Dawn in the Dead Zone didn't arrive so much as seep in.
There was no sunrise — just a slow, grudging shift from black to charcoal to the same featureless gray that passed for daylight in a land stripped of everything worth looking at.
Revan hadn't slept. He'd spent the last two hours sitting in his corner, watching the glow in the southeast fade as the sky lightened.
By the time the gray was bright enough to see faces, the glow had disappeared entirely — swallowed by the ambient light, or hidden by whatever was producing it.
Dain was the first to move. The Marshal stood with the slow, grinding effort of a man whose body had spent the night turning every injury into a cement cast. His wounded shoulder had stiffened overnight — the arm hung at his side like dead weight, and he didn't even attempt to lift it.
"Everyone up," Dain said. Not loud. He didn't need to be.
"We're moving."
