The General Under the Wall
Veyne did not look like a man who had ordered valleys erased.
He looked old.
That angered Owen.
He wanted monsters to look like monsters. He wanted evil to have a shape that warned the young and protected the stupid. Instead, General Silas Veyne shivered in the mud with a blanket over his shoulders, his gray mustache clotted with blood, his eyes bright and calculating as ever.
A highland girl no older than sixteen held a knife at his back.
Veyne looked at Owen and sighed.
"Ashford," he said. "I expected disappointment from you, not drama."
Owen tried to rise.
His body refused.
Amani's hand caught his shoulder, steady but not gentle.
Veyne noticed the gesture.
"Touching," he said. "The martyr and the executioner."
Maren took the order from Owen at last. Her burned fingers moved over the seal.
"Is this yours?"
Veyne glanced at it.
"Many papers wear my mark."
"Did you order the white flag fired upon?"
"I ordered victory."
The highlanders shifted. Red soldiers looked away.
Maren stepped closer. "Answer."
Veyne's gaze hardened.
"You want theater? Fine. Yes. I ordered fire. Your envoy was a tactic. Your people were stalling. My men were starving."
Amani's face went still in a way that made Owen's stomach tighten.
Maren said, "The boy was seven."
Veyne blinked once.
"War is not an orphanage."
The highland girl behind him pressed the knife until a red line opened at his collar.
Owen spoke before she could cut deeper.
"Stop."
Every face turned.
Even Vale looked surprised.
Owen tasted blood and shame.
"If you kill him here, he becomes proof for their lie."
Maren's good eye narrowed.
"Our dead do not need your permission."
"No," Owen said. "But the living may need his mouth."
Amani looked at him for a long moment.
Then he looked at Veyne.
"What else did you order?"
Veyne laughed softly.
"Ask Colonel Vale. He has always enjoyed details."
Vale said nothing.
That was enough to point the blade.
Amani took one step toward Vale.
Vale backed into two red soldiers. Neither moved to protect him.
Owen saw Bell's hand tighten around the lantern.
"Colonel," Bell said, and his voice cracked, "the sick wagons. You told us they carried fever dead."
Vale's eyes cut to him.
"Private, you will remember yourself."
Bell did not.
"Did they?"
The silence changed shape.
Maren turned to Amani.
"The old chapel."
Amani's scar pulled white.
He had searched bodies above ground. He had not searched beneath the chapel stones, because Veyne's artillery had brought half the roof down and the smoke had made the air poisonous.
Veyne closed his eyes.
Not from guilt.
From irritation at a secret arriving too soon.
Owen felt the night tilt.
"What is under the chapel?" he asked.
Vale whispered, "Nothing you can survive knowing."
Amani picked up the clay flask from the mud.
It was almost empty.
May you like
He handed it to Maren.
Then he took Vale by the front of his immaculate coat and dragged him toward the ruined chapel.
