The district smelled like man who had been living in it for weeks without keeping it. Sweat. Old food. The sour, stale reek of people sleeping in the streets.
Hod shrugged that from the corner where the squad was hidden and set it beside everything else the avenue had told him in the last half hour.
Four, maybe more men at the near checkpoint behind a barricade of stacked loading crates. Two crossbows already aimed down the length of the street. An elevated position at the second warehouse's loading floor, where he could see the open door and the silhouette of one man just inside it watching the street.
Another elevated position at the third warehouse that he could not see directly, but a shadow at its loading aperture made the position obvious enough.
Twenty-six defenders, by his count, split between the a near and far checkpoint and both raised floors. Give or take.
Ric crouched to Hod's left with his back against the alley corner.
