It took two more hours to reach the top of the rise. There were gardens on the three sides of the town facing land, tall rows of grain on the west and northwest sides. After a short rest, I went to scout the town with Baldar and Inger and we arrived before first light. Each location was scouted during the day then taken in the night when everyone was asleep. Five days march into uncharted territory we started encountering scattered farms and homesteads. The rest of my warriors broke camp early in the morning, and I drove them on through the night. The town sat a few hundred meters north of the banks of a massive, slow-moving river. It seemed that while all the townsfolk receive rudimentary weapons training as children, most didn’t maintained those skills as adults. They were tied to the back of our wagon train as we marched further into enemy territory, for I did not want to commit any of my forces to escorting them back so soon in the raid.
