The bone ground did not tremble the way it shook when storms came.
It shook the way ground trembled when something with mass and purpose was moving through it at speed, transferring force downward with each impact rather than distributing it. The bone beneath the pale dust conducted that force better than soil would have because bone was rigid and interconnected and the entire field was essentially one enormous compressed skeleton that had no give left in it.
Nero felt it through his feet before he heard it.
A rhythmic percussion, deep and hollow, like something striking the inside of a drum from below, except the drum was the bone earth itself and whatever was striker it was getting closer.
Kua heard it too.
His head turned toward the fog wall to the east with the particular stillness of someone whose instincts had already completed the threat assessment and was now waiting for his conscious mind to catch up.
Nobe did not turn his head.
