The yellow sands of Wind Sand Islet still howled over the walls. The gate destroyed that day was now being rebuilt. Standing atop a higher stretch of wall, Damon seemed to be overseeing the work, but his gaze was fixed on the distant horizon, buried beneath the sand and blurred beyond recognition.
He waited for word from farther afield to reach his ears:
"Day fifteen. No sign of any group advancing along the Great Wall."
Half a month was enough for a caravan to follow the Transverse Mountains and the Southern Great Wall to the Golden Mountains occupied by the Collector. Even a slow caravan should have reached the corner where the Beastfolk army lay in ambush.
But the answer relayed to him was not what he had wanted.
This meant Tang Weinberg, the bard who had disrupted every part of his plan, had taken the allied forces down another, longer route to the Great Wall—
The ambush he had prepared had caught nothing.
"I never expected a poet from the Tyron Empire to know the terrain of the Eastern Continent so well."
Well enough to abandon the shortest route and take a detour.
"Have the assembled army keep advancing."
Concealing his unease, he answered the distant voice with his thoughts.
This was perfectly normal. In his vision, Wind Sand Islet's walls would have collapsed that night. The Beastfolk would have slaughtered everyone on this land, offering their souls and blood to the yellow earth and igniting the ritual array buried beneath the entire city.
He would have his revenge on those incompetent yet arrogant Old Nobles farther north, seated high upon their thrones of wealth and betrayal.
For over two hundred years, his plan had not contained so much as a grain of sand out of place.
Only at