The sealed lead pit steamed faintly in the outer palace plaza. Deacon Vane carried an armful of captured Imperial Admiralty logs into the forward war tent.
Three days remained. In seventy-two hours, Kaelen would reach his three-month vessel cap.
High above the imperial capital, the ten-mile obsidian dreadnought hung motionless like a suspended continent.
Down on the ground, within the fifteen-kilometer perimeter of interlocked law domains, not a solitary soldier broke ranks.
Fifty thousand allied infantry stood in orderly formation along the glacier highway. They looked up at the apocalyptic timer in the heavens, then looked at the royal tea garden where their Grand Elder lay asleep.
Patriarch Shen and Patriarch Mu walked along the frozen trenches, checking the sentry posts.
“Four days to live or die,” Patriarch Shen remarked, tucking his hands into his fur sleeves. “Yet our men are calmly peeling roasted chestnuts by the brazier.”
“They have seen three imperial grandmasters fall in three days,” Patriarch Mu replied. He watched the white steam rise from a soldier’s tea bowl. “When your generals freeze fire-hammers and gag swordmasters with romance booklets, a floating ship is nothing.”
