The wind rolling across the eastern border plains carried the dry scent of flint and iron, stirring the dust between two silent armies.
For leagues along the boundary dividing the central plains from the southern sands, twenty thousand warriors stood upright beneath the pale morning sky.
The Southern army had erected no timber palisades or defensive trenches, arraying their battle ranks in broad nonagons five hundred paces deep beneath the amber banners of N'Faya.
General Zafaru sat motionless atop his armored war mount at the vanguard.
Across his broad shoulders rested his great recurve horn-bow, while his dark eyes watched two foreign rulers riding forward across the neutral border gravel.
Opposite the southern lines, the combined host of the Eastern Council and the Central Plains formed an immense crescent of polished plate and fluttering silk banners.
