Thirty-five hours after the puppet vanguard reached the siege camp, its blockade and the repeated assaults had left the defenders exhausted.
Shattered masonry tumbled down the eastern slope in a cascade of gray dust and splintered timber.
The outer rampart of White-Lotus Academy had ceased to look like a fortification hours ago. Twenty-seven days of siege warfare had ground the upper parapets down to jagged stumps. Nine separate Cooldown-Bait waves had hammered the valley approach, each launched with mechanical cruelty by Siege General Vorn.
Every wave had pushed to the threshold of the defensive formations before breaking off. It was designed to force the defenders into burning precious spiritual energy.
Smoke rose from the scorched gravel terraces. In the dry moat below, the iron skeletons of three dozen ducal siege engines lay smashed against boulders. Disciples moved through the haze with wooden stretchers, hauling wounded sentries away from the perimeter.
Inside the half-collapsed east gatehouse, the air smelled of burned talisman paper.
Deacon Vane stood beside a rough-hewn pine table, his ivory abacus resting upon bloodstained parchment. His knuckles were gray from chalk and ash, but his fingers still clicked the beads with nervous precision.
“Nine assaults in twenty-seven days,” Vane said, his voice raspy. “That marks six hundred and fifty hours on Master Vance’s slate.”
