Belts were beginning to tighten in Karpella. It had been nearly two weeks since the Sharisian army had laid siege to the city and, since then, their bands of swift-footed horsemen had formed an impenetrable barrier to the outside world. The few groups of desperate citizens who’d tried to flee were charged down, well within sight of the walls, and put to work digging the trenches and embankments of the siege works. The bodies of messengers, sent in a desperate plea for aid from the rest of the kingdom, rotted before walls, corpses still hanging from the scaffolds they’d been hung on, a stark warning of what would happen to those that resisted.
For guards posted on the walls, and the few brave city folk who ventured to take a look, each day was an agonising wait … watching siege lines snake
