The convoy reached us four days early.
The first wagon carried wounded men.
That settled the question of whether we should open the gate.
Halwen was outside before the team stopped. Orra called for doors to be taken from unused rooms. Mistress Dain began shouting for hot water.
I found myself carrying one end of a stretcher with a man who had introduced himself three minutes earlier by asking whether there was work.
Apparently there was.
The soldier between us had his eyes open.
He watched the sky while we moved him.
When the door-frame caught against a post, he made a small sound and apologized.
I nearly dropped my end.
“Do not apologize,” I told him.
He looked at me.
I had nothing else to offer.
We carried him inside.
Commander Hadran arrived with the rear wagons.
He was broad, mud-covered, and marked across the forehead by the edge of a helmet he had only recently removed.
“Who commands?” he asked.
“Captain Orra.”
“Where?”
“Moving your wounded.”
“Who are you?”
“The provisioner.”
“Good. Grain, fodder, sleeping space.”
“How many?”
“One hundred and nineteen walking. Twenty-three wounded.”
I looked beyond him.
The column stretched down the road.
Our eight days had just become a meal.
“Teams?”
He told me.
I asked how much food remained.
His expression answered before he did.
“Enough to get here.”
A sensible destination.
An unfortunate pantry.
Lady Veyr met him in the officers’ room.
He produced requisition authority.
She produced our agreement.
I stood beside the table while they discovered that both documents had been written by people expecting obedience.
“This is a crown post,” Hadran said.
“The stores are privately supplied.”
“Located in a crown post.”
“Location does not transfer ownership.”
“Requisition does.”
Veyr looked at the order.
“Within necessity.”
“Have you looked outside?”
“Yes.”
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“Then we can dispense with debating necessity.”
Captain Orra entered.
Her sleeve was bloody.
“Twenty-three wounded,” she said. “Seven can’t travel.”
“Nine,” Hadran answered.
“Halwen says seven.”
“She hasn’t seen the last wagon.”
Orra went out again.
The room quieted.
I looked at the untouched bread beside Hadran’s elbow.
“When did your men last eat?”
“Yesterday morning.”
“Why are you early?”
“The southern approach is lost. We diverted.”
“And the supplies?”
“Burned.”
The word landed flat.
No evasion.
No useful mistake.
I sat.
“How far to your next secure store?”
“Three days. Four with the wagons.”
“You intend to leave the wounded.”
“I intend not to kill them by dragging them another forty miles.”
Lady Veyr folded her agreement.
“Then you require more than grain.”
He looked at her.
“Yes.”
I began to see the outline of something we could discuss.
Not yet the solution.
The outline.
“Your quartermaster,” I said. “May we have her here?”
Quartermaster Tavra had a bandaged hand and a leather case she protected more carefully than the hand.
She inspected our papers.
Then Hadran’s.
Then me.
“Someone is about to suggest clever accounting.”
“Accurate accounting.”
“That usually comes later.”
I asked to see the convoy’s authorizations.
She opened the case.
There were allocations for food, casualty care, emergency transport, and a forward supply station at a town Hadran now described as lost.
I read that order twice.
“Your depot no longer exists.”
Hadran’s jaw tightened.
“No.”
“Your authority to establish one does.”
Tavra looked at the wording.
“Within the operational district.”
“Does this watch qualify?”
“Yes.”
Lady Veyr leaned forward.
Hadran saw it.
“I will not purchase a fantasy because you’ve found a paragraph.”
“Good,” I said. “We have a building.”
“Too small.”
“For your original plan. Not for the wounded already inside it.”
“And supplies?”
“Veyr’s warehouses,” Lady Veyr said.
I turned toward her.
She had not mentioned warehouses of the required scale.
Of course she had not.
Hadran looked at her.
“You have grain.”
“Committed elsewhere. Some can be redirected.”
“At what price?”
“Against a contract payable at the river mint.”
“Not the capital.”
“No.”
He understood immediately.
I followed a moment later.
A treasury promise could wait behind a war. A designated mint payment had a more definite route toward becoming money.
Hadran looked at Tavra.
“Possible?”
“Yes.”
“Advisable?”
She studied Veyr.
“That depends upon the price.”
Veyr named it.
Tavra laughed.
The negotiation began properly.
We separated the problem into things people could provide.
Grain.
Transport.
Repairs.
Beds.
Nursing.
Storage.
A guarded road stop for the next convoy.
Mistress Dain entered when I suggested the civilians could repair the damaged wagons.
“How many?”
I looked at Tavra.
She answered.
Dain turned back to me.
“With what timber?”
I looked at the ceiling.
She followed my gaze.
“Don’t you dare.”
We reduced the promise.
Lady Veyr wanted first claim on depot income.
Tavra wanted guaranteed volumes.
Orra wanted command of the watch left intact.
I wanted the residents’ ration protected from becoming whatever happened to remain after the army had eaten.
Everyone wanted written definitions of the words everyone else used.
By the time food arrived, we had filled six pages and settled remarkably little.
Then Hadran said, “The summoned defender joins my force when fit.”
I put down my cup.
“No.”
His eyes came to me.
“She is a crown Hero.”
“She is injured.”
“When fit.”
“She has not agreed.”
“That is not a question for the provisioner.”
“No,” Aoi said from the door. “It isn’t.”
Halwen stood beside her.
Aoi had one hand against the frame. Her face was pale enough that I rose before deciding whether I should.
She looked at me.
I stopped.
Hadran turned.
“I need defenders.”
“I know.”
“I have men who will die without one.”
“I know.”
“When the physician clears you--”
“I’m not joining your deployment.”
Silence.
Her voice had not risen.
Her hand shook against the doorframe.
Hadran looked at the bandage visible beneath her shirt.
Then at Halwen.
“Your finding?”
“Unfit for military deployment.”
“For how long?”
“Until I revise the finding.”
He breathed out.
“Put it in writing.”
“I will.”
It was a postponement, not a surrender.
Aoi knew it.
She came to the table anyway.
I moved a chair.
This time she let me help her sit.
We signed after dark.
The army would purchase supplies through a provisional depot contract.
Lady Veyr would advance deliveries against specified payments.
The wounded would remain, with medical costs entered separately rather than swallowed by the watch’s food account.
Civilian rations were fixed.
Labor was paid.
Orra retained command.
There were enough conditions to make the document heavier than the first supply sack I had lifted.
Tavra sanded the signatures.
“Congratulations,” she said. “You’re a depot.”
“I had hoped for a more flattering designation.”
“Keep the receipts.”
Later, alone for a moment, I opened my status.
Level two.
Mana not quite full.
Title empty.
I closed it.
Outside, soldiers slept beneath the gallery with their boots still on.
Hadran finally ate the bread.
Pell brought the sealed case near midnight.
He found me comparing the army’s expected ration with the quantity we possessed.
Neither figure was behaving.
“This came with the command papers.”
“For Orra?”
“Yes.”
“Then give it to Orra.”
“She’s with Halwen. The outer docket names Berden.”
I looked up.
Pell set it down.
The docket was visible beneath the cord.
**Personnel recovery authority.**
A second line named Sergeant Berden.
The final instruction directed his transfer with returning military transport.
Tomorrow.
I stood.
“When was this issued?”
Pell pointed to the date.
Before Aoi and I had reached Dunbarrow.
Before Veyr’s rider had left.
I looked at it again.
The crown had not sent this because of us.
Berden had already been wanted.
Veyr’s report was still traveling west to tell them why that mattered.
“Find Orra,” I said.
Pell nodded.
I went to tell Aoi.