Alpheo let his hand rest on the rim of the war table, his fingers tapping it with the rhythm of a clock ticking down to something inevitable. He leaned forward just slightly, letting his voice slip lower, heavier — no longer commanding the room with volume, but with gravity.
"Let me make something very clear," he said, drawing the eyes of every man present. "I wouldn't feel comfortable assaulting that hill even if I had four thousand men behind me. Not even if they were all fresh, blood-hungry, and blessed by every god up there.
That position is a butcher's slope waiting to be fed. All it takes is one man—just one—to break. One man to drop his spear, lose his nerve, scream, piss himself, run—and that's it. The line ripples. It shatters.
You can train a soldier in a few weeks, you can drill him day and night, teach him to march and stab and shout the right words... but you need more time to reach the part of him that flees when it hears death coming."
