The desert wind howled, like a wail sweeping over the empty ruins of the Xiutu Tribe.
As the wind rose and fell, sand and dust filled the air, blurring the boundary between heaven and earth and adding several shades of deathly stillness and strangeness. Even the sunlight was filtered dim by the heavy dust haze, falling upon the scorched, mottled earth as nothing more than a cold, dusky yellow.
More than thirty Xiongnu cavalrymen in black rode in slowly through the fine sand. Their horses' hooves were wrapped in thick cloth pads soaked in grease, the fabric tightly wound and durable. They made almost no sound upon touching the ground; only the faint crunch of lightly crushed grit vanished in an instant beneath the howling desert wind.
The leader suddenly hauled on his reins, and his fine horse obediently came to a stop.
Dark-gold eagle patterns were embroidered upon his leather armor, their lines dense and sharp, wings spread as though about to take flight. They belonged to none other than the Eagle Scout Camp, the most elite force under the Right Worthy King.
This unit had always lurked in the shadows, the sharpest scouting blade of the Xiongnu tribes.
The Right Worthy King's own eighty thousand personal guards were already elites selected from across the entire people, superbly armored and formidable in battle. They were the central force that kept the tribes in check and coordinated the war across the grasslands.
And the Eagle Scout Camp was the dagger point among those elites. Every rider in the camp had been selected layer by layer from the personal guard. Not only were they peerless horsemen and ferocious fighters, but they were also skilled in tracking, disguise, and espionage, tasked specifically with top-secret reconnaissance, battlefield pursuit, and targeted assassinations.
They would