The sessions continued for nine days. Nine mornings in the market hall at Millbridge, the river outside carrying its steady volume south, the valley's farmland holding its spring green in the fields that had not been planted this season because the farmers who worked them were waiting to see whether the army in their market town was leaving before committing seed to ground.
On the third day, Snowe sent a message requesting a meeting with Khao'khen separate from the diplomatic sessions. The request was unusual in form, a personal communication carried by an unarmed rider rather than an official dispatch, and its content was brief: the general asked whether the orcish commander would be willing to meet, one commander to the other, without staff or diplomatic personnel, in a location that neither side currently occupied.
