The crimson flare dissolved into a smear of greasy smoke against the brass-colored sky.
High on the northern rim, the dull thud of heavy timber mallets echoed across the gorge.
General Dravus was moving fast.
Hundreds of iron-clad imperial engineers worked along the river bend, hauling enormous burlap sacks of rock salt and packed clay.
They had thrown a massive barricade across the Brine-Silt River.
The gray mountain water, thick with mineral runoff, was backing up into a churning artificial lake forty feet deep.
Directly below the swollen levee, nestled in the gravel wash of the dry gorge, lay the refugee camp.
Three hundred exiled men, women, and children huddled beneath patched wool awnings.
