Haguk struck at midnight.
Not the combined force's main body. The supply convoy that was moving south from the provincial depot under escort of six hundred cavalry and two hundred infantry, the convoy that carried the replacement arrow supply that the Tohr'terra had consumed at the ford and that the combined force's archers needed before they could participate in the next engagement.
Four hundred and sixty warg riders, moving through the darkness at the pace that wargs sustained over distance, the loping run that covered ground faster than a horse's trot and quieter than a horse's canter, the animals' padded feet producing none of the hoofbeat percussion that gave cavalry away at night.
The convoy's cavalry escort rode in the screening formation that night march doctrine prescribed, riders at fifty-pace intervals along the convoy's flanks, the interval wide enough to cover the approach routes and narrow enough that each rider could see the rider adjacent in the moonlight.
