Living simply, Febryl belatedly considered, should not be made synonymous with seeing simply, since the former was both noble and laudable, whilst the latter was a flaw most deadly. A careless error, and, alas, he had made it.
And now, he concluded, it was too late.
And as for altering the plans, oh, it was too late for that as well.
Somehow, the newly arriving day had lost its glamour.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
It was said the captain’s adopted child-who at that time was known by the unfortunate name of Grub-refused the wagon on the march. That he walked the entire way, even as, in the first week beneath the year’s hottest sun, fit and hale soldiers stumbled and fell.
This is perhaps invention, for by all accounts he was at that time no more than five years of age. And the captain himself, from whose journals much of that journey and the clash in which it culminated is related in detail, writes very little of Grub, more concerned as he was with the rigours of command. As a result, of the future First Sword of the Late Empire period, scant details, beyond the legendary and probably fictitious, are known.
Lives of the Three
Moragalle
The sound of flies and wasps was a solid, buzzing hum in the hot air of the gorge, and already the stench had grown overpowering. Fist Gamet loosened the clasp on the buckle and lifted the battered iron helmet from his head. The felt liner was sodden with sweat, itching against his scalp, but, as the flies swarmed him, he did not remove it.
He continued watching from the slight rise at the south end of the gorge as the Adjunct walked her horse through the carnage below.
Three hundred Seti and over a hundred horses lay dead, mostly from arrows, in the steep-sided ravine they had been led into. It could not have taken long, even including rounding up and leading off the surviving mounts. There had been less than a bell between the advance Seti riders and the Khundryl, and had Temul not ordered his Wickans back to cover the main army… well, we would have lost them as well . As it was, those Wickans had prevented another raid on the supply train, their presence alone sufficient to trigger a sudden withdrawal by the enemy-with not a single drop of blood spilled. The warleader commanding the desert horse warriors had been too cagey to see his force ensnared in an out-and-out battle.
Far better to rely upon… errors in judgement. The Seti not assigned as flanking riders to the vanguard had defied orders, and had died as a result. And all the bastard needs from us is more stupid mistakes .
Something in the scene below was raising the hairs on his neck. The Adjunct rode alone through the slaughter, her back straight, unmindful of her horse’s skittish progress.