The year is 1600. You are agents of Begum Ren-Dalara of the Ottomans, looking for her lost caravan of silk and silver. The caravan was last seen a month ago at the month of the Malesch Valley in the south-east of the Caucasus. The Maleschi people are pastoralists of little note, bar one detail: they despise horses and are known to kill both steed and rider on sight.

The mouth of the valley, where the dregs of the Durmriq pool amongst war-burnt reeds. Miles upon miles of orange and umber, the stark enormity of the cloudless sky broken only by occasional copses of slender shade-casting pines.
Underfoot, the reeds shroud ankle-deep vernal pools, treasurers of stray arrows and tugged-away boots and sun-bleached bones. These are the spoils of war, shed by harried war-bands and their mounted pursuers.

1.1 - Nothing.

1.2 - Nothing.

1.3 - Abandoned war-camp.

Nine black mounds: collapsed and burnt yurts, shovelled-through and picked clean of metal salvage. One is much larger, the earth around it still scorched. An ashen crutch protrudes from the wreck. Roaring flames and desperate screams rise from the mound at night: the wounded, abandoned by their comrades, were forced inside. Lame horses were piled upon as they burned.

1.4 - Vevel's Bivouac.

A thin grey ribbon of smoke. A hammock strung between two pines. This is the camp of Vevul the Scout, a man of thirty with sun-leathered skin and an equally tanned army-issue rain poncho. He searches forlornly for any sign of his dear comrade Arvik who disappeared in an skirmish on these plains three years prior (1.3). The scout describes his war-partner as unusually tall and slight, a bearer of dark skin, a furrowed brow and a long kindjal scar down his right arm. Vevul has searched most of the lowlands and can provide the location of landmarks and settlements in the area. His mark resides in 10.2.