The Everburning City

Act 1, Part 6, Chapter 19

Gwendolyn

That ash-stained fool. It was astonishing how she could both love and hate Redgrave's constant, unrelenting need to be an honourable fool.

Gwen could see it in Valen's eyes. In the way he set his shoulders, as if bracing carry one of those cannons they had passed on the way here. It was the same expression, the same resigned determination, she'd see on someone's face just before she realigned a dislocated shoulder.

They were going into this meeting with their colonel expecting to suffer. Expecting to be punished. That judgement was going to be handed out by a woman now charged with the fate of the City, who had just lost her husband, and needed to pass judgement on the soldiers she needed most. And judging by how every experienced soldier around Gwen was behaving now, all of them expected this hearing to go poorly.

None of these soldiers were willing to fight this next battle. And it desperately needed to be fought.

The watchtower door opened, and someone stepped out. It took Gwen a moment, and a conscious effort, to call the woman a soldier. She was too clean, too unmarred by the events of the doom marching on the City. Asides from the shape of the uniform she looked nothing like the Rangers she had fought beside.

"The colonel is ready for you," she said, gesturing through the doorway.

Lieutenant Volenski went first, followed by Sandson, and then Varnell. Valen next, then Mildred. Gwen waited until Mack started for the door, and followed him closely. As they passed through the doorway, she whispered, "they're in danger."

Mack stopped at the door and turned to her. "Are you sure?"

"No," Gwen admitted. "But they're being disciplined by a woman with the weight of the entire City on her shoulders. And that same woman could easily blame a bunch of fighters plucked from the field for her husband's death. And what Hendricks and Cameron did will give that suspicion a lot of credence."

Mack glanced ahead at the others. "They do look like they're marching to a funeral," he agreed. But strangely, the old shadow didn't look particularly troubled by it. "Not much I can do about how this colonel feels."

Gwen hoped the old shadow had something up his sleeves. Because as things stood, they were tied to the tracks, and the train coming for them was running on this colonel's spite.

Up two flights of stairs, and through a small door. The room they were lead into was largely devoured by a map set out on the floor, held down at the corners by a sheathed knife, an ammo pouch, a Salamander, and a sword.

The pommel of that sword had four bars on it. Even Gwen, barely following most of the military's particulars, understood exactly what that sword signified. A colonel's sword, one of only eight as far as she knew. And it belonged to the woman about to decide their fate.

The colonel herself stood by the small window at the end of the room, staring out into the field. Dressed in the same padded coat as every other soldier in the army, she wore no insignia or any sign of her rank. Asides from the white scarf she wore with a metal pin, there was nothing to overtly speak of her office, her rank, her authority.

And it was immediately obvious that she didn't need it. Four other soldiers were in the room, three of them majors, one of them Major Othwald. Each of them stood at the edge of the map, staring down at it.

"Someone's firing the guns," Colonel Dremora mused, from the window.

"Spit and burning ash, I told them not to. Save what we have for the Golem," one of the majors said. "Every crew has a ranking specialist with them."