Batu POV
The overnight screen reports arrived before the sky had found its color. Chaidu's riders had been watching the inner defenses through the dark, and what they found in the third watch was organized movement.
Groups of cavalry were pushing southeast from the inner defensive positions along the drainage channels and into the forest east of the agricultural zone, before the screen could put a firm count on them.
They were not refugees. The movement was too directed, the groups numbering thirty to forty riders each. They had been gone before first light.
Batu read the report and looked at the agricultural zone spreading west and southwest from his position.
The raiding smoke from the previous day had died out overnight, but the western region was already beginning to create new torrents of smoke as Dorbei's parties reached their morning targets.
He sent the screen account forward to Dorbei's coordination point and rode south.
DORBEI POV
