We stop about forty feet from the pyre. Far enough that the firelight doesn't reach us. Close enough that I can still see Boris's silhouette hunched over his meal.
Oliver reaches into his waistband and pulls out a pouch. Small. Leather. Heavy for its size.
He holds it out like it's evidence at a trial.
I take it. The HUD flickers.
[Scales: 1,241]
I stare at the number. Then I stare at Oliver.
"They're not collecting them," he says, his voice still tight. "Maybe twenty, twenty-five percent at most. The rest just sit there in the sand like gravel. Dryden… that doesn't seem right."
I weigh the pouch in my hand. Over a thousand Scales from a single battlefield's scraps. I take my cut and hand Oliver the rest.
"Split it evenly among everyone."
[Scales: 360 -> 609]
I look past Oliver toward the battlefield.
