Mira had said half a day from the morning check, which put the arrival somewhere between noon and mid-afternoon.
She apparently had been right about the staging area location, right about the formation and right about the armor markings, so when Lucius's Divine Sense caught the first signatures at the northern ridge at twenty minutes past noon he wasn't surprised.
He was already in position.
Seven signatures, moving in the consolidated formation Valeria had described.
The divine radiance coming off each of them clean and concentrated, significantly brighter than the field units that had been coming down the valley road.
This was a different category of opponent. He could feel the difference even at range, the quality of the blessing on each of them carrying a weight that the standard commission didn't carry.
He pressed his back against the wall of the building adjacent to the approach corridor and breathed steadily and waited.
