Pulling Everything Together, Maybe

The previous post, Gods And Wars, referred to a battle between Dalesmen and Lann. For the Dalesman battle formation, see A Blunt Wedge. For three young Dalesmens' discussion of whether someone must have made the world, see not only Just A Story but also Someone. For one of several items seen, in different contexts, against the Milky Way, see Progress. And that Milky way reference is part of yet another of Poul Anderson's vivid descriptive passages appealing to at least three of the senses:

"Carl lay in tall, wet grass, hearing the sigh of wind and the distant creaking song of crickets. Looking upward, he saw the [guard] go past, a dim sheen of metal against the Milky Way."

-Vault Of The Ages, Chapter 9, p. 97.

Sighing wind is appropriate to the Dalesmen's post-battle exhaustion whereas the crickets are indifferent to human conflict.