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In the annals of history we find not a single instance of an Emperor's personally trying to assassinate another Emperor. Open combat and battlefield duels, of those we have many. Of assassinations, not one.—The Fall of the Swords, by Keeping Track.
Flying Arrow stared at Lofty Lion in disgust.
Looking each other over, the two men stood on the north bank of the River Placid, forty miles northeast of Emparia City, ten miles south of the border. In the fifteen years since their last meeting, both men had aged more than the elapsed time would suggest.
Flying Arrow's temples were gray now. Emaciation had begun to exhibit itself on his already thin frame. A great weight stooped his shoulders. Blue-black half-moons of insomnia bagged the skin beneath his eyes. He was a shadow of the Empero
