The brazier by the gatehouse remained the only flame close enough to give them away, but the sky beyond the rooftops had started to change. The black horizon was thinning by slow degrees, growing less certain with every quiet stretch that passed. Somewhere behind the wall, a rooster stirred, then fell silent again, uncertain whether the light meant morning had truly arrived.
Batu tracked that change. Being seen was becoming just as dangerous as being suspected, and he didn't need to say it aloud for Suuqai to understand. Beside him, Suuqai crouched without moving, his attention fixed on the guards in the firelight, men watching the road beyond the gate instead of the shadow at their own backs.
The first sound reached them from the west before the sky had finished its slow change.
A rising chorus of shouting climbed above the walls, followed almost at once by the rhythm of massed bowstrings loosing together, arrow after arrow leaving together.
