The column pushed further east, sticking to the narrow veins of the only road that cut from Nonium back into Kakunian soil. There was a wider trade route to the south that swung through the capital, but it was a long, looping detour. This path was faster, or it was supposed to be. To Latio, every heartbeat spent in the saddle felt like another hour he was gifting his cousin time to adjust his mismatched move.
He didn't expect a long, drawn-out campaign. In his gut, he felt Merelao would disdain the "strategic" choice of hiding behind stone walls.
His cousin followed a moral code that only he understood, a strange thing that usually involved the most direct and bloody path possible out of all option.
