"You only have to last ten miles."

"Don't say 'only.' Right now it seems the end of the earth." Stefan shifted slightly in his saddle, flexing his broad shoulders in an attempt to ease the discomfort of aching muscles and fatigue. It was a hundred and two degrees, and he was so covered with dust that the sweat trickling down his body was leaving paths. His formerly white Chevalier Gardes uniform was now an indistinguishable color that would have been a court martial offense on the parade ground. But he and his personal bodyguard of Kurdish irregulars were riding north toward Tiflis, capitol city of Georgia, for a badly needed furlough after the three-month siege of Kars. Their first night's stop in Aleksandropol would at least afford him the luxury of a bath, food and a woman-in that exact order, his libido tempered by personal demands for comfort first.

The war in the east had ground to a standstill in the blazing heat of July, both Russians and Turks content with maintaining an attitude of mutual surveillance. Both sides in this war- begun by the Tsar in April to save the Christian minorities in the Ottoman Empire from further massacres-were now bringing up reinforcements before resuming the campaign.

Meanwhile the Russian siege of Kars, Turkey's great fortress on its eastern border, had been abandoned and the Russian troops were retiring toward Aleksandropol for some desperately needed rest.

As the Tsar's youngest and best general, Stefan knew the Russians had begun the campaign with too few men, and after Tergukasoff's defeat at Zevin they couldn't afford another disaster. It was vital the troops were allowed some rest before hostilities were resumed.

When the war had begun in April, Kars in Eastern Turkey had been one of three main positions of the Turkish line on their border with Georgian Russia. Russian troops had taken one fortress and garrisoned it, but Kars had cost thousands of lives in vain assaults. The Chiefs of Staff couldn't agree on strategy. Coordination was a nightmare, since whenever reinforcements should have been called up or an assault planned, competing generals fought for control. Stefan's cavalry corps was the only unit to have continued success but at the cost, often, of more men than he could afford to lose… to staff blunders. And even his successes were viewed at times with jealousy.