As the sun climbed lazily into the sky, casting long amber beams over the hills and rooftops, it marked the beginning of the eighteenth day in the siege of the capital—the beating heart of the Princedom.
To the weary men lining the ramparts, the number seemed surreal. Eighteen days, and yet not a single assault had been launched. No ladders scraping against stone, no desperate shouts echoing up the walls, no storm of arrows shrieking through the air. Not even the sound of a war horn in the dead of night.
It was quiet. Too quiet.
Down below, the enemy army remained at a maddening distance, content—so it seemed—to lurk in their growing forest of tents and timber contraptions.
They worked in slow, deliberate motions, constructing strange things and trenchworks, always under the watchful eye of sentries perched atop the walls. Every now and then, a scout would gallop across the far side of the field, or a group of soldiers would march in drill formation, but beyond that—nothing.
