Moonspear made for ending [bwp]

Fewer lately? Dune had not thought so. They had appeared mere days before, so perhaps she meant only today there had been fewer. He cast a cursory glance at the sky, although nothing loomed above them a blanket of clouds. He would eventually speculate that the two were connected: the weight on his neck and the growling birds in the sky. For now, though, it seemed to be a mystery to both him and Amekaze.

She offered a change of pace and a word Dune recognized with no moment of pause: patrol. He nodded, eager to show his relatively new (to him) leader that he could do whatever task she asked of him. He (rightly or wrongly) assumed that she would take charge of leading the way, and Dune would follow in line with wherever she went.