By the end of the third day, Elian was officially a war profiteer, and he felt fantastic about it.
The inner courtyard of the castle had been transformed into a soot-stained assembly line. The rhythmic clank-clank-clank of hammers hitting anvils was the heartbeat of the North's new defense strategy.
Elian stood near the armory doors, a ledger in one hand and a charcoal pencil in the other.
"Keep it tight!" Elian shouted to a pair of sweating apprentices who were winding the spiked iron wire around a wooden spool. "If the barbs are too far apart, the horses will step right through them! I want maximum snag!"
A few yards away, Ambrose was putting on the performance of a lifetime.
The White Lotus, still dressed in his itchy, unadorned monk's robes, stood before a group of wealthy, weeping merchants and minor clerics. He had smeared a little soot on his cheek for dramatic effect.
