As they had retraced their steps up the valley, then, they had spied sentinels, perched in places that were meant to be conspicuous, atop boulders and rubble mounds flanking the streambed, leaning on lances whose steel heads gleamed softly in the blue-gray light sifting down out of the overcast sky. Others carried strange-looking contraptions of cables, pulleys, and bent steel, which Beled identified as powerful bows. From this distance it was difficult to say much about their appearance. More than a few were redheads; the men tended to be bearded; they wore clothing that in some cases was out-and-out camouflage, in others was just meant to blend in with natural backgrounds.