The heat shimmered across the cracked horizon.
From the haze, a line of movement emerged.
Dark silhouettes rode fast and low, kicking up bursts of dust as they approached Liora.
Fiona's drone lens zoomed in automatically.
"Whoa," she whispered.
"Okay, chat… We've got incoming."
One figure rode a massive beast.
Huge, brutish, and boar-shaped, plated in bone-wrapped iron armor, with tusks as thick as tree trunks.
It snorted molten breath as it stomped toward the clearing.
Flanking it from above were four smaller figures on flaming hawk-like beasts.
They circled in swift arcs, leaving trails of smoke and fire behind them.
Fiona swallowed.
"Okay, that… I don't know what it is. But that thing's a walking war crime."
"And those in the air—I also don't know those."
"But they must be some mid-rank Aurelius scouts."
"Damn it. We're looking at a full strike unit."
Liora stood in the open, unmoved.
The lead rider pulled his beast to a halt.
