The tracking data confirming the arrival of the southern royal grand army didn’t rest upon rumor. It was checked by two rigorous and independent watching halls.
From her sound watchtower atop Milepost Nineteen, Maeve Swift-Ear had spent thirty-six in a row hours logging the ground-shaking shakes of the southern highway through her brass sound-cone.
Every three hours, Maeve recorded the deepest frequencies in her pocket ledger. A deep, eighty-hertz rumble generated by sixty thousand iron-shod marching boots, overlaid by the sharp, metal clatter of twelve thousand barded horseshoes, and the rhythmic, low-hum groan of massive wooden wagon axles straining under four-ton balance weights.
From the dense hemlock ridges overlooking the river valley, Rook Red-Mane had slipped back across the frontier line at dawn.
The chief of the frontier pathfinders carried physical proof in his leather scouting pouch. Charred grain vouchers, stamped supply order slips bearing the dragon seal of House Val-Khorne, and lumps of red clay cut from the highway ruts showing tread depths of fourteen inches.
Rook unrolled a grease-stained scout map across the corner of the table. His weathered fingers tapped three locations along the river.
“Their order of march is rigid, Lord Giles,” Rook reported. He leaned his hunting bow against the stone hearth. “The Duke rides with three hundred household knights in the van, clad in fluted black plate with crimson cloaks.
