Vor'gath reached the Gorath Highlands on the thirty-first day after leaving Yohan's northern gate.
The journey's duration reflected the shaman's recovered state rather than the journey's difficulty. The Verakh escort had maintained the mountain road pace through the Narrow Pass and up the first ridgeline approaches until the highland clans' outriders had appeared on the second day above the pass, their shapes visible against the pale stone of the ridge's silhouette in the configuration that the clans used for the specific reception of significant returns: not the warrior formation, which announced threat, and not the ordinary patrol spacing, which announced routine, but the gathered stance, which announced that the thing returning was the thing the gathering had been watching for.
