Thirty li north of Southgate Fort.
As word spread of Golden Thread Province's wholesale defection and the approach of Veylin's main force, the situation across the war zone had changed dramatically.
The Eastern Foothills Province garrison regiments, previously scattered among strongholds and outposts north of Southgate Fort, had either been cut off and surrounded or abandoned their outer defenses and withdrawn into the isolated fortress.
Southgate Fort had become a trap packed with too many troops and too few supplies.
Outside Southgate Fort, once-lush pasture had been plowed by war into churned, scorched earth. Broken chevaux de frise jutted crookedly from the mud, and bloated horse carcasses floated in the moat. Dark red pools reflected the forest of spearheads atop the walls. Under the weight of the siege, the entire wilderness felt suffocating.
Golden Whistle Highland sat on a jutting rock, clutching a half-cooked leg of lamb. He tore into it with great bites, grease dripping from his stubble onto his mud-spattered wool vest.
Several richly dressed but dispirited nobles sat around him, holding handkerchiefs over their noses. Clearly, their temporary commander's table manners made them uncomfortable.
"Stop looking so fucking miserable!" Golden Whistle spat out a bone fragment. It landed in the muddy water, splashing a nearby baron's trouser leg. "We're fighting a war, not groping women's asses at a ball in Spindle City. Just keep those bastards to the south bottled up. Once Lord Veylin's main force arrives, every one of you will get your share of the credit."
"But... Baron Golden Whistle," a young baron said, his voice trembling as he gazed at the towering fortress in the distance, "that's Southgate Fort. Count Belia has thirty thousand elite troops under his command, all from the Heavy Infantry Regiment. Are we really just blocking them out here on