Night pressed down on the Threian camp like a living thing.
Fires burned low, not for stealth but because there was little fuel left that had not already been scavenged for stretchers or crude barricades. Smoke clung to the ground, mingling with the iron stench of blood and the sweeter rot of opened bodies carried in from the field. The wind shifted constantly, carrying with it distant echoes from the plains. Laughter. Drums. Orcish voices raised in harsh, rhythmic chants.
Those sounds alone were enough to keep most men awake.
But the real terror came from the dark beyond the fires.
Far from the glow of the Threian camp, shapes moved across the broken grasslands with practiced ease. Massive, low silhouettes slid between dips in the earth, their forms barely distinguishable from shadow itself. Red eyes gleamed briefly, then vanished. Heavy paws pressed into the soil without sound.
The Warg Cavalry had arrived.
