The Stamp was bigger in person.
Vark had studied Runt's maps. He'd memorized the dimensions — thirty-foot walls, western gate, plateau carved from living rock. Numbers. Lines. Abstractions. Standing at the base of the western approach with two hundred soldiers behind him, looking up at the thing those numbers described, was different.
The fortress squatted on its plateau like a fist pressed into the earth. The walls weren't built — they were the mountain, shaped by divine hands centuries ago into something that said *nothing passes*. The Iron Hoof was carved above the gate, ten feet tall, cracked and weather-stained but still visible. Below it, the massive iron-banded gates were closed.
Behind the gates, something moved. The clank of iron. Voices — deep, rumbling, speaking a guttural language Vark didn't know. Minotaur battle-tongue. They'd been spotted.
Good.
"Formation," Vark said.
