanned the area alongside me before nodding her approval. "This will work," she replied.

"Okay," I announced, "let's get ready for a fight."