DEVAN'S POV
Dawn broke grey and cold over the mountain pass, and Devan stood at the highest cliff overlook with his warriors arranged along the ridgelines on either side, hidden behind boulders and scrub brush, waiting.
A hundred fighters against twelve ships of Council forces was not odds any sane commander would choose, but the pass narrowed to barely twenty feet across at its center, forcing whatever army marched through it into a column instead of a wave. Devan had spent the night positioning archers on the eastern ridge, warriors ready to drop onto the column from the western cliffs, and runners stationed every hundred feet to relay orders down the line.
"They are here," Tobin said from beside him, pointing toward the horizon where twelve dark shapes had begun their descent through
