Chapter 42 of 42·6 min read·The last two hours before dawn
The Receipt
The first stretcher reached the tower stairs before the sky began to pale.
Aren took the rear handles with his left hand. His right hung close to his side, numb from shoulder to fingertips, and the black mark beneath his collar tugged whenever he tried to lift with it. The injured human soldier on the stretcher bit down on a strip of leather as they went down each narrow step. Behind him, a demon woman with a bandaged leg leaned on Seraphine and counted each landing aloud.
“Keep the pace,” Sella called from below. “Rest at the turn. No one stops on the stairs.”
The captain had assigned every able body a task. Odran and two tower guards carried water and blankets to the lower yard. Esh, pale with blood loss, directed the wounded who could walk. Vael remained under guard in the tower room until Sella could spare someone to bring him down.
Aren’s arms burned. He kept his attention on the stretcher, on the human soldier’s boots bumping close to the steps, on the careful space Seraphine made for the demon woman behind them. Their progress was slow, but each landing put the injured farther from the refuge and its fallen ceiling.
At the yard, the stretcher bearers laid their burden beside a stack of folded canvas. The soldier spat out the leather and tried to sit up.
“Stay down,” Seraphine told him, checking the bandage at his ribs.
“I can walk.”
“You can wait until I say so.” She gave Aren a quick glance. “Next pair.”
He went back up.
Sella was at the tower entrance when the custody detail came into view. Six soldiers, a narrow two-wheeled cart, and a lieutenant in a weather-stained coat. They had taken the lower road at a brisk pace; their boots were still wet with the night’s frost.
The lieutenant stopped at the entrance. His eyes went first to the armed guards, then to the demon wounded being helped down the stairs.
“Captain Venn?”
“Sella Venn.”
“Lieutenant Teren. I have the order for Vael Morcant.” He unrolled a sealed paper. “The custody transfer is due at first light.”
“It is first light.” Sella looked toward the stairs. “The last wounded are still coming down.”
“Then bring Morcant out. My orders name him.”
Sella held her ground. “The wounded leave first.”
Teren glanced at the tower room. “You were ordered to hold him here. The detail is here to relieve you.”
“I’m still holding him.”
Next
With Vael bound in human custody and the wounded around him, Sella must lead the mixed column through the battery line before its single escorted passage ends.
For a moment, the only sound was boots on the stairs. Aren, halfway down with an empty stretcher, stopped on the turn. He could see Teren’s hand resting near his sword belt and Sella’s fingers pressed flat against the door frame.
Teren folded the order. “You want me to explain to command why I stood outside while a prisoner waited upstairs?”
“I want you to explain why you left six soldiers idle while wounded people came down one at a time.” Sella pointed toward the stairwell. “Take that end. We have another stretcher ready.”
Teren looked at her, then at the demon woman gripping the rail as she descended. He removed his gloves and stepped in behind her.
“Two of you, with me,” he said to his detail. “The rest clear the yard.”
The detail moved. Sella turned back to the tower without thanking him.
They carried the remaining wounded down in pairs. Teren took one end of a stretcher bearing a human sapper; a young soldier from his detail took the other. At the next landing, the sapper asked whether the guns were still silent. Teren answered that the batteries had acknowledged the hold-fire signal. He didn’t promise how long it would last.
Aren saw Sella hear him. She kept counting bodies and assigning hands.
When the last stretcher came down, dawn had drawn a thin gray line over the eastern ridge. Odran was in the yard, checking the wheels of the cart. Seraphine had wrapped the walking wounded in spare coats and was making a list of who could travel without a stretcher. There were eleven people who could walk, seven who could not, and fewer blankets than the cold required.
“Everyone accounted for,” Odran called.
Sella counted them herself. She paused at Esh, who had insisted on standing though his leg shook beneath him, then looked over the rest. She counted again before nodding.
“Bring Vael down.”
Two guards went upstairs. Aren stayed at the bottom of the stairs, the stretcher handles still in his left hand. He had carried Vael’s weight once before, when the tower stairs were crowded and the wounded had no room. Now he wondered what it would mean to offer help. He didn’t move.
Vael came down between the guards, wrists secured in front of him. The black cloak he had worn at the refuge had been folded and laid over his shoulders. He took each step carefully, leaving the guards to set the pace. At the bottom, he looked over the yard and the gathered wounded.
“Are they all out?” he asked.
“Yes,” Sella said.
He faced Teren. “I will go quietly.”
The lieutenant held out the order. “You’ll be escorted to the northern command post.”
Vael gave a small nod. “Then let the wounded travel with us. They need the road more than I do.”
Teren’s expression tightened. “The order concerns your custody. It says nothing about a convoy.”
“They can’t remain here,” Sella said. “The lower yard is a staging point, not shelter.”
Aren watched her look from the cart to the road beyond the tower. The route led across open ground toward the northern battery line. The lamps there had answered her signal in the night. In daylight, the gunners would see the mixed group plainly.
Teren read the order again, as if a second look might change its boundaries. “My detail can escort Morcant. I have no authority to guarantee these others passage.”
“Then take your time signing the transfer,” Sella said. “We’ll move together.”
Teren’s jaw worked. He looked at his six soldiers, at the injured people in the yard, and finally at the sealed paper in his hand.
“I’ll request a route through the battery line,” he said. “The signal may take time.”
“Send it now.”
One of his soldiers hurried to the signal post. Teren watched him go, then turned the order over and held out a blank receipt.
“Your delay will be included in the report.”
“Put my name on it.”
Aren had heard Sella give orders through the night without raising her voice. Now she took the receipt and read every line before signing. The pen scratched across the paper. At the final line, her hand stopped. She looked toward the wounded, where Seraphine was covering a human boy with a demon soldier’s coat, then finished her name.
Teren sealed the receipt. His detail closed around Vael. One soldier checked the ties at his wrists; another moved behind him with a drawn sword held low.
Sella stood facing Vael. “You’re in their custody now.”
“I understand.”
She adjusted the edge of his cloak where it had slipped from his shoulder. The motion took less than a second. Afterward, she turned to Odran and asked how many people the cart could carry.
Vael stepped toward the guards. He did not look back at Sella, though his pace slowed as he passed the wounded. Esh shifted to make room for him. Vael gave the injured soldier a brief nod and continued toward the open yard.
The signal post answered. Odran read the lamp sequence twice, then called down that the batteries would hold fire for one escorted passage along the lower road. Teren confirmed the terms with his own signalman. The guns would remain silent while the group crossed the marked stretch; beyond it, the order gave no protection.
Sella arranged the walkers between the carts and the guards. She put the stretcher cases in the center and placed Teren’s soldiers along the outside, where the batteries could see their weapons and their faces. Vael went at the front of the custody detail, hands bound. Aren took the rear handle of the first stretcher with his left hand.
The tower’s doors stood open behind them. Sella checked the count one last time, then led the column down toward the road. The northern guns watched from the ridge as the prisoner and the wounded entered the same firing lane.