That night they made their plan: a thin cordon at the gorge to stop the caravan, a hidden squad to strike when the wagons clogged, and a mounted reserve to cut off escape. They chose men hungry for gold and glory; they chose the wind to be their lieutenant. They did not know the caravan carried more than goods. Housed among its boxes were iron tubes and strange, wheeled engines—mechanisms supplied by a distant lord's engineers, innovations that screamed with smoke and a fierce, foreign logic.