They reached the ridge above Rennet's Crossing an hour before dusk, and Vane understood within minutes why the scouts had needed to see the place themselves before trusting their own report.
The settlement looked almost offensively ordinary.
Low houses clustered along narrow lanes. Fields stretched gold beneath the lowering sun, much of the harvest still standing. Thin smoke rose from real chimneys and drifted lazily across the valley, carrying the unmistakable suggestion of supper being prepared by people who had not yet realized how close the shape of their lives was to changing.
It looked, from this distance, like nothing worth destroying.
Like nothing worth the attention it was receiving.
That was what made it worse.
Soldiers moved through the settlement in a pattern too disciplined to be a patrol and too patient to be a raid. The roads were held. The houses were being visited one by one. Nobody was being dragged into the street. Nobody was being beaten.
Not yet.
