General Meshach led his cavalry out the gates shortly after breakfast the next morning; Zeke arrived early that afternoon in time for dinner.  Leah arranged horses for them.

Kondor met with his captains and cartographers after dinner.  He was assured that there were adequate places to camp along the route they were taking, and that there would be ample water for both the men and their beasts.  The captains promised to have the men ready to travel within an hour after breakfast.  He realized that was a somewhat nebulous promise, since breakfast started when the gong sounded but continued until the last diner finished and exited.  However, it was as good a schedule as he was going to be able to get under the circumstances.

Part of him wanted to go over tactics.  However, he realized that he had no information that was useful to making such plans, and wasn’t going to get it until they arrived.  Besides, Meshach was in charge of the army; he was only leading the infantry out there.  He didn’t even know if he would be with the infantry once they reached the city, or assigned somewhere else.  Indeed, Meshach himself at this point wouldn’t know whether their march to protect the city was going to result in the Copts retreating, or whether there would be some kind of skirmish, or on what scale.  He was trained to fight; if he had to do that when he got there, he would figure it out.

And General Meshach was in charge, so it would be up to him to decide how to handle the situation.  Kondor would be an advisor.

The next morning Kondor let everyone have breakfast, but rushed them to the parade ground to get ready to march.  The rank and file troops were already being organized by their captains outside the palace walls, and what he had to do was mostly ride out with Zeke and Leah and a couple of cartographers who would also be riding with him, and follow their guidance out of the city and toward Esai.  He noticed that Zeke and Leah both had large saddlebags, Leah’s bulging somewhat, but didn’t worry about what they were bringing.  The plan was to stop for lunch at an oasis ten miles south, then push on through the mountain passes to a known campground a couple hours beyond that.  It didn’t look too difficult.

Not yet, anyway, he thought.

There is a behind-the-writings look at the thoughts, influences, and ideas of this chapter, along with twenty other sequential chapters of this novel, in mark Joseph "young" web log entry #452:  Versers Ready.  Given a moment, this link should take you directly to the section relevant to this chapter.  It may contain spoilers of upcoming chapters.

As to the old stories that have long been here:

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