The night pressed close, thicker than cloth, heavier than chainmail. Even the wind seemed to die when it reached the hollow where the southern camp had sunk its stakes. Fires guttered low, reduced to smoldering bowls of red and orange glow, their smoke curling in threads like fading prayers. Beyond them, shadows stretched wide and deep, swallowing the shapes of tents and men until only silence remained, broken only by the occasional cough, the restless roll of a dreamer in his bedroll, or the far-off call of some hungry crow bold enough to circle a battlefield long after blood had dried.
Inside his tent, Ryon lay still.
But stillness did not mean peace.
