Night fell over Coldwind City. The soldiers who had been pulled off the walls during the day were crammed into temporary cookhouses built close to the ramparts, warming themselves with the body heat seeping out from the dense crowd and the thick, though it looked like it would collapse with a shove, packed-earth walls.
The Night Watchman sat in the central area, huddled around a stove. The creak-creak of burning firewood echoes through people's dreams, mixed with grinding teeth and rising-and-falling snores.
Most of the men here had no idea when the Valeria Empire would launch its first assault, nor what kind of end awaited them. In the entire camp, only a small handful of well-connected soldiers knew what had happened that night in the border city.
The Empire's expeditionary army hadn't even taken a full day to break the kingdom's border fortress, a city protected by inner and outer walls, layered defensive arrays, and interlocking spell formations.
