Alpheo had seen the storm coming long before the first clouds darkened the horizon.
While lesser men relied on scouts, diplomats, or spies, he understood the oldest truth of war: an army moves on its stomach. Grain, steel, and flesh were the gears of conquest, and no veil of secrecy could fully hide their grinding.
So it had been laughably easy to trace the shape of his doom before the first blade was drawn.
The contact both in Oizen and Herculia had pointed out what he suspected: there had been a great effort into preparing grain and gears for a campaign.
The pattern unfolded before him like some tired play he'd sat through too many times.
Herculia would come from the west with their remnants of armies, all gleaming spears , arrogant nobility and a weakness that seeped from their very bones.
