25
THE DESRAI ARRIVE
The sun began to rise, spreading its rays across the city walls and spilling over into the streets. Ramble was sitting, exhausted, on an upturned bucket in front of the main gates, having just helped the guards arrange all the carriages in the city outside the east gate so that everyone being evacuated could climb straight in and drive off.
At least, that had been the plan. As it turned out, there were several hundred more people than the carriages could take, so the king had to hold a game of picking straws to see who got the carriages and who would walk. Children were put in the carriages straight away, as the king hadn't thought it fair to make them walk when some of them could barely crawl. The adults, most of them with children themselves, had readily agreed to
