He turned when he heard Olaf approaching, then ran to him. “They’re upon us, Olaf!” he cried. “The Indirans are upon us! We have little hope without Bahn.”
The chancellor walked past him and to the opening, gazing with strange detachment at the fighting. The battle had arrived before he could wed the young lovers. The Prophecy now almost seemed an afterthought to mere survival.
“The birdun warmen have engaged,” Olaf said. “The general can’t be far behind.”
Chancellor Olaf could sense Xander behind him, but he refused to turn. He knew what he would see: hunched shoulders swaying over nervously shifting feet, darting eyes that seemed to focus on nothing in particular, unkempt hair spilling out from underneath an askew crown—the very walking metaphor for the decay of a once glorious kingdo
