A gentle, sturdy breeze pressed unintimidatingly upon the East faces of the land, bringing with it the scent of deserts, oases, distant wives and children, and all who percieved it saw in the zephyr hope to encourage all, to brighten spirits and wash away anguish. The sunset to the West went almost unnoticed, but by one man, Hetuk, general of the army encamped about him. The aiyeh petal clouds over the distant ocean were to him wondrous, and he gazed and was lost in the majesty of the dusk until his duties called him away.
With the Gonfakim so nearby, a fireless camp was made that night.
Hetu went among his men; inspiring the fearful, helping tend to the wounded, and consoling the dying. With a command of so many soldiers it seemed as though a mountain, like the great Misty Ranges far to the North, had settled atop his shoulders, and Hetuk feared the time when that great weight would make itself truly felt tomorrow.
At last, many hours past sunset, Hetuk retreated within his own tent, and there he lay with his wife Kafeia, and he was consoled for that time at least.
"Kafeia," Hetuk said, in such a fashion as should not be heard by their attendants in the tents near to. "I am deeply troubled." Her attention was undivided. Through sand and waste and storm and strife she had never turned from her love for Hetuk. Yet her love had changed, or he had been changed; by grief at losing so many brave warriors, by fear of losing more, and perhaps by the sheer exertion of his will through which he had built a kingdom to rival the Northrons, the tyrants of Gonfakir.
"I fear I know only too well what blights your sleep and darkens your days," said Kafeia tenderly, meaning to sooth such darkness out of her lover by the softnes of her words. "My love - my life's treasure and final ends - my morning sun and evening moon, your very footsteps tell of your fear. You wish to see no more death, you wish to end your campaigns and your very position. You even wish to change the past. Would you we had never met at the court of Relim Kapatchi? For that is what must surely have been had you never left Abduyyn."
"My love - fear's very bane - the sun's pale dawn and the moon's delight, I would not take my happening upon such a grace even were I made Lord of the Earth." Hetu looked for a time into Kafeia's eyes, and she into his, and the warm, sensuous brown of her skin - and the perfectly smooth contours of her body - were to him then all that existed in all of Aw'Atouhneyaah, Middle-Earth. Their long passion that night kept both of them from the darkness and the cold of their separate lives.
Finally, afer many hours, the slumbering camp began to return to life, not more than an hour before dawn, as the muster and sallying forth for battle began.