Nightfall came late that time of year, which meant we had more hours than I wanted to watch the Eastern Purification Host finish what the morning's counterstrike hadn't managed to unmake.
They didn't march like a broken force. That was the part that unsettled Zereth more than any single number on his tally boards. A host that had just lost a war-priest and a fifteen-pace circle of earth to something with no name should have hesitated, regrouped, sent riders back for orders. Instead their column reformed within the hour, tighter than before, banners repositioned, siege engines drawn up in a line that suggested someone competent had simply absorbed the losses and adjusted the math.
"That's him," Zereth said, watching from the same rampart we'd stood on that morning, though the mood on it now had nothing in common with the mood then. "Nobody else in that army reorganizes a broken line that fast without panic showing somewhere in the ranks."
