The barrenland east of Ashmark gave Lewin farther sight than anything he had grown up reading about.
The slums had been a maze, and every threat came close, from doorways, from above, from the gap between two buildings at arm's reach.
Out here, danger could be anywhere on the horizon, and the horizon was a long way off. He kept finding his eyes dropping to the ground when they should have been searching the flat distance where the rock mounds broke the view.
He corrected himself as they moved.
Three hours on the road and he had mostly stopped treating the wind through the scrub as a warning. His body had been thinking the absence of cook-fire smell was a sign of safety since they left Ashmark's range. None of that meant anything in open country.
And to make matters worse, sky above the barrenland felt wrong today.
