Maren Thornwick-Ashvane stood over the grand strategic table in the primary command bunker. The map room smelled of stale coffee, ozone from the telegraph relays, and fear.
The fear was not a metaphor. The air filtration system could not cycle the sweat of forty panicked logistics officers fast enough. They moved around the periphery of the sunken circular room, carrying brass-clipped dockets and fresh ticker tape, their voices hushed to a frantic, collective murmur.
Maren ignored the officers. Her attention remained fixed entirely on the carved ivory tokens resting on the massive brass-inlaid map of the continent.
She picked up a token shaped like a stonesteel fortress. It represented the Frostmarch garrison. Four hundred men. Two batteries of heavy artillery. Sixty years of defensive engineering designed to hold a geographical choke point against a conventional army.
She dropped the token into a velvet-lined disposal box at the edge of the table.
