“Good,” Nira said. “Because the day you stop trying to heal us, the day you forget your leash and turn on us, is the day I cut you into a dozen pieces and leave you for the ravens.”

Il Tornja took a step forward, tested the air in front of his throat with a hand, then another step.

“You could be bluffing,” he observed.

Nira’s smile was like a knife. “Test it.”

To Adare’s surprise, he chuckled, shaking his head ruefully, as though he’d just lost a few suns in a hand of cards. “I’ll take your word for it. Now,” he went on, turning to Adare as though the two of them were just wrapping up a somewhat dull bureaucratic function, “there is much to prepare. My men have erected a pavilion for you in the center of the camp. You’ll be comfortable there, and more importantly, safe. The first thing—”

“Where,” Adare demanded, cutting him off, “are the Urghul?”

He grimaced. “By now? Most likely a day or two from the northern end of the lake.”

Adare hesitated. “So, at least three or four days from us, right? Isn’t that good news?”

“Hardly. Long Fist crossed north of the confluence, well north of our last garrison. It looks like he’s headed around the north end of the lake. He’s still got the Black River to get past, which he’ll almost certainly do at Andt-Kyl, but Andt-Kyl is far from here and we need to get there first. If he crosses before we arrive, it’s over. He won’t be able to move quickly through the forest, but he won’t have to. There are no more choke points after Andt-Kyl. He can split his army in ten, send them all in different directions. There’ll be bodies hanging from the branches from the Ghost Sea to the Romsdals.”

Adare stared, aghast. “So what are we doing here? Why aren’t you marching north?”

He crossed to the fire and held his hands a moment in front of the blaze before answering. “You see the terrain we’ve been moving through?” he asked at last. “Bogs. Swamps. Streams. Firs so tight you can’t slide between them?”

Adare nodded.

“North of here, it’s all like that, and no good road through it. There’s a forest track up the west coast of the lake, but an army this size would churn it to mud. We’d be weeks picking our way, and we don’t have weeks.”

“So you’ve decided to do a little civil engineering instead?” Adare demanded. “Nine out of every ten men you have are sleeping in a ’Kent-kissing field right now! They could at least try the western track.”

The kenarang smiled. “There’s a quote from Hendran’s Tactics that I’m fond of. Chapter fourteen: ‘Never fight,’ I believe it says, ‘when you can rest.’ ”

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