The man got off the wagon, and the convoy behind him slowed down and stopped. People with hollow eyes and watchful faces looked out from the wagon flaps.
"The short version is... chaos," the merchant said.
He took off his hat and turned it over in his hands. "We left three days ago when the eastern approach was blocked."
"The city walls were still holding, but barely..."
"The defenders are spread thin across three sides and are losing men faster than they can replace them..." He stopped. "And there are thousands dead already..."
"If the numbers I heard before we left are even close to being right."
Marshal didn't say anything, but Lucian could tell that her jaw and fists were set in a way he recognized.
"What are they fighting about, actually?" Lucian asked. "You said there were three ways, and what are they?"
"From the east, there were a lot of dragons and things that looked like dragons, but their movement looked somehow weird and exotic..."
