Chapter 4: The Battle of the Ashen Peaks

The Ashen Peaks announced themselves three days before the column reached them.

First came the smell — sulfur laced with something older and less nameable, the exhalation of a mountain that had swallowed too many dark things over too many centuries and was no longer fully distinguishable from what it had consumed. Then came the light, or rather the failure of it: a dimming that had nothing to do with cloud cover, a quality of grayed air that pressed against the skin like old wool. The riders did not speak of it. They drew their cloaks tighter and rode.

Wren rode near the column's middle and watched Calder at its head.