The dust cloud hung over the northern canyon like a red bruise against the twilight sky.
As Hour 485 ticked past on Kaelen’s Fallow Slate at a four hundred and eighty-six times multiplier, Captain Vorn lowered his brass looking-glass from the parapet of the northern watchtower. His weathered face was grim, his knuckles showing white against the cold stone railing.
“Five hundred men,” Vorn whispered to the scout beside him. “Spiked breastplates, iron battering rams, and heavy scaling ladders. They are moving at double-time.”
Beside him, the young scout swallowed hard. His fingers trembled on his crossbow stock.
“Are they marching in formation?” the scout asked.
“No formation,” Vorn replied, his voice tightening. “They are running like rabid wolves. Every man is foaming at the mouth. Their skin is dark with blood-boil poison. They don’t even carry water canteens.”
The scout leaned closer to the stone embrasure. He peered through the gloom at the distant road. The cold night wind whistled through the arrow slits, carrying the faint reek of sulfur and stale blood.
“How can five hundred men run forty miles without stopping?” the scout asked. He tightened his grip on his brass-tipped quarrel.
