Ashaun stopped looking at Commander Veyt.
Instead, she turned her head toward the three youngest soldiers standing within two paces of the pumice raft, holding the iron poles of the newly lit grease-lamps while the engineers unbolted the bent top of the cage.
The nearest was a boy no older than nineteen with red wind-chafed ears and a dirty linen bandage wrapped around his right wrist where a climbing rope had burned the skin raw during the descent. Beside him stood a young lance-corporal with a thin black mourning braid pinned to her wool collar, and a tall pikeman who had been limping on an old heel-blister when he slid down the rope.
All three of them were standing noticeably straighter than they had five minutes ago. Their shoulders had dropped into an easy, uniform slope, matching the slow four-beat hum coming off the exposed bronze clapper.
“You with the grease-lamp,” Ashaun said, nodding her chin at the red-eared boy. “How’s that rope burn on your wrist?”
The boy blinked, glanced at Veyt to see if he was forbidden to answer, and then looked down at his bandaged right hand. He flexed his fingers around the iron pole.
“It stopped stinging,” the boy said, a small crease of surprise appearing between his eyebrows. “Right after the engineers took the lead cover off the bell. It feels... warm. Like it’s already skinned over.”
