The girls' group had discovered a huge gnoll den near the Filthy Swamp.
It lay at the very edge of southern Transia, not far from the mountain pass where the fortress of Krim, currently occupied by the Kingdom of Nordtov, stood.
That colossal fortress, built by the Blood Eagle Clan and the Grand Duchy of Kafhoka at the cost of countless resources and tireless effort after the First Black Calamity, held immense strategic importance. It guarded the only entrance from the Filthy Swamp to the fertile plains beyond.
The fortress had borne the brunt of the gnoll armies' first assaults during each of the next three Black Calamities, and had never fallen. But even the strongest fortress couldn't withstand a collapse from within.
Near the end of the Ten-Year War—to be precise, on some day last month—the garrison at Krim surrendered to the Winter Wolf Legion, announcing that the fortress on the border between Transia and the Great Kafhoka Plain had fallen completely into the hands of the Northerners.
The twenty thousand elite blood thralls stationed there, along with some of the Blood Eagle's finest, had also smoothly thrown in their lot with the Thorn Clan after the Grand Duchess Shani personally recruited them.
When Shani and Triss met afterward, both had tacitly chosen not to mention the matter.
It was as good as agreeing to this "handover."
Compared to Grand Duchess Shani's seasoned, precise methods, Count Andre of White Mountain's little maneuver in Batashin had come up short in both ambition and execution.
But tonight, the magnificent fortress—an unbreachable wall—wasn't the focus.
The fortress's mounted scouts had quickly spotted the Transians attacking the gnoll den at the foot of the mountain and reported it to the Winter Wolf commander inside. He didn't care.
A commander of his rank was