He passed near one of the fires and caught fragments of speech.
"...said it threw Rhem clean off his horse."
"That thing had six eyes."
"It had four."
"It had six when I saw it."
"So you were drunk?"
A snort. A nervous laugh. Someone coughing blood into cloth a moment later.
Fear wrapped itself around camps in particular ways. In palaces it was perfumed, hidden behind manners and measured words. In battlefields it burned hot and obvious. But in camps...
In camps it lingered.
It pooled in the pauses between speech. In the glances cast toward darkness just a touch too often. In the overeager bravado of men trying to convince themselves morning was promised.
Ixion rather liked it.
He continued onward, taking stock of everything.
Where the knights slept.
