“We are fools,” Baru murmured, “to go into this battle without the certainty that we have already won it. We are all fools.” All the careful manipulation of coin and grain and cattle and marriage, all the delicate alignment of vectors. And it would all be reckoned here, in two masses riding lathered horse and casting their spears, killing potentialities as they killed each other: It will be this way, not that way! This way and no other!
