She laughs, grimly. “If this was ever a place for livin’ it’s only fit for killin’ and dyin’ now, my dear. It’ll be a hundred miles before we start seeing settlements outside the Tenth City.”

“Manai!” Lariat hisses at them. “Riders at our backs!”

Before she can spare a glance over her shoulder, Evie is being pulled down the hill and pressed flat just below the crest by Lariat’s powerful hands.

“Hit the dirt, the rest of you!” she hears Mother Manai order the rest of the Savages.

Evie looks to her right to see that the B’ors are already pressed flat below the hillcrest, silently and stealthily surveying what’s coming from the other side while the rest of them are still hunkering down in confusion.

She follows suit, carefully peering over the top of the hill. Evie counts twenty riders galloping two abreast, keeping a tight formation as the hooves of their mounts pummel the salted earth. The two columns are little more than slender lines in the distance, but they’re growing larger with every passing moment.

They’re obviously soldiers, but they aren’t wearing the same plate scale armor as the Sicclunan ground-pounders Evie faced in her first battle with the Savages. These riders are clad in lighter leather armor and splattered muddy shades of brown, green, and yellow, as if it has been painted to blend in to the wasteland itself. Instead of steel helms they wear cloth hoods and half-masks dyed the same smattering of colors. Each rider carries a long sword and a short sword sheathed from opposite hips, and Evie can make out larger skirmish weapons strapped to their saddles.

Their leader rides alone and out front of the two single-file columns. A wide-brimmed hat hides their face, and they’ve forgone the armor worn by the soldiers in favor of a thick leather tunic and trousers dyed a deep crimson. Evie spies no sword carried by the leader, long or short.

“They’re not outfitted like Sicclunan soldiers,” she observes.

“Oh, they’re Sicclunans, all right,” Lariat assures her. “They just ain’t infantry.”

“Outriders,” Mother Manai says. “Special Selection. We’ve heard about ’em, hadn’t run up against any on the battlefield. They’re special trained. Guerilla fighters. It was probably them that hit the camp in the night.”

Lariat grunts. “Sicclunans are tired’a losin’, it seems.”

“Took ’em long enough,” Manai adds.

“What are they looking for?” Evie asks.

“Us, no doubt,” Brio says. “Or any of the Skrain who survived the night raids and are trying to make it back to wherever the line has moved.”

Mother Manai nods. “Yer fancy Gen man there is right.”

“That seems like a lot of effort and risk just to kill a few strays.”

Manai shrugs. “Mayhap they’re lookin’ to take prisoners fer interrogation. Who knows, really? We’ve more pressing matters here. They’ll be at the foothills in no time.”