Chapter 721: Their Price, His Answer
The strangers had brought more stakes than baskets.
Leon counted the nearest line as his party approached the hollow. It crossed the lower path, continued over a strip of bare ground, and ended beside a stand of closed sun cups that nobody was collecting.
Farther left, six people knelt among the flowers. Guards stood behind them while another pair watched the approach from a flat rock. Rust-colored sashes marked them as one expedition, though their armor varied. Several had narrow copper ornaments fitted along the ridges of their ears.
They watched the Palace party with considerably more interest than they had shown the two local growers leaving by the western path.
Wen Shu stopped beside Leon.
"Twenty-four that I could see. Most of the guards are Golden Core."
"Any movement above us?"
"None. The upper path is clear as far as the fork."
He nodded and let her return to the column.
