The first operation of the new phase made no tactical sense to anyone who observed it, which was the point.
Khao'khen ordered three hundred warriors of the 6th Warband to march, in full formation and in broad daylight, to the stone bridge at Halford Crossing, seven miles northeast of Millbridge, and to sit down.
Not to hold the bridge. Not to fortify it. Not to deny it to the enemy or prepare it for demolition. To sit down on it. In formation. In silence. Three hundred warriors seated cross-legged on a bridge that carried the combined force's secondary supply route, their weapons laid across their knees, their shields beside them, their faces directed north toward the road where the supply convoys would arrive.
Sakh'arran, who understood most of Khao'khen's designs before they were explained, looked at this one and paused.
"They sit," he said.
"They sit."
"On the bridge."
"On the bridge."
