Chapter seventeen
Of a Pachak hyr-Paktun and a KrozairMaking our way into Shazmoz was not going to be easy.
We eased our sectrixes on the rise and let them blow gently while we looked down the long slope toward the army of Zairians encamped below. The sea glittered blue to our right. Not a speck of sail broke that wide expanse. The sky lifted high, high above, blue and distant, and the radiance of opaline light streamed mingled down about us.
“I hear there are thirty thousand,” said Duhrra.
“And how many have the Zair-forgotten Grodnims?”
He waved his stump, still wadded in bandages. “No one knows. Men talk. Uh... sixty thousand.”
“But they must lay siege to Shazmoz and at the same time front our field army. It is not easy for them.”
“May Zair rot their bones and turn their livers g
