Chapter 93. When the Drums Broke

Dawn came in gray strips, like the sky trying to bandage itself.

The Vesper camp stirred—and then stuttered. A single drum struck, low and clean. A second answered thin. The third split with a sound like a snapped bone.

Across the Steppe, the rhythm buckled.

“Pegs,” Neris said, pleased and vicious. “Bless the sticky-fingered of Pale Moor.”

“Watch the wagons,” Syra warned, eyes on the ridgeline.

The third wagon in the supply chain hit the rocks we had moved six inches in the night and made a noise I have only heard once before: a war-beast trying not to scream. Pitch slopped. Someone shouted to snuff torches. Someone else dropped one.

Fire, then. Their fire, not ours.

“Signal Kael,” I said, already lifting my hand toward the bond.

Drums dying, I sent. Wagons lit. Push only as far as you can still taste air.

Copy, Kael returned. No flourish. No swagger. A steady hand on a cart’s handle.

Syra rolled her sh