Ryn smelled Ashenveil before he saw it.
The caravan had been moving south for nine days — fourteen travelers, six wagons, two Gnoll outriders, and a Minotaur caravan master named Durgan who spoke exactly once per day and always about road conditions. The Iron Road had carried them from the Northern Reach border through Thornpost, through the Frostmarch waystation network, through the rolling grasslands of the central provinces where the landscape shifted from tundra to temperate so gradually that Ryn only noticed the change when he realized he hadn't been cold for three days.
Then the smell hit.
