XIVIt was a rainy morning. The water soaked through clothes, the mud sullied boots, and the air was biting cold. The army was so large that the scarcity of food forced those in charge of provisions to distribute smaller and smaller rations, and despite the fact that the tulvars were trained to resist extreme conditions, it was the cold that weakened them the most, as they were not used to it. They had been camping for two weeks, and the attack was no longer as imminent as it seemed at the beginning. Zund stayed in his tent, receiving a continual flood of bad news and looking for a solution in all that chaos. The young maiden Deelnat entered forcefully into Zund’s tent, interrupting Zund’s self-addressed monologues.
“What do you want?” he asked haughtily.
“If you want information about my
