The wait was longer than she had expected. She had no accurate way of measuring, but she thought afterwards that it must have been several hours. When Hobstull led her back up the stairs and out of the tower and into the light, the day was edging rapidly toward nightfall, the gray of the sky gone darker and the endless clouds and mist dropped lower against the heights. The Catcher replaced the chains about her wrists, and a phalanx of Goblins surrounded her. She was taken across the courtyard through an outer wall to where a rolling cage similar to the one that had brought her to Kraal Reach was waiting. She was placed inside, and the chain that bound her was fastened to the bars. The Goblins formed ranks to either side of the cage, and Hobstull climbed onto the seat next to the driver. The driver snapped his whip over the heads of the massive horned creatures hitched up front, and the wheels began to roll.

They went out through a set of bigger, bulkier gates, heavy oak toughened with pitch and bound with iron plates. There demonwolves joined the procession, panting and slavering, yellow eyes shifting to find her, their muzzles drawing back. She felt their hatred for her, read the warning in their snarls.

Down through the buildings of the fortress they wound, heading east into the growing darkness, toward the mountains against which the keep was backed. The earlier crowds had thinned to a wary-eyed few, some of them Goblins, some of them Gormies and kobolds, and some of them creatures she could not identify. When they were outside the walls, they turned south, bending with the land toward a vast depression that dipped into the flats overlooking the countryside beyond. Scrubby and desolate, the depression was rippled by a maze of deep gullies and sharp ridges born out of massive erosion. They followed a cart path marked by wagon wheels and animal tracks, the dust rising in heavy clouds, the air hazy and gritty.

She sat quietly in the center of the cage, rocking back and forth to its uneven sway, one sleeve of her tunic held across her mouth to help keep the dust from her breathing passages. They had advanced far enough that when she looked back at the keep, its walls and towers had shrunk to the size of a child’s toy. She watched as the image grew smaller and less distinct and finally vanished entirely.

As they arrived on the valley floor, the roadway straightened and the landscape opened up again. The denizens of Kraal Reach, absent before, were now clustered everywhere she looked, fingers pointing, eyes and faces bright and eager, their conversations animated as they watched her pass. They understood more about what was going to happen than she did; that much was clear from their behavior. It was not a stretch to think that most of the city had come out to watch.