Scouting!
Three days later
The books said you could get soldiers to walk twenty miles a day and still have them in some kind of shape to fight at the end of it. The books didn’t say anything about a gaggle of townsfolk and fighters, moving through broken land on foot. Six miles a day was the best they could do, and it was only halfway to Purty.
Rex thought they had made pretty good time, though. “They’re not going to march like soldiers,” he’d told Dallin and Tabetha when they brought up the issue. “We’re moving faster than I thought we would, and nobody fell out.”
“Yeah, well, anybody still alive and free out here is tough,” Dallin shrugged. “That includes the bad guys, sir.” He stared out into the night. It was extra dark, because it was for sure that there weren’t going to be any fires to give them away. “Only… where’s their pickets and scouts? They’re not dumb. They know they got to patrol.”