The woods were heavy with whispers and whimpers and above all with the thick stench of impending death, which had a way of arriving well before the dying did.
From deep beneath the dense forest canopy the roar of the assault came filtering down through theoaks, vibrating along the trunks and into the damp black earth until it reached Vilon's ears through the soles of his boots as much as through the air. It came not as a chaotic mess but as a single low continuous note, rising and falling with the wind like a hymn sung by something with a great many throats and no words to use them on.
The faint clink of iron spearheads, the muffled hiss of mail shifting as men moved, the heavy thud of timber somewhere against timber, all of it clashed against that note without ever quite breaking it.
