The shadow
The shadow had been haunting them for longer than they would've believed, and no one had noticed. It had eyes everywhere. The shadow of their enemies hovered over them. Chased them. It wanted to end them. And it wouldn't stop until it did so.
Lexa, Clarke and the rest of the soldiers finally returned to Polis after sundown. The crowd gathered in the streets was immediatly quiet when they saw Lexa's face. The girl always bore a mask, but not now. The grief, the sorrow for all of their lost brothers and sisters, and mostly, the thirst for revenge showed in her eyes. She spoke up so that her words wouldn't go unheard by anyone.
"We've lost an entire village." Murmuring ensued and slowly stopped as they realised Lexa was waiting for them to stop talking in order to resume her speech "But they won't get away with it. Someone has betrayed the coallition." Murmurs grew into full-volume conversations and then louder until Lexa raised her hand authoritarily. She took a deep breath "We have enemies. And we will defeat them." Then she said the four words she'd hoped she would never have to say "There will be war."
They got off their horses and walked all the way to the great tower of Polis, Lexa stopping by every passerby that asked her anything. She answered to everything she could. No, there were no survivors. No, they didn't yet know who'd done it. Yes, they would defeat them.
Clarke was also grabbed by the arm and received lots of questions. She'd never realised how fond the people of Polis had got of her in the few weeks Lexa had been Commander.
Lexa kept giving her blessings, words of hope and anger, depending on who she spoke to, she even sparred with a little child who defied her. Not even then did she smile. Thoughts ran through her head at a dashing speed. Battle strategies, army training, reorganising her troops, gathering the New Natblidas, finding out who the hell they were fighting against...
An emergency meeting of the ambassadors was held, and after several minutes of Lexa updating them of the situation, her threats ensued.
"The traitors lie amongst one or more of your clans. I will not say this twice: if one of you knows who they are and don't speak up now, I shall massacre your people as well as those responsible for the attack last night."
No one said a word
Clarke stayed with them, Lexa'd silently asked her to do so, but didn't speak as they gathered around the table. A map of the lands of the twelve clans was displayed on it, with several figures representing their troops.
For hours they tried to figure out a strategy.
They couldn't.
The shadow laughed.
They didn't know what army they could count on. They didn't know what they were fighting. They knew nothing.
Dawn broke and they still hadn't come to a conclussion, nor had they sat down. They were all desperate to plan what to do, but they couldn't come to an agreement.
Food and water were brought to them as night fell, and so they spent their second fruitless night. However, when the sun rised again, Clarke couldn't bare keeping silent anymore.
She stood up and walked to the table "Here's what we're going to do."
The ambassador of the Broadleaf clan laughed "Who is this girl and why..."
"Shut up" Lexa bluntly cut him off. "Unless you've got a better idea" she mockingly stated, he had proven himself to be a terrible strategist.
Clarke nodded and spoke again, this time more confidently "If less of half the clans were to fight us, a frontal approach would suffice and we wouldn't need further strategy. We'd just outnumber them 4 to 1, there's no way they could win that. If half of the clans were against us" she separated the figures on the board "we should attack from the mountains, the lake and the dark jungle next to the Azgeda territory. That way we would surround them and leave them no escape. The surprise factor would end them."
The ambassadors walked closed to the table and Lexa's eyes lit up. Clarke could do this.
"Even if three quarters of the clans were to betray us, the same approach would be okay, only instead of climbing the mountain we should leave about a half hundred warriors behind it, so that when they think they've won, we annihilate them. We could also leave some of our lesser warriors hidden in the woods to end any possible survivors."
Lexa bore the faintest hint of a smile, and she didn't care. She was too tired to put on her Heda façade. The rest of the people in the room also showed hope and happiness in their faces. Some of them had to be terrific actors, Lexa thought. She quickly took the thought off her mind. Clarke was showing her how to save them.
"And if eleven of the twelve clans were against us, well..." They all stared at her "Well, I won't tell you that plan, because that'd mean you're all traitors." She ironically smiled and sighed "And now that we've got a strategy, can we please go to sleep?"