Chapter 265: Two Days (2)
A massive man with heavy forearms and a thick gray beard stepped out from the growing crowd. He wore a heavy leather apron and carried a rusted iron pry bar.
"Name is Varn," the man rumbled, his voice like grinding stone. He was the canal foreman, and the district's unofficial patriarch. He looked at the wired alley mouths, then at Draven. "The Guard is not coming."
"No," Draven said.
Varn nodded slowly. He did not look surprised. He turned and looked at the hundred dockworkers standing behind him. They did not have Vanguard combat classes, but they had heavy tools and a lifetime of hard labor.
"Break the stones," Varn ordered his people. "Give the boy his trenches."
Dawn broke over Bastion Nine the next day, casting long pale shadows across the eastern quarter.
