A Warrior's Resolve

The next morning Boro had breakfast with Nila and afterwards sent orders for his army to broke camp and began marching towards Kurten, a fortress city further to the north nestled right in the Gladous Mountains. It was a slow process. Boro's army had around four thousand foot, archers and cavalry and a thousand or more, army followers including woman too big with child, elderly who tended to the cooking, cleaning and washing, and children, so many children, left orphaned or homeless because of the ongoing conflict. Several of his officers had been petitioning him daily to take the orphans on as soldiers and train them for war but Boro refused them every time. He would not raise an army of child soldiers, but he did offer service to any youth of age to be taught the sword and spear. Those too young but insistent on joining he took on as squires, pages and message runners, anything he could think of to keep them busy and out of trouble.

The journey itself would normally last two spans o