It's a fine, clear day. The autumn air has not yet become brisk, so Svetka doesn't feel overly rushed in her observations of the mountains to the east. Well, not rushed beyond the fact that the rest of the army is still marching along behind her and she will sooner or later have to catch up to the other surveyors and actually do the sketches she's making notes for. Which has to be sometime before tonight, because tomorrow they will be marching- west.
It's a little bit easier to think just 'west' than to think of the actual reason she's facing east. There's not really what you would call terrain, to the west. Just a dark stain of inky blackness over dried-out sands running north to south, cutting the country of Ravka in half. The Unsea. The Shadow Fold.
She- knew, abstractly, that when she and Val joined the army that they would almost certainly be told to cross the Unsea. Lots of people cross the Unsea, not just the army, merchants do it all the time (though with many more casualties than literally any other trade route). She just... wasn't expecting it to be two weeks after they finished their training.
She should get moving soon. The surveyor's tent is probably set up outside of Kribirsk already.