[The lieutenant's brow furrows; but her gaze betrays her thought by flickering to Kratos; and then she nods, bows and withdraws, obeying. And Kratos is left with the excruciating suspicion that she knows precisely where that foresight came from, and perhaps thinks she knows why.
[The regiment is not happy. There are grumbles when they make camp that night.
[There are fewer grumbles as they continue the morning after, and find the skeletons of horses and dragons and people buried in silt and mud on the delta, swept there by floods. The level of those floods are made clear by the line of silt built against the banks as they enter the delta proper. It's highly fertile ground; it's a death trap. The regiment marches on, and Kratos is silently but acutely aware of no few measuring, puzzled, curious looks.
[The delta spreads all the way to the sea; but there's a build-up of rocks which divert part of it into the mountains. It begins as gorge, levels into valley; but the water is shallow enough to wade through it, though it means they're on the march into the night before the gorge broadens and they can make camp proper. It is the only way -- to take delta and gorge in one march.
[It is awful work, too; the water is deep enough that a boot sinking is liable to be stuck, and filled, and risked left behind. Wagons must traverse the narrow edges or risk being caught in the mud themselves. All the while, from the uneasy looks upward, everyone is thinking of those washed-away skeletons in the mud.
[Kratos is fortunate. He can't walk in this; so, he is relegated to a wagon or astride a pony. He can't say definitively they won't meet the same fate as the skeletons in the delta; but he's more than evenly sure they won't. There is no excess of water to send sweeping down this way; the tributary ends in a lake in the mountains.]
no subject
[The regiment is not happy. There are grumbles when they make camp that night.
[There are fewer grumbles as they continue the morning after, and find the skeletons of horses and dragons and people buried in silt and mud on the delta, swept there by floods. The level of those floods are made clear by the line of silt built against the banks as they enter the delta proper. It's highly fertile ground; it's a death trap. The regiment marches on, and Kratos is silently but acutely aware of no few measuring, puzzled, curious looks.
[The delta spreads all the way to the sea; but there's a build-up of rocks which divert part of it into the mountains. It begins as gorge, levels into valley; but the water is shallow enough to wade through it, though it means they're on the march into the night before the gorge broadens and they can make camp proper. It is the only way -- to take delta and gorge in one march.
[It is awful work, too; the water is deep enough that a boot sinking is liable to be stuck, and filled, and risked left behind. Wagons must traverse the narrow edges or risk being caught in the mud themselves. All the while, from the uneasy looks upward, everyone is thinking of those washed-away skeletons in the mud.
[Kratos is fortunate. He can't walk in this; so, he is relegated to a wagon or astride a pony. He can't say definitively they won't meet the same fate as the skeletons in the delta; but he's more than evenly sure they won't. There is no excess of water to send sweeping down this way; the tributary ends in a lake in the mountains.]