The First Shelter
The warrior whose hand held the water vessel led Thomas not deeper into danger, but away from open ground.
Thomas could barely walk. One of his boots had split along the sole, and every step sent pain through his left side where a splinter from the cannon wheel had torn through coat and skin. The warrior took most of his weight without ceremony, as if supporting an enemy soldier were no more remarkable than lifting a fallen branch.
They crossed a strip of shattered field and slipped into the shell of a small stone shrine half-collapsed by artillery. Smoke drifted through the broken archway. Moonlight fell in pale bars across the floor.
Inside, another body moved.
Thomas tensed before he recognized the face.
Owen Finch. Seventeen. Regiment drummer. Freckled, shaking, one arm bound with a dirty strip of shirt.
"Reed?" Owen whispered.
Thomas stared. "You’re alive."
"Barely."
The warrior crouched beside a small coal brazier built from helmet scraps and dry splinters. He set down the clay vessel, then from a satchel withdrew crushed herbs, a bone needle, and clean strips of linen. Enemy tools. Human tools.
Thomas watched him work.
The man cleaned the wound in Thomas’s side first. His fingers were callused, careful, and fast.
"Who are you?" Thomas asked.
The warrior tied the bandage. "Kellan Marrow."
The name meant nothing to Thomas, but the way Owen inhaled did.
"Marrow?" the boy said. "The Black Ridge captain?"
Kellan glanced at him. "My people call me many things. Tonight I answer to the one who carried water."
Thomas almost laughed, but the movement hurt too much.
Kellan reached into his belt again and laid the wax-sealed paper between them. Beside it, he placed a small brass compass scratched with age.
Thomas’s breath caught.
The compass had belonged to his father.
He had seen it a thousand times in childhood, hanging from a nail above the worktable where Nathan Reed drafted maps by candlelight.
Thomas looked up sharply. "Where did you get that?"
Kellan met his gaze. "From the man your officers called traitor."
The shrine seemed to contract around them.
Owen looked from one face to the other, suddenly aware he had stumbled into something larger than battle.
Thomas spoke through a dry throat.
"My father is dead."
May you like
Kellan nodded once.
"Yes," he said. "And he died because he refused to lie about this land."
