---
The mountain did not sleep so much as it was supposed to.
It dimmed its torches. It quieted its halls. It let the groans of wounded men blur into the deeper groan of stone shifting its own weight. Anyone standing on the outer slopes would have seen only a dark, hunched shape against the desert, a tooth shadowed by clouds.
Inside, no one believed the lie.
Shadeclaw believed it least of all.
He stood on the upper bend of the main ramp with his back to the wall and his eyes turned outward, helmet pushed up, antennae tilted to catch every scrap of sound. The ramp had been scrubbed with hot water and sand until most of the red was gone. The stone still drank the last of it in small, dark patches.
