Wei visited the captured sergeant after the evening count. The man’s name was Jarek. He sat on a cot in the tollhouse infirmary with a feverish wound at his side. An assistant had left him water and a clean blanket.
“You served beside me,” Wei said.
“Before you left us.” Jarek looked at the wall instead of Wei. “You think the coalition has made the war better?”
Wei did not answer at once. The assistant was changing the bandage on another patient. Yan brought a basin from the water barrel and set it on the table.
“The war’s worse,” Jarek said. “More people are walking home without weapons. More villages have to decide whether the Registry can take their grain. How is that better?”
Wei listened without interrupting. “Would you have forced the soldiers in the Commander’s Harvest Formation to carry their commander’s cost?”
Jarek opened his mouth, then turned his face toward the wall. He did not answer.
“You were the one who taught me to inspect the formation marks before stepping into the ring,” Jarek said. “You were careful then.”
