The Lion of Alba marched south with fire in his heart and steel at his back.
Riders swept ahead of the host, their horns echoing across the hills, but no answering horns came.
Scouts vanished into the woods and fields, yet returned with nothing but silence.
It was strange. Too strange.
On the borderlands of Northumbria, Duncan expected ambush.
His men advanced shield to shield, spears lowered, eyes fixed on every ridge and treeline.
But no arrows came. No wolf-howls split the night. No sudden rush of blades from the dark.
The villages they passed bore scars of pillage but not utter ruin.
Doors hung open, hearths smoldered cold, granaries half-emptied.
In some houses, women and children remained, stunned and hollow-eyed, clutching what scraps had been spared.
In others, there was only absence: daughters taken, husbands missing, wagons gone north with the wolves.
Bread and wine had been seized for the long voyage, coin stripped from coffers, herds driven to the rivers.
