The early winter night spilled over Grayrock Pass, thick as ink.
The cold wind shrieked between the rock faces, whipping everything with snow and masking the faintest sounds.
Under the pallid moonlight, the vast outline of Naxi Fortress resembled a dormant beast, exuding cold, deathly stillness.
At the entrance to Grayrock Pass, in the Snake-Men's absolute exclusion zone.
Standing before the assembled players, Knife-in-the-Butt checked his pocket watch one last time. The cold touch of metal sharpened his senses... The time meant nothing to him, but the gesture made him happy.
The Mountain Tiger Warband's players had finished assembling. They carried a motley assortment of weapons, all lethal enough, and their eyes gleamed with excitement and bloodlust behind their gas masks.
More than a dozen heavy explosive satchels had been gathered together and entrusted to volunteers unafraid of death. Some of them also carried Siege Spears.
The Siege Spears would be used in the first wave, but after examining Naxi Fortress's gate, the players' demolition experts judged that they were unlikely to blast through it. At best, they would leave a hole where explosive satchels could be placed.
The explosive satchels were therefore more important than the Siege Spears, though the latter still needed to be detonated.
Without an initial breach point, the explosive satchels might well fail to blow the gate completely open.
Wood's resilience was not to be underestimated.
"Brothers!"
Little Knife's voice came through his gas mask with a rasp like metal scraping against metal.
"Our target is that fortress gate! Let's blow it open, charge inside, and twist those worms' heads off to use as balls!
"Midnight will be our hour of victory! For military merit, for reputation, for Mountain Tiger!"
Low roars rose among the players, trembling with suppressed excitement.
They did not care about