Three days after the destruction of the Earth-Devourer, the northern frontier was quiet.
The sub-zero wind that swept down from the Arctic wastes carried no scent of burning pitch or rotting horseflesh. The sky above Fort Ironpass was a vaulted dome of pale cobalt, scrubbed clean by thirty-knot gales that drove the leftovers of the steppe horde fifty miles beyond the White Pine Basin.
In the central office dugout of Trench Line Four, Pei Jing sat at the pine table with his brass measuring tongs, grease reed-pen, and sheepskin ledger.
Across from him sat General Yue Ding. His left shoulder securely was locked still in splints. His uninjured right hand held a warm cup of roasted barley tea. The veteran marshal looked at Pei Jing with a mixture of deep relief and quiet disbelief.
“The numbers are finalized,” Pei Jing stated, his deep steady as an iron weighted drop-line. “The careful balance sheet of the Northern Frontier Campaign is formally closed.”
He turned the sheepskin ledger toward the general.
“Itemized Human Roster: - 5th Shock Battalion first deployment: five hundred men. - Active personnel surviving at conclusion: four hundred and twenty men (eighty-four percent survival). - Combat fatalities: eighty men, sustained during early trench breaches and counter-mining. - Non-combat fatalities from frostbite, typhus, and black flesh-rot: zero. - The average northern winter campaign incurs thirty-five percent attrition from cold and malnutrition alone. Our heat triage removed forty-eight thousand man-hours of medical downtime.”
