---
Earlier that night, an enemy was making a sport out of boredom. Kai was unaware of that. The location is in between the northern and the Eastern forest border.
The terrain sprawled along the shallow ridge like a dark river of chitin and steel. Twenty thousand ants at rest turned the forest border into a disciplined hush. Night cookfires burned low blue instead of orange, concealed beneath hooded stones that vented heat without light. Armor hung on lines in neat ranks. Spears and mass-blades leaned together like bundles of winter reeds. Farther out, pickets stood knee deep in the leaf mold, antennae slanting in the same direction, listening to the earth itself.
