The night was so thick it seemed almost tangible. A cold wind whipped up fine, biting grains of sand, lashing at the eaves of the low earthen houses in Canglang City and making a sound like the weeping of ghosts.
With the second watch already past, the entire city was as dead and silent as a grave, save for a few patrol torches on the ramparts that flickered and struggled against the boundless ink-wash dark, resembling dying will-o'-wisps.
Two shadows, darker than the night itself, hugged the cold, rough base of a wall, gliding silently and seamlessly across the empty streets and alleys with their target locked straight on the heavily guarded area encircled by towering earthen walls in the west of the city—the armory.
Chapter 127