Another day passed with no further activity from the direction of Eagle's Beak Peak. The cloud of war that had loomed over the fortress for nearly a month seemed to be slowly scattered by an invisible force.
In the Lower District, the atmosphere within the once crowded, chaotic, and despair-filled stone labyrinth was also quietly changing.
Soldiers began carrying civilians with severe injuries, or those simply too weak to move, to makeshift medical tents with slightly better conditions.
Although the rations still consisted of coarse black bread and watery vegetable soup, the portions seemed to have stabilized. At least it no longer prompted the bloody scrambles for a single bite that had occurred in previous days.
The heavy air, thick with a mixture of despair, fear, and numbness, had lightened just a little.
