Radeon flew the lead with Fay and the miners strung out behind, a long crawling line under a bruised sky.
The first crack of dawn showed ahead of them. Radeon's gaze reached farther than any man's.
He pushed his sight out across distance and saw the moths still there. They did not retreat.
They spread. A whole field of them now, layered thick enough to call the whole area their longtime breeding grounds.
Far out on the edges, silhouettes flashed. Men riding swords, dipping in and out of the swarm.
Beyond even that, itinerant cultivators waited at the periphery, patient as carrion birds, watching for an opening.
To many it would look like a land of fortune. A rare chance. A fat prize with teeth.
Radeon had made sure they never encountered a man along the way. Questions would mean delays, and delays were what he did not need.
He led the convoy off the route that fed directly to the Goldkeep Crownmarkets, taking them through a cut of land that cost time but bought space.
