The carts came back through the Keep gate as the light went, and Sergeant Dace counted them in.
“Six carts, Instructor,” he said. “Everybody on the roll.”
“The roll is forty-one.”
“I know the roll, sir.” Dace looked past Calen toward the north wall. The bands stood there in their ranks, grey in the dusk, and none of them had moved since morning.
“They have not moved all day,” said Dace. “I did not ask them to.”
“No one asked them,” said Calen.
“That is what worries me, sir.”
“Do the bands need feeding?” asked Hesper, from the bottom step.
