The lights rising in the wilderness were actually very faint, and pitifully few compared to this vast land. Yet even so, during those brief few minutes, Melita felt as though they filled her entire field of vision—she could barely look away.
After a while, some of the lights temporarily went out, but the rest remained, shining like starlight in this cold, dim "polar midnight."
"That one over there—the farthest one, at the foot of that mountain. There might be another camp there," Noreta said, staring wide-eyed into the distance as well. She pointed at a cluster of flames at the edge of her field of vision, excitement on her face. "Can you see it? Several smaller light sources are moving nearby. Those might be patrol teams!"
"I see them, I see them," Melita said quickly. "And east of the camp, in the direction of what used to be the Rus Valley, several fireballs rose there just now too... Maybe a small number of survivors have gathered together..."
Noreta fell silent and gazed at those places for a long time. Only after a while did she break the silence. "They should be able to hold out longer now..."
Melita scratched her hair, not knowing what to say for a moment. After a long while, she finally squeezed out a few words. "Yeah, that's true..."
Atop the towering watchtower, flames roared skyward with the aid of pressure-boosting equipment. Though the freezing wind from the coast still howled, it could never extinguish the dazzling blaze. Barrogel stood beside the pressure equipment until he had confirmed that it could operate steadily, then handed the matter over to the other dragons and turned to leave the watchtower.
He came to a nearby platform, where Andar and Heragol stood in the night wind, gazing out