The campfires did not flicker out with the failure of the Blood Hawk Assassins. Instead, as the pale crescent moon climbed toward the zenith of the midnight sky, they multiplied.
Along the jagged, cratered horizon beyond the ten-mile chasm, hundreds of new lights blinked to life in the dark. Torches, glowing spiritual lanterns, and shimmering ward-stones turned the desolate frontier into a sprawling, ominous encampment. The failed infiltration had proved one thing to the wider martial world: the outer perimeter was guarded, but the beast inside the cage was bleeding.
