Master Smythe frowned. “I prefer to think that I allow my allies the free will to complete the task ahead as they see fit.”

“Will you help us to pursue Orley?” Aneas asked.

Nita Qwan had his char cloth lit with flint and steel, and he drew deeply of the pipe, pulled the smoke over his eyes and head like a hood, and turned to face the four cardinal points.

“Oh yes,” Smythe answered. “But fairness requires me to tell you that Orley is no longer Orley. Your enemy, the man who was Ota Qwan, is effectively dead, and more horribly than any revenge of yours or sentence of the Sossag Mothers would ever have arranged. He is now a living extension of our enemy, in a way that Thorn never was.”

Aneas nodded. Nita Qwan handed him the pipe and he, too, drew deeply on it and turned to face the sun, and then the other three points.

“I was never charged to punish my brother,” Nita Qwan said. “The mothers told me that he will only punish himself. But I am to kill him, as one would kill a beloved dog who suddenly foamed at the mouth and bit strangers.” He touched the blue stone dagger at his waist.

“There is much wisdom in men and women,” Master Smythe said. “But it pains me to say that in this war I have discovered that we dragons are just like you men in this one thing: that we project on you what we are ourselves, as you do on your pets.” He took another pull and shrugged. “I have reconsidered. When I am a little more secure in my form, I will follow you to war. If this is the last battle, I risk nothing by being there; I will not long survive defeat by any of the contestants. Even here. And you are good companions.” He shrugged. “But I think it will be aeons before I can fly, or take my natural form again. Or work power anywhere but near my sources.” He shrugged. “Still, I have sufficiently become a man that I cannot really imagine waiting here to find out who won, either.”

Arles—The Red Knight

Every foot soldier occupies approximately one pace, or three imperial feet, of frontage and depth in a military formation. A mounted soldier occupies almost two paces in width, and almost four paces in depth, because horses are so big.

So fifty thousand men, in a single rank, on foot, occupy fifty thousand paces, or almost twenty-five miles. Even formed four men deep, they would occupy a frontage of almost six miles, and if a sizable proportion of them were mounted, it would amount to almost ten miles.

Even formed in deep divisions, the ends of the line would never even see each other, and they would take hours to take up their formations.