The column crossed the first battle ground in the middle of the morning.
The marks were still there under the frost. The patches where the summer drive had worked the steppe down to bare soil had not recovered before the cold came in, pale and distinct against the dead grass, the surface torn too deep to heal in a single season.
The horses moved through without guidance, reading the uneven ground through their feet, and the column passed over what the summer had left and kept going south.
Batu crossed the same approach he had crossed weeks before, moving in the opposite direction. The junction was to the east of the march line, unmarked now except by what the ground still showed.
He did not look for it. The streambed was ahead.
Kirsa's screen came back as the distance dropped to visual range.
"He's on the south bank," the rider said. "Spread across the full width. Formed. He hasn't moved."
