They heard the fighting before they saw it.
Short bursts.
Steel striking steel.
A few shouted commands.
Then silence.
Then another sharp exchange farther ahead.
Vane slowed.
"That doesn't sound like a battle."
Ashe was already listening harder.
"No."
Valerica frowned.
"Too clean."
That was the right word.
Nothing about the noise carried panic.
No sustained clash.
No formation collapsing into chaos.
The sounds started, stopped, shifted position, then started again.
People moving while fighting.
"Withdrawal," Ashe said.
She changed direction immediately.
Nobody voted.
Nobody stopped her either.
They moved off the road and toward the sound.
Vane understood why.
Whatever waited deeper in this world, standing still whenever strangers fought nearby was not going to teach them much about it.
They found the retreat in a shallow draw between two broken ridges.
Twelve fighters were falling back through a narrow gap in the rock.
Not running.
Moving.
Two at a time.
