Explore "Despoilers of the Golden Empire" by Randall Garrett on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
The heavy tread of the invaders' boots as they entered the central plaza of the walled city awakened nothing but echoes from the stone walls that surrounded the plaza. Like the small villages they had entered farther north, the city seemed devoid of life.
There is nothing quite so depressing and threatening as a deserted city. The windows in the walls of the buildings seemed like blank, darkened eyes that watched -- and waited. Nothing moved, nothing made a sound, except the troopers themselves.