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Iddin dwells on Doan's words and sighs. He takes one last glance at his notes on the tablet and stabs the reed in it upright. The tablet is left on the ground as he stands up and looks at the assembled band, especially Lyun and Doan.

[b]Iddin:[/b] [i]I loathe to admit it, but you are right. We do not have the means to survive making the empire truly angry. I suppose we will have to bend the knee and accept this operation. But combing an entire city with the size of our band is still impractical... And the operation as laid out only makes our role more difficult. We should head out early and take any opportunity to discuss details with the other bands that may, perhaps, have been given greater warning to prepare. I find it hard to believe they planned this entire operation without some earlier notice to their cooperating assault bands.[/i]

The priest looks over to Lyun again. Any information here is valuable enough to risk fighting a defector. And perhaps a defector could still gain the band an upper hand...

[b]Iddin:[/b] [i]It sounds as to me that you want to assess this situation on your own terms. Why not head sooner into the city, make your way in as before the assault you can, and make your own judgements? I trust you will be able to get inside without great suspicion. And if they are your people, give them a good word for us and contact us on the breach. We cannot stop the other band's assault but we can hide away who we can.[/i]

Iddin looks over to Doan for approval. Hopefully the captain picked up that Iddin's intent: defeat the enemy with the witting or unwitting help of an insider. Or claim Lyun's moral high ground if the enemy wasn't approachable. Whether the captain understood or not, Iddin was confident he could minimize risks with some trickery.

[b]Iddin:[/b] [i]We would benefit from more allies, after all. And this band[/i] is [i]tight lipped enough to hide some renegades with new identities.[/i]