The days bled into one another, consumed by the rhythmic labor of a host preparing for the battle to come. Scouts were flung out in every direction, their horses lathered and gasping as they watched for any sign of the Oizenian host splitting to catch them in a pincer against the riverbanks.
Basil would have liked to say they didn't have the number but reality told a different tale.
He had sat in his father's councils and heard the tally: the Oizenians sported five thousand men, and some more. They held a three-to-one advantage in the saddle, boasting a forest of lances that could trampling them into the silt. The Habadian and Ezvanian princes might have fled the field, but they had left their steel behind to bolster Sorza's ranks as they went to the door.
As things stood, they were outnumbered in spears and overwhelmed in horse. To give battle on a plain like this felt like madness; to do so with their backs to a deep, fast-moving river was a suicide pact.
