“Basically, we can’t go on the defensive, this town simply isn’t big enough to hold all the country people, even if we could round them up in time. The technical term is chevauchée, which is Sashan for cruising around at your leisure burning houses and barns, driving off livestock and trashing standing crops. Oh, and killing people, of course. It’s how the Echmen prefer to fight less developed nations, and they’re very good at it. The idea is to force them into a pitched battle, which the Echmen inevitably win because of their superior equipment and training. All of you are wide open for it,
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