While Hermi had been locked away from the rest of the world for three weeks, Commander Otho had finished escorting the harvest from the successful Mummy Bats campaign. He had returned to the Black Fortress with the rest of the Archery Division.
The men must have secured a vast bounty. As Hermi crossed the corridors, she saw long lines of laborers hauling heavy trunks into the treasury vaults.
When she finally arrived at the Inner Yard, the archers' laughter and raucous jests boomed across the training grounds.
Otho's shock of white hair was the first thing she spotted among a sea of archers dressed in black leather and steel armor. He stood in his familiar commanding posture, hands clasped behind his back as he spoke with a group of archers.
The veteran Commander must have mastered his 'sense of space'. Even as Hermi stood at the far rear of the Inner Yard, hushed by the distance and the clatter of practice, his gaze snapped immediately her way.
