Swearing privately, Klamath paused to recite the Bellegerin affirmation of honor for the dead. But he did not linger. Watching over each other, he and Rowt went back down the slope to their coverts.

Waiting again, cold, wet, and furious, Klamath surprised himself by cursing Bifalt’s name. The King should have been here. This should have been his battle. It did not belong to the son of Klimith.

Two days earlier, King Bifalt felt lost. He knew where he was, but he had no time. He was moving too slowly.

From the first, he had trusted that the desert would hinder the enemy. He had even imagined that the sands might stop Rile entirely. For that reason, he had refused Suti al-Suri’s urging to chase after the foot soldiers and strike at the enemy’s rear. An attack like that would hurt Rile’s infantry. The god himself would not care. He had men to spare. And it would delay Bifalt. The last battle might end before he arrived to take part.

That possibility was too much for him. He could not endure it. He felt an imperative need to catch up with Klamath, to stand with his friend and his riflemen in the final struggle.

Instead of harassing Rile’s infantry, King Bifalt looked for a way south.

He believed that he would find Klamath on that side of the enemy’s march. If the General reached the Repository’s road there rather than in the north, he would have a shorter approach to the temporary safety of the keep.

Riding through the hills of western Belleger during days of dirty weather, King Bifalt took his diminished army south, seeking a way to cross the enemy’s line.

On the edge of the hardpan bordering the desert, he found his chance. For reasons that he did not try to understand, the leading wagons of Rile’s train stopped there. Guarded by more than a dozen priests, the servants were at work setting the oxen free and replacing them with tusked beasts. That delay left a gap between the supply-train and the rear of the infantry.

Covered by bouts of sleet, thrashing rain, and snow, King Bifalt’s men and the el-Algreb crossed the hardpan unopposed.

Then, however, they had to face the desert.

Bifalt wanted haste, but that was impossible.

His people had to scramble over sands that shifted under every hoof, and to contend with new, inexplicable sand-slides that loosened the surfaces. They were forced to abandon their supply-wagon and use its horses as pack-animals. Soon, Suti al-Suri’s scouts lost the enemy’s track. Their last report informed the King that the sorcerous shimmering of the priests seemed to command the dunes, clearing the Great God’s passage.

Bifalt would have been worse than lost without the el-Algreb.