Kingdom of Ash

structures built into either one. Like the
Eridun aerie, and yet not at all. The Eridun’s
mountain home was full of motion and life.
What had been built in the Gap, connected by
a stone bridge near its top, was silent. Cold
and bleak.
Snow half blinded Nesryn, but Salkhi
swept toward the peaks, staying high. Borte
and Arcas came in from the north, little more
than dark shadows amid the whipping white.
Far behind them, out in the valley plain
beyond the Gap, one half of their army waited,
the ruks with them. Waited for Nesryn and
Borte, along with the other scouts who had
gone out, to report back that the time was ripe
to attack. They’d made the river crossing
under cover of darkness last night, and those
the ruks could not carry had been brought over
on boats.
A precarious position to be in, on that plain