Beorn's words carried out through the horn, struck the surrounding buildings, and came back to him a heartbeat later with the square folded into the echo. For a brief stretch of silence, nobody in the crowd tried to fill the gap left behind. Beorn kept both hands on the rail and waited until the last of his previous sentence had fully traveled before he continued.
"Any army Dunvarre sends here has to cross a hundred miles of Badlands before it reaches these walls," he said, his voice steady rather than raised. "It has to feed itself every mile of that road, with wagons and grain dragged over country that already kills better soldiers than the men commanding them."
The crowd remained still. Even those who had been shifting for a better view seemed to understand that he was not merely describing distance, but attrition, and the shape of failure that came with it.
