The council room in the central keep was quiet save for the crackle of seasoned pine knots in the cast-iron stove.
Outside, the sub-zero mountain gale screamed around the heavy granite castle walls, rattling the leaded diamond casements.
Inside, a single bronze oil lamp cast a warm, flickering light across the broad drafting table, lighting up topographic charts, land-mapper slates, and Giles Croft’s brass slide rule.
Beside the stove sat a half-empty mug of chicory tea, steam rising in thin white curls into the dry, cedar-scented air.
Before the council had convened, Giles and Toby Karr had stood together upon the high watching platform of Bastion Alpha with the thirty-power sighting scope.
Through the polished brass optics, Giles had measured the slope of the northern ice-slow moraine.
“Six-degree slope dropping to the gravel apron,” Giles had noted, jotting the figures into his pocket notebook.
“The terrain offers zero natural cover for an advancing assault force.
