"I am," Ituralde said.
"They call you a 'Great Captain' in Tarabon."
"They do."
"It's deserved," Turan said, coughing. "How did you do it? Our scouts. . . ." His cough consumed him.
"Raken," Ituralde said once the cough subsided. He squatted down beside his foe. The sun was still a sliver in the west, lighting the battlefield with a glimmer of golden red light. "Your scouts see from the air, and truth is easy to hide from a distance."
"The army behind us?"
"Women and youths, mostly," Ituralde said. "A fair number of farmers as well. Wearing uniforms taken from my troops here."
"And if we'd turned and attacked?"
"You wouldn't have. Your raken told you that you were outnumbered. Better to chase after the smaller force ahead of you. Better than that to head for the city your scouts say is barely defended, even if it means marching your men near to exhaustion."
Turan coughed again, nodding. "Yes. Yes, but the city was empty. How did you get troops into it?"
"Scouts in the air," Ituralde said, "can't see inside buildings."
"You ordered your troops to hide inside for that long?"
"Yes," Ituralde said. "With a rotation allowing a small number out each day to work the fields."
Turan shook his head in disbelief. "You realize what you have done," he said. There was no threat in his voice. In fact, there was a fair amount of admiration. "High Lady Suroth will never accept this failure. She will have to break you now, if only to save face."
"I know," Ituralde said, standing. "But I can't drive you back by attacking you in your fortresses. I need you to come to me."
"You don't understand the numbers we have ..." Turan said. "What you destroyed today is but a breeze compared to the storm you've raised. Enough of my people escaped today to tell of your tricks. They will not work again."
He was right. The Seanchan learned quickly. Ituralde had been forced to cut short his raids in Tarabon because of the swift Seanchan reaction.
"You know you can't beat us," Turan said softly. "I see it in your eyes, Great Captain."
Ituralde nodded.
"Why, then?" Turan asked.
"Why does a crow fly?" Ituralde asked.
Turan coughed weakly.
Ituralde did know that he could not win his war against the Seanchan. Oddly, each of his victories made him more certain of his eventual failure. The Seanchan were smart, well equipped and well disciplined. More than that, they were persistent.
Turan himself must have known from the moment those gates opened that he was doomed. But he had not surrendered; he had fought until his army broke, scattering in too many directions for Ituralde's exhausted troops to catch. Turan understood. Sometimes, surrender wasn't worth the cost. No man welcomed death, but there were far worse ends for a soldier. Abandoning one's homeland to invaders . . . well, Ituralde couldn't do that. Not even if the fight was impossible to win.
He did what needed to be done, when it needed to be done. And right now, Arad Doman needed to fight. They would lose, but their children would always know that their fathers had resisted. That resistance would be important in a hundred years, when a rebellion came. If one came.
Ituralde stood up, intending to return to his waiting soldiers.
Turan struggled, reaching for his sword. Ituralde hesitated, turning back.
"Will you do it?" Turan asked.
Ituralde nodded, unsheathing his own sword.
"It has been an honor,' Turan said, then closed his eyes. Ituralde's sword—heron-marked—took the man's head a moment later. Turan's own blade bore a heron, barely visible on the gleaming length of blade the Seanchan had managed to pull. It was a pity that the two of them hadn't been able to cross swords—though, in a way, these past few weeks had been just that, on a different scale.