enough,’ Gaur agreed, the contempt obvious in his thick, deep voice. ‘I don’t have much good news for you, though.’
‘How far from Aroth?’
‘At the gates. King Emin pulls back at every thrust like a girl with pious guilt.’
‘That is not good news?’
Gaur shrugged with a chink of steel. ‘Good enough, but no victories to speak of. I have strike forces ranging ahead of the main armies, chasing down the score or more warbands raiding our lines. The Cheme Third got close to wiped out, major sorcery of some sort finishing what, to hear the survivors tell, Colonel Uresh’s rashness started. Was timed with the only real assault they’ve ventured, one that decimated the Third Army’s supplies and stalled our centre entirely.’
‘Something tells me Major Amber won’t thank me for keeping him away from that.’
‘You’re not sending him forward?’
Styrax shook his head. ‘Byora’s his mission now, Byora and Azaer.’
‘I understand - it’s a shame though. Spirits are low in the camps. It would be good for them to see their newest hero.’
‘Low?’ Styrax exclaimed. ‘The enemy fears to face us in open battle and it’s our morale that’s affected?’
Gaur shook his dark mane. ‘The raids are sapping strength and will. They’ve lost friends, without being able to strike back properly. King Emin’s tactic is working, to a degree.’
‘His tactic is flawed,’ Styrax corrected, one finger raised. ‘King Emin knows it, and so do I, for it is Aryn Bwr’s own battle-plan.’
‘He casts you in the role of the Gods?’ Gaur gave an abrupt laugh. ‘How prophetic of him.’
Styrax did not share his friend’s humour. ‘How reckless of him. His nation is nothing like as large as the last king’s. How long can he run before he meets the ocean - long enough to wear us down? He hopes to force us to turn, to slow our pace and buy himself time for the Farlan to recover and honour their agreements.’
‘Has there been word from our envoy?’
‘No, but the more I think on it, the more I believe he’ll be successful. Every report I get from the Farlan confirms my assessment. They’ve no stomach for a protracted foreign war, and they remain too divided for any ruler to sustain it.’
Gaur was silent for a while, his attention focused completely on Styrax. The beastman had smothered his grief for his lord, taking up the slack when the white-eye had raged alone. When Styrax lifted his head he saw the pain in Gaur’s eyes that was eating away inside him. Kohrad, the youth Gaur had loved as a son, was dead before his eyes, while he had been brushed aside, left uninjured by the Farlan white-eye.
I could send you back, Styrax thought, forcing himself to look at Gaur despite the horrific, gut-clenching images of Kohrad’s corpse that burst in his mind. I could send you away to Thotel and let you oversee the garrison there. The Chetse are mine, body and soul, so there you could grieve . . . and yet I will not. A general’s compassion is smoke on the wind; you know this though it may leave you dead inside.
‘What will you do in response?’ Gaur said, looking down as if he had heard his lord’s thoughts.
Styrax gave him a grim, mirthless smile. ‘I will obliterate all he holds dear. I will be as the Gods of past Ages and lay waste to all before me. I will make my enemy realise he has no choice but to face me in battle.’
He stared off to the east, where the sun had dropped below the horizon, and far beyond to their homeland, where a mother too grieved the loss of her son. Selar, Kohrad’s mother, was capable of cruelty and viciousness surpassing most other white-eyes, but she had loved her son. Her heart would be breaking at the news of his death - it might even eclipse the simmering hatred she felt for Styrax for a while.
You sought to stop me, Lord Isak. You sought to take away my reason for conquest. It would have been better for you if the Lady had not died. She would have been able to dispel your illusions. His hand tightened into a fist. He was burning to unsheathe his weapons and scour the Land around him.
She saw . . . All those years ago, when I was about to leave home and join the army . . . She came to me at dawn, to tell me of the choices ahead, and she saw my