The red pack in the warehouse office belonged to an accountant.
Nasko had sold it to her for two small coins and left by the back door. On the morning of day 1252, she showed Rima the purchase in her petty-cash book and asked whether the road officer wanted the coins back as well.
“No,” Rima said. “I want to know what he carried out.”
“A flat wrapped bundle. He said the pack had begun rubbing his shoulder.”
The accountant’s name was Jalen. She worked for Krail Freight Assurance, whose warehouse held ordinary insured cargo, rented storage and a small office arranging repair contracts. Rima had brought the local officer and the payment token from the ambush before requesting the visit. Neither officer treated buying a used pack as proof Jalen had hired crossbowmen.
Iven waited beside the public receiving counter while Kesh and Elian compared the described bundle with the missing operator sheet. A man at the next desk was filing a legitimate broken-axle claim. He continued describing the axle after the visitors arrived. The business had more than one kind of work inside its walls.
Voss Krail received them in the upper office. He was a narrow man with ordinary hands and a silver pencil held behind one ear. A map of the freight region covered his wall. Pins marked stores, water stops and workshops, not a single great line directing every road from one chair.
