Another week passed after the timber from the Maloren Resting Place arrived.
Cain stood atop the outpost's watchtower, scanning the edge of the swamp.
Morning mist hung thick in the air. The reed beds resembled a gray-green sea, broken now and then by ripples that might have come from waterbirds or the dorsal fins of lizardfolk.
"My lord, are we setting another ambush today?" his deputy called from below.
Cain did not answer.
He recalled the report he had received that morning—another kobold gathering party had been attacked. Seven kobolds had died on the spot, and half the survivors had returned with lizardfolk poison arrows in them. They now lay groaning in a thatched shelter.
Meanwhile, both ambush parties he had sent out had returned empty-handed.
"No." He climbed down the watchtower, his voice hoarse. "Let the men rest. If this keeps up, we'll be worn down before we've killed more than a handful of lizardfolk."
Once off the tower, he went straight into the barracks and took up a pen to write to his lord.
Ink bled into the rough parchment like a cloud of gloom that refused to disperse.
When Ye Wei'an received Cain's request for aid, he was inspecting the canal construction site outside town.
The autumn sun hung high overhead. Amid clouds of dust from the rammed earth, dozens of laborers chanted work songs as they built a cofferdam.
Specifically, they drove two rows of wooden stakes into the riverbed outside the bank where the canal would join the river, packed the space between them with firmly compressed clay to keep out water, then drained the enclosed area to create a dry construction site.
That would allow them to install a one-way sluice gate and open the canal connection.
"My lord," a messenger said, jogging over