He couldn''t actually see any figures moving in the grass across the river, but he could see the fires and it wasn''t hard to judge how many more of them lay north of the Deisa than there were here behind him, where his people waited for the dawn.
Almost certainly their last. He had no illusions; none of them did. Not since the battle at this same river five days ago. All they had was courage, and a leader whose defiant gallantry was almost matched by the two young sons who were here with him.\思\兔\網\文\檔\共\享\與\在\線\閱\讀\
They were beautiful boys, both of them. Saevar regretted that he had never had the chance to sculpt either of them. The Prince he had done of course, many times. The Prince called him a friend. It could not be said, Saevar thought, that he had lived a useless or an empty life. He''d had his art, the joy of it and the spur, and had lived to see it praised by the great ones of his province, indeed of the whole peninsula.
And he''d known love, as well. He thought of his wife and then of his own two children. The daughter whose eyes had taught him part of the meaning of life on the day she''d been born fifteen years ago. And his son, too young by a year to have been allowed to come north to war. Saevar remembered the look on the boy''s face when they had parted. He supposed that much the same expression had been in his own eyes. He''d embraced both children, and then he''d held his wife for a long time, in silence; all the words had been spoken many times through all the years. Then he''d turned, quickly, so they would not see his tears, and mounted his horse, unwontedly awkward with a sword on his hip, and had ridden away with his Prince to war against those who had come upon them from over the sea.