The parchment map unrolled across the wooden command table with a dry scrape, pinned down at all four corners by sharp daggers.
Captain Seret rested both calloused gauntlets against the timber rim, his dark gaze sweeping across the circle of officers gathered beneath the canvas awning.
The morning wind whipped at the frayed guy-ropes of the shelter, but inside the perimeter of the command post, the atmosphere grew tense and grave.
"Listen closely," Seret began, tapping the crossguard of his center dagger against a crosshatched depression sketched along the eastern valley route.
"The royal scouts and the garrison surveyors have finalized the operational parameters for this deployment," the veteran commander stated, his gravelly voice cutting through the whistling gale.
"Once our column clears the outer quarry road, our primary objective is perimeter containment and structural mapping of the dimensional rift," he explained, tracing the rough topography with a gloved finger.
