They were less than a mile from the dead garrison when the first shadow came over the high ground.
Too fast to be a bird, but too even to be cloud. Lucian felt the key at his belt throb with a thin, ugly pulse, as though it recognized the approach and couldn't hide from it. Rhel went to the sky line at once. "Sky line." She said. "Move."
They ran for the broken highlands ahead, the ridges and fallen stone able to break a clean drop, and didn't make it far when the first team came down.
Five figures dropped from a dark glider frame on bound lines, landing in a spread to cut the road, and isolate the center of the column. No cries, no demands. Seat marked hunters with short blades and locking spears, already moving before they touched the ground.
