Rothen crossed back into unclaimed territory on the morning of the fourth day. His two underground partners — Vaelk, a younger Frogman with a talent for cartography, and Suss, a female scout whose silence was legendary even among Thorn Scouts — surfaced in a riverbed six kilometers south of the Grand Ordinator's border.
They didn't speak until they were twenty kilometers clear.
Vaelk had mapped the settlement's layout from subterranean vibrations — counting footsteps, estimating building density through the acoustic signatures of populated versus empty structures. It was inexact work, but Vaelk was the best acoustic mapper in the unit. His assessment matched Rothen's visual observations within ten percent.
Suss had done something more dangerous. She'd entered the settlement itself.
