"I trust, Highness," Borla said, "that the Invisible God can defend us in battle as fittingly as he is able to bury another in the grave. I am told by one of my Captains of Fifty that she brought down neigh unto half the hillside of yonder hillock, to the glory of her Invisible God no doubt, and all for the sake of merely giving an honorable burial to an avowed enemy of thy throne."
Borla paused to look significantly over at Si'Wren, who had frozen with the pieces of her ruined clay frame still in one hand.
"Battle?" said Emperor Euphrates, his interest suddenly piqued.
"Aye, Highness," said Borla. "I am told that campfires were spotted in the distance last night, down in the lowlands whence we came," said Borla. "We are being followed. I regret to be the bearer of bad tidings, but wise counsel must bear in mind the possibility that it could be Kadrug."
Si'Wren's ears pricked at this.
"Kadrug!" exclaimed Emperor Euphrates, looking greatly alarmed.
"Following me?"
"Aye, and perhaps also—Conabar. It was rumored, you will recall,
Highness, that they had sought to join forces."
"A pact made in hell!" said Emperor Euphrates, as if it were a slanderous oath. "I gave orders that their entrails should be brought to me, that I might read of them."
"…to their eternal regret," suffixed Borla decorously, as he stood looking contemplatively across the vista of the lowlands they had already traversed so laboriously.
"Highness," Borla went on, tugging thoughtfully at the fringes of his beard, "if we should run across them before eventide, it might very well become the expedient thing to do that one of my foot soldiers should inspect their entrails with a common sword, ere the day is done."