"No plan survives contact with the enemy."
It was a saying attributed to the famed Prussian commander, Moltke. And it was a truth that Alpheo had learned not in books, but on battlefields soaked in mud, sweat, and failure.
He had once placed blind faith in his own strategy at the first battle against the Lechlians, imagining a swift, elegant breakthrough on the enemy's right flank using his elite footmen. Reality had offered him no such grace. The plan faltered, the enemy held firm, and it was only the sudden, thunderous return of Egil's cavalry that kept the day from ending in a rout.
