Rowan did not remember when the noise stopped.
There had been shouting, metal screaming against metal, the sound of men calling for names that would not answer. Then, somewhere between one breath and the next, the world quieted. Not the clean quiet of peace, but the stunned hush that followed survival.
He stood where he had been ordered to stand, boots sunk into torn earth, sword lowered but not yet sheathed. His arm ached from holding it too long. His fingers had gone numb around the hilt, as if his body had decided the fight was over before his mind agreed.
Around him, the field told its version of events.
Shields lay where hands had let them fall. A banner sagged in the mud, its colors dulled to something unrecognizable. Men moved in slow, careful ways, stepping around bodies as though they might wake if disturbed. Others did not move at all.
"Captain," someone said behind him.
Rowan turned. It took effort. Everything took effort now.
The soldier was young. Too young to have learned how to hide the shaking in his hands. There was blood on his sleeve that did not belong to him.
"They're asking for you," the boy said. "At the ridge."
Rowan nodded once. He did not ask who was asking. He already knew.
As he walked, his armor dragged against him, heavier than it had been hours ago. Each step felt like a negotiation. He passed men sitting on the ground, staring at nothing. One pressed his forehead to his knees, whispering a prayer Rowan did not recognize. Another laughed too loudly, the sound breaking apart as soon as it left his mouth.
Victory, Rowan thought distantly. This was what it looked like.
At the ridge, the commanders stood together, clean compared to the rest of the field. Someone clapped Rowan on the shoulder and spoke words that sounded like praise. He listened because listening was expected. He nodded when nodding was required.
"You held the line," one of them said. "If you hadn't—"
Rowan stopped listening.
His gaze drifted past them, down toward the lower ground where the wounded had been gathered. Figures moved there in a slow, purposeful rhythm. Bandages. Stretchers. Water carried in dented cups. The quiet labor of keeping men alive just long enough to matter.
He felt something tighten in his chest.
"How many?" he asked suddenly.
The commanders exchanged glances. One cleared his throat. Numbers were given. Losses measured. Acceptable, someone said, as though the word could be applied to bodies cooling in the dirt.
Rowan nodded again. He had become very good at nodding.
When they dismissed him, he did not return to the camp immediately. Instead, he stood at the edge of the ridge and watched the work below continue. He could not see faces from this distance. Only movement. Only persistence.
Someone down there knelt beside a fallen man and did not rise for a long time.
Rowan rested his hand against the pommel of his sword, grounding himself in its familiar weight. The battle was over. That was what mattered. That was what he had been trained to believe.
Still, as the light began to fade and the field surrendered itself to shadow, he found himself wondering who it was that stayed behind when the fighting ended—and why.
Rowan stayed there until the sky began to dim, until the ridge cooled beneath his boots and the shadows stretched long enough to blur the edges of the field. The men below moved with less urgency now. Those who could be saved had been gathered. Those who could not were left where they lay, marked only by a folded cloak or a turned shield.
He exhaled slowly, as though releasing something he had been holding since dawn.
When he finally turned away, the camp greeted him with the low murmur of voices and the smell of smoke. Fires had been lit in shallow pits, their flames kept small, restrained. No one sang. No one celebrated. The war had taught them better.
Rowan removed his helm as he walked, the cool air touching his sweat-damp hair. His head throbbed, a dull ache behind his eyes, but it was familiar. Pain had become another constant, like armor or oath.
"Captain Rowan."
He stopped.
An older soldier stood near one of the supply wagons, his posture bent but steady. There was a strip of linen tied around his forearm, darkened through in places. He inclined his head in a gesture that carried respect without fear.
"Sir," the man said, then hesitated. "They're asking for permission to move the wounded closer to the river. The ground there's cleaner."
Rowan considered this. Images rose unbidden. Mud thick with blood. Men shivering as night crept in. Infection waiting patiently.
"Do it," he said. "And make sure they have light."
The soldier nodded, relief flickering briefly across his face before discipline smoothed it away. He turned and disappeared into the press of bodies.
Rowan continued on, stopping only when he reached his tent. He did not enter immediately. Instead, he rested his hand against the canvas wall, grounding himself again, the way he had with his sword earlier. He listened to the camp breathe. Coughs. Quiet instructions. The clink of metal being set down.
Somewhere beyond the firelight, someone cried out. The sound cut short, swallowed by the night.
Rowan closed his eyes.
He had learned, over years of service, how to make himself smaller inside moments like this. How to fold away the weight until it could be carried without breaking him. He told himself the same things he always did. That the orders had been clear. That the line had held. That more men had lived than died.
Still, the image returned to him uninvited: figures moving in that lower field, bending over broken bodies, refusing to leave.
Whoever they were, they would still be working when dawn came.
Rowan straightened and stepped into his tent, unaware that before the night was over, the quiet labor he could not stop thinking about would draw closer to him than he expected.
Sleep did not come easily.
Rowan lay on his cot with his armor set aside in careful order, every piece placed where habit said it belonged. The tent smelled faintly of oil and iron and the smoke that clung to everything after battle. Outside, the camp shifted and sighed, men turning in restless dreams or rising quietly to tend fires that threatened to die.
He stared at the canvas ceiling, tracking the slow drift of shadows cast by torchlight beyond the walls. Each flicker felt deliberate, as though the night itself were watching him.
When he closed his eyes, the field returned.
Not the clash of steel. That had faded. What remained were fragments. A hand grasping at nothing. A voice calling once, then not again. The moment a man realized he would not be standing when the sun rose.
Rowan sat up abruptly and swung his feet to the ground.
The cold bit into his skin, sharp and immediate. He welcomed it. Sensation anchored him when thought would not. He reached for the waterskin at his side and drank, the liquid tasting faintly of leather and ash.
Another sound cut through the quiet. A low murmur, carried on the night air. Not pain. Not command. Something steadier.
Rowan hesitated only a moment before pulling on his tunic and stepping back outside.
The camp had thinned. Fires burned lower now, their light pooled close to the ground. Beyond them, toward the river, movement continued. Lanterns bobbed in measured paths, their glow revealing figures bent over stretchers and blankets spread on cleared earth.
He had given permission for this. He reminded himself of that as he walked.
Up close, the work revealed itself in details he had not seen from the ridge. Hands stained dark. Sleeves rolled past elbows. Knees pressed into dirt without hesitation. Voices kept low, words chosen carefully, as if gentleness itself were a kind of medicine.
Rowan stopped at the edge of the makeshift infirmary.
A soldier lay nearest to him, his breathing shallow but steady. Someone had cleaned the blood from his face. A strip of cloth bound his leg tightly, the knot secure and practiced. Rowan recognized the man. Barely. He had been one of the first to fall.
"He shouldn't have lasted this long," a voice said nearby.
Another answered, quieter. "He will, through the night."
Rowan turned his head toward the sound.
He did not step closer. He did not speak. He only watched as a figure knelt beside the wounded, her back to him, shoulders tense with focus. She adjusted the bandage once more, her movements precise, unhurried. When she rose, she wiped her hands on a cloth already marked with the work of the evening.
For a moment, she stood still, as if listening for something only she could hear.
Rowan felt that tightening again, the same unfamiliar pull from earlier, sharper now. He could not see her face. He did not know her name. Still, the sight rooted him in place.
This, he thought, was the other side of the war. Not the part he had been trained to fight, but the part that lingered long after orders were obeyed.
Someone brushed past him, breaking the moment. Rowan stepped back instinctively, retreating into shadow. By the time he looked again, the figure had moved on, already kneeling beside another man who needed her more.
Rowan turned away before he could think better of it.
He returned to his tent with a strange weight settled low in his chest, the sense that something had shifted without his permission. The night closed in around him once more, quieter now, as though holding its breath.
He lay back down, eyes open, knowing sleep would not come.
Somewhere near the river, the work continued.