The horn of the Iron-Scale Beast Tide shook the dry salt plains.
Dust rose ten miles high into the blood-red sunset.
On the crumbling mud ramparts of West-Wind City, Captain Old Tie gripped his rusted spear with one hand. His left leg was made of notched wood, lashed tight with leather cords. Beside him, three hundred emaciated militia men held bent swords and cracked bamboo bows. Behind the walls, three million displaced border citizens huddled in alleyways. They clutched their starving children and prayed to deaf skies.
“Hold the wall!” Captain Old Tie shouted, his voice hoarse from dry dust. “The court abandoned us, but our families are behind this gate! If we die, we die on our feet!”
A young recruit with cracked lips pointed toward the horizon. “Captain, the imperial garrison took every grain wagon three days ago! The magistrate took the treasury and fled east in a golden carriage! They told us to pay the war-debt tax or hang, and then they left us to the wolves!”
Old Tie spat bloody phlegm into the dirt.
His moral score glowed a steady, stubborn ninety-four out of one hundred in the dusty air.
“The emperor wanted our gold,” Old Tie growled. “The beasts only want our flesh. Between the two, the beasts are more honest. Ready your spears!”
