No wind stirred the scene, and the pluming smoke billowed and roiled at its own whim. The plain near the bridge had been flattened by the passage of so many horses and men that it was nothing more than a flat field between the high banks of the river and the verge of a narrow band of trees that demarked fallow fields to the west. There was no shelter on this plain-it was exposed ground that Dietrich had hoped to cover swiftly before his Mongol pursuers could get within arrow range. His goal had been the bridge, but that hope died in his breast as soon as he realized where the smoke was coming from.
( Neal Stephenson )
[ The Mongoliad: Book Three ]
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