Due to the sudden alarm at the front gate, the rear alleys were practically empty.
Sol slipped from the shadow of the hide stack, moving like a wraith between the crude dwellings.
His footsteps made almost zero sound on the hard earth, his expanded perception extended in all directions, tracking the heavy, vibrating heartbeats of the few remaining giants who were still stumbling out of their huts half-awake.
Ahead of him, near the central row of larger mud domes, two massive Layer 2 Marauder guards… each standing nearly eleven feet tall, with skin like cracked grey bark and arms as thick as tree trunks… were frantically trying to untangle a rack of heavy spiked clubs.
"Hurry up, you idiot!" one grunted in their thick, guttural dialect, his massive jaw jutting out. "The chief didn't come back, and now those apes are knocking on our gate! Grab the logs!"
WHOOSH.
Sol closed the twenty-pace distance in the space of a single breath.
