The iron-shod battering ram rumbled through the dusty gorge like an armored beetle.
A hundred howling Crimson Vulture bandits charged behind the timber frame. They wore spiked leather breastplates and brandished notched cleavers.
At their head rode two scarred vanguard captains, shouting curses into the morning air.
Captain Blood-Eye brandished a heavy iron mace. Beside him, Captain Bone-Splitter carried a pair of serrated hatchets. Both veteran killers had slaughtered provincial garrisons across the western borders.
“Smash the palisade!” roared Captain Blood-Eye. “Second Brother Garrick is a cowardly dog who wets himself at the sight of blood! One blow, and the diggers will flee!”
The canyon walls amplified their stomping boots.
Above them, perched eighty feet in the air on the timber observation platform as Kaelen’s seclusion ticked past Hour 275 at two hundred and seventy-six times baseline, Second Half-Brother Garrick Vance was indeed shaking.
His knees knocked together inside his linen trousers. Sweat poured down his fleshy neck, soaking his quilted silk collar.
