Chapter 61 — Ten Breaths

Cade spent the first breath counting men who could still stand. He did not look at the enemy again until he knew what the road behind him required.

"Wayne, twelve shields face the rise. Two ranks, six and six. Back one pace on every horn, never more."

Wayne repeated the order so every man heard it. The shield line formed between the wounded and the archers gathering beyond the rise.

Second breath. "Brienne, four men to the horse. Cut the girth, roll it downhill, free the leg. Do not lift against its weight."

Brienne dropped beside the trapped guard. A sword went through leather; two men pulled the saddle while the others heaved at the carcass from above. The guard screamed when his leg came free, but the bone did not show.

Third breath. "My six take the worst wounded through the bend. FireStorm carries Nightsong's. If they resist, leave the weapons, not the men."

One of Wayne's guards stared at him. "Carry the bastards who just tried to kill us?"

"Carry witnesses who can say who ordered them across Renly's decree," Cade said. "Move."

Arlan heard no appeal to mercy in it, though mercy survived the calculation. The guard obeyed.

Fourth breath. Cade pointed with the axe. "Archers, not at their bodies. Cut the scrub in front of them and make them loose high. Save half your shafts."

The first FireStorm volley tore leaves from the lip of the rise. Nightsong's bowmen ducked and answered too quickly. Arrows hissed over the shield line, striking broken timber and road dirt where men had stood moments before.

Fifth breath. "Drag the checkpoint beam across the firm ground. Leave the scrub side open."

The instruction looked wrong. The open side offered a path around the barrier, but it offered it over loose rock where men could neither charge nor keep a line. Wayne understood and sent three guards to the beam.

Sixth breath. A litter rope snapped.

The wounded Nightsong captain rolled hard enough to reopen the cut along his scalp. The men carrying him reached for the cloak ends, wasting the time Cade had measured. He swore, pulled the belt from his own waist, and tossed it to them. "Through the spear loops. Shorten the carry."

The broken shaft in his chest shifted when he threw. His knees bent. He caught himself on the axe and went on before Rodrick could reach him.

Seventh breath. "Wayne, show them the right edge."

Wayne drew three shields inward and left a gap wide enough to tempt a rush. The older Nightsong serjeant saw it. Men rose behind the archers, ready to come down the slope and recover their captain.

Eighth breath. "Now close it and give them one horn."

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The gap vanished. FireStorm's rear rank stepped into the places Wayne's first six abandoned, and the entire front withdrew one measured pace without turning its back. A single horn sounded. Behind them, the last litter crossed the inner bend.

The men on the rise had expected flight. What they saw was a line that yielded ground while keeping its spears, prisoners, and wounded. Their rush faltered before it began.

Ninth breath. Cade looked at the trapped guard now slung between Brienne and another man. "All through except the rear twelve. Archers go next."

Rodrick caught Cade's elbow. "You go with them."

"One order."

"You are leaking onto my boots."

Tenth breath. Cade raised the axe far enough for Wayne to see it. "Rear line withdraws by files. Left, center, right. No running and no last volley. Make them choose whether to cross the beam beneath ready bows."

Wayne gave the signals. Six shields moved, then three, then the final three. Nightsong loosed again, but the arrows struck angled shields or fell beyond men already behind the bend. The serjeant came as far as the broken beam and stopped. Pursuit meant scrambling through scrub under archers whose range was now fixed; recovering the captain was no longer worth losing the rest of his men.

Cade watched until Wayne's last file cleared the turn. Only then did his axe slip. Rodrick and Brienne caught him before he struck the road.

"Was that ten?" Cade asked.

"Nine and an argument," Wayne said. He looked back at the empty stretch they had left without a body they meant to recover. "It will do."

Rodrick cut leather away from the broken shaft and listened to Cade's breathing. The bolt had entered below the collarbone and lodged close enough to the lung that blind removal could make a corpse of a difficult patient. "No one pulls it," he said. "The head is barbed."

"Can you remove it here?" Arlan asked.

"Not safely. I need boiled water, strong spirits, clean tools, light, linen, and a room without road dust."

Arlan ordered the column home. Cade's companions built a litter, Wayne assigned carriers in rotation, and Brienne took the rear until the rise disappeared. FireStorm's men brought their own wounded, Cade's six, the fallen Nightsong captain, and every enemy prisoner fit to survive the journey. No one had been abandoned to make the withdrawal look cleaner than it was.

The road narrowed twice before the lower farms. At the first turn, one captured soldier tried to slip into the trees while his escort changed shoulders beneath a litter. Wayne caught him without drawing a sword and bound his wrists to the saddle of the wounded captain he had wanted to leave behind. At the second, an Ashenblade guard demanded that Nightsong's injured walk while FireStorm men rode. Cade opened his eyes long enough to ask which witness the guard preferred dead before Robert heard him. The horses went to the men least able to travel, regardless of which badge remained on their coats.

Behind them, the Nightsong serjeant recovered the checkpoint without pursuing. He gathered abandoned bows, sent two men after his missing captain, and raised a strip of white cloth where the road bent. Wayne saw it from the rear and answered with one horn. Neither side mistook restraint for friendship. The exchange fixed where the fight had ended, which mattered when every survivor later described who crossed which line.

Rodrick walked beside Cade and checked his breathing whenever the litter jolted. Cade woke once and demanded his axe.

"No," Rodrick said.

"It is mine."

"So is the hole in your chest. I am temporarily in charge of both."

One of Cade's men carried the axe after that.

The gates opened late that night. Morton saw the litters and cleared the infirmary without waiting for an explanation. Water went to boil, linen came from the household stores, and Red Sun Flame was brought to wash steel and skin. Cade's six companions crowded the yard until Morton threatened to put them to work carrying buckets; none left.

At the infirmary door Wayne looked toward the man Rodrick was preparing to cut open. "You wanted proof he could command."

Arlan remembered the temptation Cade had offered the enemy, the snapped litter, and the prisoners brought home alive. "He gave it."

Now they had to keep him alive long enough for the orders to matter.

Outside, the west-pass horn sounded once to mark a withdrawal completed without pursuit.