---
By late morning the desert looked like a page erased and written over again. The first wind had scuffed away the scatter of battle, but it could not hide the truth: bodies lay where the drones had stood their ground. Shadeclaw's line and Shale's cohort moved down the slope in steady files, and one by one they lifted the fallen of Mardek's force onto sleds made from captured shields lashed with net-rope.
"Count as you go," Silvershadow said, voice low and even despite the splint wrapped around his broken fingers. "Mark where they fell. We learn the ground as well as the names."
