Calculating the Floating Tortoise's cruising speed against the remaining distance to the South Star Fortress, Emery estimated that the journey would take at least another thirteen days, assuming they encountered nothing worse than the usual troubles along the way.
That assumption lasted for only a few hundred miles into the grasslands.
Emery's Divine Sense detected it first—a dark mass gathering on the horizon and moving rapidly across the plains. At first glance, it looked like an ordinary storm front rolling toward them. Then the mass shifted, and thousands of tiny wings flashed beneath the sunlight in near-perfect unison.
Not a cloud.
A swarm.
