The mess hall in the auxiliary barracks smelled of stale grease, old pine smoke, and the damp wool of sixty soldiers trying to dry their coats over two small iron braziers.
The Eleventh Squad had taken the corner table. Rian sat at the end of it with his back to a timber post, working methodically through a slab of salt-cured pork that tasted mostly of brine and ash. He let the squad argue. He ate, kept his eyes on his plate, and listened to the capital talk around them.
"They're giving us three coppers a day," Han said, jabbing a greasy spoon toward the central hearth. "Three. The carters at the gate get five just for hauling turnips, and we walked forty miles through the dark to haul eleven thousand dead Hunters out of a gorge."
"We didn't haul them," Doron said flatly from his corner, without looking up from his porridge. "The Captain killed them. We just stood there and looked stupid."
