Chapter 526

The plains stretched out like a sun-bleached ocean, empty and unforgiving. Wind rolled across the dry grass in waves, bending brittle stalks and kicking up clouds of dust. Here and there, the land rose into low, weary hills, bare and wind-scraped, as though the earth itself had grown tired of war and time. Almost dead-center, glinting like a silver serpent, ran the Garthum River...broad, slow, and ancient, its lush banks a green wound in the otherwise colorless plain.

Captain Wilfrid stood atop one such hill, his cloak snapping behind him in the wind. Twenty riders of the Third Spear Cavalry stood nearby, their horses silent, breath huffing from nostrils flared against the dry air. Dust clung to armor and cloaks alike. There was no cover out here. No forest, no ravines. If they were seen, they would be hunted. And they could not afford to be seen.