For another hour they marched, until they neared the moderately sized village of Belle – apparently named after the many blue bells that would appear in the nearby forests once spring began to set in. Another few weeks, Kraxus was told, and the forests would be full of them.
Belle started to mark the transition away from the endless plains. The land grew hillier, streams more frequent, and forests sprang up often. The Black Mountains no longer hung so aggressively in the background. Hills rose up high enough to block them from view, and for a time the road had led them through a valley that blocked them entirely from the world around them.
