It was deep in the night.
Everything was pitch black. The moonlight was obscured by heavy clouds, and the distant mountains and nearby waters were swallowed by shadows, creating a vast, ink-stained curtain of darkness.
A small wooden fortress stood in the gloom. High atop the five or six-meter-tall palisade, a patrol squad carried torches, taking turns to scan the perimeter. Inside the camp, torches crackled and rowdy laughter filled the air as a group of human traffickers drank and caroused. Several corpses were impaled on wooden stakes scattered about the compound.
Chapter 22