The Realm's Most Valiant - Part 2

For how much of their own men that they saw, it was moderately strange to Oliver that they hadn't encountered any of the other parties – in Karstly's own independent teams, if he still had them out – who ought to have been investigating alongside them. He had to wonder if the Patrick men had been trusted entirely with the investigation. He certainly had not spied any of Ferdinand's men himself, though apparently, Firyr had chased them off when he'd encountered them earlier. Oliver wondered if that was perhaps the reason.

It wasn't until the sun was really beginning to press on the horizon, and their time limit was threatened to be reached, that they encountered one such other party that they would have expected to have encountered far earlier.