The forest exhaled.
That was the only way Kael could describe it.
The stillness that settled over the treeline in the minutes before the vanguard broke cover — a held breath finally released, cold and even, stirring the dust along the palisade's base.
Carrying with it the faint, metallic tang of approaching steel.
Two hours had passed in a blur of preparation.
Now the sun hung low and orange behind the western ridge, throwing long, bruised shadows across a village that had buried its dead just a few days back, and now stood ready to bury more.
Eleven defenders lined the gate.
Kael stood at the center. An ordinary blade in hand. Night-Fang's familiar weight sheathed and silent at his hip — a silence he no longer entirely trusted, but one he'd chosen to keep anyway.
"There," Perrin whispered, voice cracking, pointing toward a shifting break in the underbrush.
The first Leo-kin emerged into the open.
