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The first time, it's shocking. One of the new inductees to the 338th spends his time in the saddle for the next hour, dry heaving up his breakfast. The aspirant, along for the recon, offers final rites and a quick few prayers. Though the dead can neither speak nor spar, they probably find the careful shepherding of their souls elsewhere a boon.
The nice thing about habituation is that it inurs you to the sheer mundane horror of existence. We find the second dead patrol on the other side of the bridge that spans this part of the region, tucked off a small winding path through a little bit of hilly terrain. Their dead are strung out for a mile. A fighting withdrawal that turned bad, shedding lives as it went. We follow it to the source, a bread crumb trickle trial of corpses. In an open spot of landscape ringed by three knobbly hills and shorn by long wind, the reservoir of Legion troops this trickle flowed from. A last stand gone wrong, light troopers intermingled with legios. It is a quiet, eerie battlefield bereft of the usual detritus. Oh, there's broken spears, shattered shields, *dead soldiers* in abundance, and the crows and ravens tweet at the scout patrol as it checks over the area.
But the quivers are empty, the sheaths are bereft of blades and despite the telltale puncture wounds in the dirt and the dead from flung javeling, remarkably conscientious murderers have taken the time to make this the most politely cleaned battlefield for miles. Forage is an art, yes? Live off the land. Though perhaps the forage the Sparkhooves are filching from our dead allies is not textbook standard.
One of the 338th's crest the hill above to gain better perspective and - half a heartbeat later - comes screaming back down the hill, full sprint, outpacing his own horse. He has good reason to.
A dust-cloud heralds the arrival of horsemen rather intent on forcing you to join the display of the dead.
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