Sergeant Pel came to Han’s command tent with a list folded into quarters.
He waited until the map table cleared, then laid the paper on it. The fold had split through one name. Pel smoothed it with his palm but the crease remained.
“Those are the soldiers left at the bridge,” he said. “You sent the order to withdraw. They followed it. Then the loyalists closed the far approach.”
Han read the names. She knew most of them. She knew their watch posts and the marks they made on a field roster, but there was no way to tell from a list whether a man was injured, hungry or still able to stand. “How many did you see captured?”
“Four. The rest were still on the far stones when I crossed.”
“Did you see them taken?”
“No. I heard firing after I reached the near bank.”
Han wrote down the distinction. Pel watched her pen move. “You can record that I left them.”
