The rain hadn't stopped.
Three days of continuous, heavy rain had turned the battlefield into a swamp and the swamp into a graveyard.
Holden stood at the fortress gate.
Behind him, the fortress was rebuilding. Soldiers carried stone and steel to the damaged walls. Cannon crews repositioned their emplacements. Medics moved between the wounded. The machine of war was turning again, grinding forward because it had no other choice.
Emric stood to his left, shield strapped to his arm and notebook tucked into his back pocket. He had been quiet since the bunker.
Renna stood to his right, bow on her back, one full quiver behind her and a spare hanging from her hip. Her usual energy had been compressed into something smaller and denser. She hadn't spoken a single run-on sentence in hours.
That was the tell.
When Renna went quiet, she was ready.
