As quickly as the camp had been pitched, it was broken twice as fast. Adelaida marveled at the speed with which the men worked. But their objective was in sight, she understood. Soon the issue would be resolved, either by battle or by truce. She sensed that the men hoped for a battle, having been largely denied one in the first encounter, being more a rear-guard than a frontal assault.
Even before the breaking of the camp had concluded, Mirnían, Veles, Etchigu and Batuk, Adelaida, and an honor guard of twenty warriors picked from all three armies, rode along the now visible highway leading through the last, straight part of the valley directly toward Vasyllia Mountain and the gates of the city. It was early morning still as they embarked, and the cold of a nearly freezing night clung to t
