Burning Night: A Tale of the Everburning City

Chapter 26: Adrian

His eyes were dry, and asides from the dull ache in his muscles, his body was fine. But the pain in Adrian's chest, as he knelt beside Farah, hadn't diminished.

The tall man in the hat had left already, taking Elliot and a few others to go and turn the pipes back on. Varnell was supervising the custody of the officers who had accompanied the former Secretary to the Lord Captain, Cavilla.

Adrian had observed all of this with a hollow detachment as if it were happening on the other side of a window. It was hard, with his friends dying so recently, to care about small things like the custody of a traitor.

Adrian wasn't alone in his broken pain. A few others, Caitlin included, knelt nearby. They didn't quite rest in a circle around Farah's fallen form, but all of them faced her.

But it was the memory of his friend, still lucid in the back of Adrian's mind, that made Adrian push himself to his feet.

He looked ahead, to see Varnell detaching herself from a short conversation with a pair of sergeants who only a few moments ago were attempting to kill her. It was odd to see the pair salute reverently, before they began to shout something to their soldiers about gathering shovels.

"Sergeant?" Adrian asked.

The old soldier turned around, and in a gesture of immense kindess, gave him her full attention. "Keates?" Varnell asked.

"I'm sorry, ma'am. I-," Adrian began to say.

"Are you about to tell me you were derelict in your duty?" Varnell asked quietly.

"Yes, ma'am," Adrian admitted. "I was negligent at a critical moment in the battle. If the crafter hadn't intervened when she had, I would have been out of the fight."

Varnell nodded. "Do you blame Caitlin, for not being ready when Cavilla's crafter ally advanced on us?"

"No," Adrian said immediately. "Killing was hard on all of us, and none of us signed up to gun down other people."

"I'm glad you see it that way, Keates. As far as I'm concerned, she was wounded in action. Just as you were. For the moment, I'd like to speak to everyone. Help gather up the troops," Varnell said.

Adrian saluted and turned away, waving first to Elliot, who was already gathering some of his classmates and distributing water to those who needed it.

There were only a dozen people wounded; small but severe burns from glancing hits from enemy fire. The cruel truth of the City's weapons was the ruthless efficiency of a Salamander. The wounds the guns inflicted were meant to burn holes through the lungs with even a glancing shot, and even a near miss could leave mortal wounds.

The company was diminshed, Adrian realized. There were a lot of absent faces now arrayed in the dirty and damaged company that gathered.

Elliot rested a hand on Adrian's shoulder and gave a gentle nod. To Adrian's eyes, Elliot Trask looked a century older, his expression and gait had a gravity to them that Adrian hadn't seen just an hour ago.

"Soldiers! Gather around!" Varnell called out.

Wordlessly, they gathered around the broken ammo cart that Varnell was standing on.

The old woman was dirty and scarred, her uniform ripped and damaged from shrapnel and sword strikes. A trickle of blood dripped from the smallest finger on her left hand, likely from the stained cut further up her arm.

But there was no hint of weariness in her face or her stance. She stood, one leg resting on the side of the cart as if she were posing for the statue the City was going to make of her.