Several hours had passed, and the moon had made its way down from the top of the sky.
It hung low over the western mountains now, close enough that its lower edge had begun to kiss the peaks, and the light it threw across the training yard had gone long and shallow and blue. The torches and braziers had burned down to sullen orange hearts, and nobody had thought to feed or replace them in some time.
Seven lances lay along the rail where Cossot had piled them, though calling them lances was a generous word for what was left at this point. They had been shafts of good seasoned ash twelve feet long, and now they'd been reduced to kindling, split along the grain, shattered a foot back from the point, one of them broken clean into three pieces. Each had lasted two passes. A few had lasted three.
