Before First Light

By the time Sandore, Miuki, and Kameutsu returned to the barracks, the light outside had gone from late afternoon gold to the dull blue-gray that came just before evening fully settled over Engrassia.

Leon had agreed to meet them at the main gate before sunrise.

That meant the day was over only in the most technical sense.

Sandore stopped in the barracks corridor and faced Miuki and Kameutsu.

“Good work today. Report to the main gate half an hour before sunup.”

Both acknowledged the order.

“That will be all. Get some rest.”

Miuki studied him for half a second longer than necessary, perhaps checking whether he intended to follow his own advice.

Sandore gave her no reason to ask.

Kameutsu offered a quiet nod.

Then they were gone.

Sandore remained where he was for a moment, listening to their footsteps recede.

Tomorrow.

The word had occupied more and more of his thoughts as the day wore on.

Tomorrow meant leaving Engrassia.

Tomorrow meant travel through dangerous areas.

Tomorrow meant conflict with Remnant forces, perhaps.

Tomorrow meant putting everything they had discussed into practice with real roads, real civilians, real enemies, and people who would be looking to him when something went wrong.

He pushed the thought aside and went to inspect the preparations.

Sergeant Tern had done exactly what Sandore had asked.

The wagon stood ready in the yard with its load already secured beneath waxed canvas. Pell had seen to the animals. Ellis stood nearby with a ledger tucked against her chest, visibly attempting not to look nervous when Sandore approached.

Tern handed him the inventory.

Sandore read it.

Not skimmed.

Read.

Medical stores.

Water.

Cold-weather blankets.

Tools.

Lantern oil.

Spare tack.

Then the line he had been looking for.

“Funds?”

Ellis answered before Tern could.

“Yes, Captain.”

A little too quickly.

She swallowed and tried again.

“Yes, sir. Operational funds are accounted for separately from ordinary travel expenses.”

Sandore checked the figure.

Enough for village expenses.

Enough for emergencies.

Enough, unless Pixal's definition of “lots” proved particularly ambitious, to pay an information broker without stripping the detachment's purse bare.

“Good.”

He turned another page.

“Climbing gear?”

Tern pointed toward the rear of the wagon.

“Rope, pitons, two hammers, harness straps, grapnels. Enough for the detachment.”

Sandore looked.

It was there.

Exactly where the report said it would be.

“All right.”

He handed the inventory back to Ellis.

Her fingers tightened around it.

“Your inventory is thorough, Private.”

Relief crossed her face so quickly that Sandore almost missed it.

“Thank you, sir.”

Sandore looked at Tern.

“And thank you, Sergeant. This is in order.”

Tern's expression barely changed, but Sandore caught the faint approval beneath it.

The captain had given him a job and trusted him to do it.

The sergeant had done it.

The captain had then bothered to read the file.

Apparently that counted for something.

“Anything you need from me before morning?” Sandore asked.

“No, sir.”

“Then get them rested and rest yourself. Be at the main gate with the wagon 30 minutes before sunup. Dismissed”

“Yes, sir.”

Sandore moved on.

Specialist Fen was still working.

That did not surprise him.

She had transformed one end of the workroom into a battlefield of paper, glassware, notes, magnifying lenses, reference tables, and three separate stacks of books that Sandore suspected meant something only to her.

The black-glass ampoule sat in the center of it all.

Fen looked up when he entered.

“Captain.”

“What have you found?”

Her exhaustion disappeared beneath enthusiasm.

“A very complicated headache.”

Sandore pulled out a chair.

Fen gestured toward her notes.

“The contents are a compound formula. Multiple active agents, stabilizers, binders, and some things I still haven't identified. I'm fairly confident the primary active component is a stimulant of some kind.”

“For animals?”

“Possibly. Possibly people. Possibly both depending on dosage.”

She tapped one page.

“Increased heart rate, aggression, alertness, pain tolerance—those are the sorts of effects I'd expect. But I'm extrapolating. I don't have enough residual material to identify the entire mixture cleanly.”

“And the markings?”

Fen's mouth tightened.

“Imperial research notation. Or Remnant use of the same system.”

“That certain?”

“Yes.”

“Which facility?”

That was where her irritation surfaced.

“No idea.”

She leaned back.

“They all used different coding systems. Different lot conventions, facility marks, project tags, internal abbreviations. Some standardized elements, but not enough. I have people in the archives pulling what they can. I would have gone myself if I could, but I was not allowed into the restricted stacks.”

She said this with the personal indignation of someone who had been denied access to oxygen.

Sandore almost smiled.

“Because?”

“Because apparently being the person currently holding the evidence is not the same thing as having archival clearance.”

“That sounds correct.”

“It sounds inefficient.”

“That does not make it incorrect.”

Fen glared at the papers rather than at him.

“They'll send what they find. Eventually.”

“Before morning?”

“I doubt it.”

The word came out like an accusation directed at the concept of time.

Sandore looked at the ampoule.

“Pack all of it carefully. Every piece of evidence comes with us.”

Fen nodded.

“And before you do, make rubbings and copies of every mark on that glass. All of them. If it breaks on the road, I don't want the information lost with it.”

Fen stared at him.

Then grinned.

She reached beside her chair and dug through a stack of notebooks, producing one with a bluish cover.

She opened it to a page filled with precise sketches of the ampoule from several angles, each symbol enlarged and annotated.

“Already done, sir”

Sandore looked over the drawings.

“Of course it is.”

Fen looked pleased with herself.

“Pack the evidence. Then sleep.”

Her expression suggested that the second instruction offended her personally.

“Captain—”

“Sleep, Specialist. That is an order. The sergeant will be waking you up well before dawn.”

Fen sighed.

“Yes, Captain.”

Sandore left before she could discover another argument.

He took food back to his office.

It was not a proper dinner, but it was warm, and that was enough.

He ate while reading.

First Ellis's inventory report again, more slowly this time.

Then Fen's preliminary analysis.

Then the notes from the day's briefing.

At some point he stopped a runner passing the open office door.

“Corporal, find out whether the Strategic Office has a file on an information broker named Pixal.”

The young soldier paused.

“Surname, sir?”

“I don't have one.”

“Description?”

“Young Aetheris female. Long pink hair. Operates in the Low Lanterns.”

“If there is a file, have them bring it to me. If I am out, have them leave it in my secure mail.”

“Yes, sir.” The runner departed. The file would likely not arrive in time, but still…

Sandore returned to the papers.

Eventually the food went cold.

The reports gave way to the personnel files.

He had read them that morning.

It felt much longer ago now.

The words had changed.

Not literally.

But the names no longer belonged to ink alone.

Miuki now came with the memory of a gold coin striking a tavern table, impossible strength, and a thank-you whose meaning Sandore had chosen not to ask about.

Kameutsu came with careful questions, quiet observation, and a knowledge of the Low Lanterns that had been useful even when the district refused to cooperate.

Tern came with a wagon prepared exactly as required and the faintest shift in expression when Sandore demonstrated that he actually read the work.

Fen came with impatient brilliance, an entire notebook filled from an afternoon of research, and precautions that Sandore had thought to request only after she had already completed them.

Pell and Ellis were still less known to him.

That bothered him.

Tomorrow he would be responsible for them anyway.

Sandore leaned back in his chair.

The office had gone quiet around him.

Somewhere outside, boots crossed the courtyard.

A door shut.

Then another.

The city beyond the window was mostly dark.

He looked down at the personnel files again.

Tomorrow they would leave the walls with him in command.

Tomorrow, if something went wrong, there would be no Colonel Varren standing at the head of a briefing table.

There would be Sandore.

Captain Greycastle.

He found that mildly terrifying.

Not enough to stop him.

Enough to keep reading.

At some point he moved from the chair to the narrow cot against the office wall without quite remembering deciding to do so.

One file remained open in his hands.

The words blurred.

Sandore told himself he would finish the page.

Then the next line.

Then perhaps close his eyes for only a moment.

Before long, Captain Sandore Greycastle was asleep on the cot in his office, one hand still resting on the personnel files of the people he would lead beyond Engrassia before sunrise.