Then, when it was time for bed, my champion tenderly kissed me and bade me good night.

I didn’t sleep very much that night, but I did dream.

The following morning, my Ontrose left Vo Wacune to return to the north.

Autumn that year had a dusty, almost regretful quality about it that seemed to suit my mood perfectly. I’d devoted over six centuries to beating the Arends over the head with peace, hoping to so completely ingrain it in their nature that thoughts of war would never occur to them again. That dream, however, was beginning to crumble.

Winter came early that year, announced by endless fog, the curse that bedevils northern Arendia in the off season. Fog’s one of the more depressing weather conditions. It obliterates the sun and sky and lays a misty blanket of gloom over everything. We endured a kind of damp twilight for weeks on end, listening to the mournful dripping of water from the limbs of every tree while the stone faces of the buildings of Vo Wacune seemed to weep long strings of tears.

The spring that followed wasn’t really much better than the winter had been. One expects a certain amount of rain in the spring, but there are also supposed to be sunny days now and then. This spring seemed to have forgotten about sunshine, however. Dirty clouds hung over us for weeks on end, and somber gloom stalked the streets.

Baron Lathan had been away for several months, and Andrion and I hadn’t really paid all that much attention to his absence. Lathan, as commander of the Wacite army, was obliged to frequently visit military outposts, so his absence hadn’t really been that unusual. When the miserable weather broke, however, he returned to Vo Wacune with some alarming news. Duke Andrion immediately summoned me to the palace to hear his friend’s report. Lathan was still wearing his mud-spattered traveling clothes, and he looked positively exhausted. There were dark circles under his red-rimmed eyes, and he’d quite clearly gone without sleep for several days.

‘You need hot food and rest, Lathan,’ I delivered my professional opinion.

“There hath been scant time for that of late, your Grace,’ he replied in an oddly dead tone of voice. Then he sighed deeply, a strangely melancholy sigh. ‘I have but recently returned from Vo Astur –’

‘You what?’ I exclaimed.

“The reports of our agents in Asturia were conflicting, your Grace,’ he explained. ‘It seeméd to me essential that I see for myself what doth transpire in that hostile duchy. I have some facility with the uncouth speech of Asturia, and I thus experience no difficulty in passing myself off as a native. I shall not burden thee with tiresome details of my various subterfuges there. Suffice it to say that I was present when diverse members of the Asturian government and military did concoct a scheme which must needs concern thee greatly. In short, the intent of Duke Garteon is to attack thine own duchy, your Grace. Full well doth he realize that Wacune and Erat do stand poised on his eastern and northern frontiers, and at his first hostile gesture shall we move in concert to crush him.’

‘Like a rotten egg,’ Andrion added grimly.

Lathan smiled briefly. ‘Truly,’ he agreed. ‘Garteon doth realize that an assault upon the borders of Wacune would be disastrous for him, and thus hath he resolved to assault not Wacune, but Erat.’

‘Let him come,’ I said. ‘I’m as ready for him as Andrion is.

‘That doth lie at the core of his plan, your Grace,’ Lathan explained in a dead-sounding voice. ‘Garteon doth not propose a crossing of the River Camaar. Rather hath he assembled a fleet of diverse vessels at Vo Astur. I myself did personally witness the embarkation of his army aboard those ships, and I did also obtain by various means the ultimate destination of that fleet. In fine, your Grace, Garteon doth intend to sail down the Astur River and, well out of sight of land, doth he plan to sail northward, rounding the promontory which doth protrude from the northwestern coast of thy realm and to ultimately make landfall at the mouth of the Seline River. His initial goal, I do fear me, is the poorly-defended city of Seline, and with that base firmly in hand, doth he intend to ravage all of northern Erat and from thence to strike deep into the heart of thy duchy. The alliance of Wacune and Erat hath ever blocked his evil design, and he clearly doth intend to destroy Erat first and then to move ‘gainst Wacune.’

‘Have they sailed yet?’ I asked crisply.

‘Yea, your Grace. Garteon’s fleet did depart from Vo Astur some three days ago.’

‘I need a map,’ I told Andrion.

Wordlessly, he reached inside his doublet and produced a folded sheet of parchment.

I opened the map and began measuring off distances. ‘A fleet can only move as fast as its slowest ship,’ I mused. ‘If you’re planning an invasion, you want all your troops in the same place at the same time. It’s about two hundred and seventy leagues from Vo Astur to the mouth of the Seline River. Let’s say that the best time that fleet can make will be about twenty-five leagues a day. That means eleven days – eight days from now.’ Then I measured off some more distances and did some more quick arithmetic. ‘We can make it!’ I said with some relief.

‘I do not follow thy meaning, Polgara,’ Andrion confessed.

‘My army’s poised on the north bank of the River Camaar – right at the juncture of the north and south forks. It’s seventy leagues from there to Seline. At a forced march, my army should reach Seline in seven days. It’ll take the Asturians a day or so to march to Seline from the coast and my army will be in place before they get there.’

‘Thou art remarkably well versed in military strategy, Polgara,’ Andrion noted.

‘For a woman, you mean? I’ve been in Arendia for six hundred years, Andrion, so I’ve had lots of experience with military matters.’

‘I will send mine own army to thine assistance,’ he said.

‘You’ve got your own borders to defend, Andrion.’

‘ ‘Gainst whom, dear lady?’ he said with a smile. ‘Garteon hath committed his entire army to the assault upon the northern reaches of thy realm. He hath no force to hurl at me.’ Then he gave me a boyish kind of grin. ‘Besides,’ he said in plain speech, ‘why should you have all the fun?’

‘Oh, dear,’ I sighed.

‘I do perceive some flaw in these computations of thine, my Lady Polgara,’ Lathan objected. ‘Thine army is encamped two day’s hard ride from here, and Ontrose himself is at thy manor house on the shore of Lake Erat. There will, methinks, be some delay ere thy force can begin the march to Seline.’