The plateau ran flat in every direction and the tumen moved across it the way a marching force spread across open steppe. The grass was short and pale, the spring not yet far enough advanced to have given it color.
Orda's rider came from the northeast at midmorning. He was a lean man on a good horse, traveling without insignia, and he found the forward screen and was brought through to Batu's position without drama.
He named the location in four words, a river bend, two hours northeast, a line of three low hillocks running near the water, the second hillock. He handed over a felt strip with a mark on it that Batu recognized from the prior correspondence.
Then the rider turned and went back the way he'd come.
Batu told Torghul to continue the march and took six of the Khar Kheshig northeast.
