17 #3

The bucket line put out the rest.

The shed lost a wall, two tools, and half its stored leather. The goats survived. The tanner surveyed the damage.

Isolde removed the soaked bandage and closed it in her fist.

“I prepared that tube,” she said.

The tanner kept looking at the burned leather.

“Can you replace it?”

She reckoned the coins in the saddlebags. They would cover small tools; the leather had cost months of work.

“I can stay to dismantle the wall and give what I have. We’ll have to agree on the rest.”

The man pointed to the roof, still dripping.

“Start with the loose boards. My children will go in when you leave.”

Belor had prepared the confiscation of forty-two families’ property. His wagons carried empty chests for grain, tools, and coins. Jesa proposed using some of the office’s contents as compensation. Cori found a box holding the troops’ pay and the requisition seals.

The villagers gathered in the square.

Neira wanted to divide the pay among Ovel, the tanner, and the families leaving Bren. The baker asked to reserve some for food during the evacuation. Neira’s mother argued that the soldiers should keep a ration and the wages already paid to them.

“Some lowered their bows before their officers did,” she said.

The discussion lasted half an hour. Belor remained tied to the proclamation post. Every argument dismantled the authority he had exercised alone.

They decided to divide the funds into five shares: wounded, repairs, food, escape routes, and wages for soldiers who gave their names as witnesses. The box would be held under five keys.

Isolde listened from the oven as she sorted the boards the tanner could salvage. She needed her right hand to hold the tool and her knee to pin the wood. Kaoran brought her a clamp. She adjusted it without interrupting the discussion in the square.

“You could impose a different division,” Kaoran said.

“I could also make mistakes faster.”

“That sounds like progress.”

“Watch your teacher’s pride.”

“It’s survived three years with you. It’s sturdy now.”

Ancia approached with the accusation book.

“Cori found this on the last page.”

A general order signed by Varek authorized selecting communities near any appearance of fire, detaining prominent residents, and announcing punishments before the investigation was complete. The objective appeared in a marginal line: force a new manifestation by the subject Iria.

“Bren was bait,” Ancia said.

“Any village could be,” Isolde replied.

“The alias gives them a place to hang the rope.”

Isolde ran her thumb over the printed name.

“Then we retire it.”

“They’ve copied it at every post already.”

“The copies will keep a person who ceased to exist today.”

Ancia pointed to the square.

“Eight women have answered to the same name.”

“Tomorrow none will.”

Kaoran looked at her.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

The alias had protected Isolde when she could barely walk down a slope. Later it protected routes, houses, and names. Its usefulness had changed. Keeping it out of attachment would give Varek a recognizable shape.

“To anyone outside this group, Iria left us in Arvek,” she said. “She was traveling alone. We don’t know her route.”

Jesa raised an eyebrow.

“And inside the group?”

“Use ‘passenger.’ It comes naturally to you.”

“I prefer ‘person who still owes half her passage.’”

“That’s long for an ambush.”

“I’ll shorten it when you pay.”

Neira listened to the exchange. Her mother was alive. Her brother remained under code West-9. Relief and debt shared her face.

“I’ll use ‘the woman who brought the map,’” she said. “Until we find my brother.”

“I’ll follow his code through the transfers. Cori will get every answer to you.”

“I also want to know when you find nothing.”

Isolde nodded.

“Ask her in front of me. So she has a route to answer you even if we separate.”

Neira called Cori. The three found a dry place to write down the first contact.

Lio gathered the posters. There had been eight on the road and eleven inside the village. He put them on a table.

“Do we burn them?”

Isolde took the first. The reward covered the reverse. It could be used to copy Esvan’s names.

“Cut off the portrait. Keep the clean paper.”

The villagers used Iria’s faces to light the oven. On the backs of the rewards, they wrote lists of the wounded, lost property, and evacuation routes.

Isolde kept a corner of paper before Lio threw it into the oven. Only the I and part of the reward remained. She folded it with her good fingers and slipped it among her notes. When Jesa called her passenger from the square, she took a moment to turn.

* * *

The Guard would keep Bren isolated until reinforcements arrived. The villagers had one night.

Each family decided whether to remain, move their children and elderly, or leave entirely. Twenty-six chose to go. Nine stayed to care for houses, livestock, and ovens. Seven would wait until dawn and travel with legal merchants.

Isolde helped organize three columns.

The first used the irrigation channel. Lio guided the wounded with Pela. The second took the charcoal burners’ road under Ancia’s direction. The third descended toward the coast with Jesa and the surviving crates.

Neira stayed beside her mother.

“You can cross the range,” Isolde said.

“My house has a cellar for six people. Now it will serve those who come back.”

“Belor will know your face.”

“He also knows the faces of forty-two families.”

“He’ll come back with more men.”

“That’s why the children go first. I’ll leave when the last door has a route.”

Isolde accepted the choice.

The disarmed soldiers received three options: accompany Belor to a neutral post, leave the unit, or wait bound for reinforcements. Seventeen abandoned the uniform. Six gave testimony about the order. The rest chose to stay with the prefect.

A young archer approached Cori.

“I have to record what happened,” he said. “The relief will ask for a description.”

“Write what you saw.”

“I saw four women in identical cloaks.”