Hajin counted fresh banners from the southern wall while Hans swept his looking glass across the trenches below.
Eleven hundred and eighty infantry stood beyond the ditch, and seventy-two cavalry waited behind the central pavilion in tidy rows. The reinforcing host spread siege works across every road into Blackwood Vale, with thirty replacement catapults beside crews and winches.
"Corven's at the pavilion," Hans said, passing the glass over with his good hand, "seven Shards, and he brought his own bank."
"His own what?"
Seven Shards flared around Corven while an attendant hooked his crystal cylinder's lower valve to stakes under the pavilion's edge. He kept one arm raised until the field around those stakes brightened, then lowered it like a lord ordering wine.
"Portable mana bank," Cassie reported, slapping her chart beside the parapet, "enough feed for fifty engines if it's full, and it keeps their wards up without a fixed tower."
