The King said, “’Twas not well done, O Corund, to bid thy son delay for Ojedia and Maltraëny. He might else have been in Carcë now with a thousand Pixylanders to swell our strength.”
“I did that I did,” answered Corund, “seeking only your good, O King. A few days’ delay might buy us a thousand spears.”
“Delay,” said the King, “hath favoured mine enemy. This we should have done: at his first landing give him no time but wink, set on him with all our forces, and throw him into the sea.”
“If luck go with us that may yet be,” said Corund.
The King’s nostrils widened. He crouched forward, glaring at Corund and Corinius, his jaw thrust out so that the stiff black beard on it brushed the papers on the table before him. “The Demons,” said he, “landed i’ the night at Ralpa. They come on with great journeys northward. Will be here ere three days be spent.”
Both they grew red as blood. Corund spake: “Who told you these tidings, O King?”
“Care not thou for that,” said the King. “Enough for thee, I know it. Hath it ta’en you napping?”
“No,” answered he. “These ten days past we have been ready, with what strength we might make, to receive ’em, come they from what quarter they will. So it is, though, that while we lack the Pixyland succours Juss hath by some odds the advantage over us, if, as our intelligence saith, six thousand fighting men do follow him, and these forced besides with some that should be ours.”
“Thou wouldst,” said the King, “await these out of Pixyland, with what else Heming may gather, afore we offer them battle?”
Said Corund, “That would I. We must look beyond the next turn of the road, O my Lord the King.”