The cold wind whistled through the spokes of the abandoned baggage cart in the northern toll circle. The twelve linen sacks of lowland barley sat under the starry highland sky, four thousand pounds of clean grain resting in the dark like an insult.
Kezra took a stride toward the cart shafts. Her hands reached for the iron crossbar, her knuckles white with the furious impulse to shove the whole load back up the frozen ramp. “Let them take their poisoned barley back,” she muttered, her breath coming in ragged gasps. “If we accept this food while Marn and Tella are locked in their guardroom, we’re letting Krail buy our submission with stolen grain.”
“Kezra, stop,” Adra Pike’s voice rang out, sharp and decisive as an axe striking seasoned larch.
Kezra halted, turning to look at the basin leader. Adra stood beside the cart wheel with her lantern raised, her face worn with tiredness, but her dark eyes ablaze with practical fury.
“We don’t push bread into a ditch for the sake of an empty gesture, Kezra Venn,” Adra said. Her voice dropped into a fierce, steady rhythm that brooked no argument. “You think you’re defying Marshal Krail by refusing his cart? Krail’s corporals would laugh as they rolled the sacks back into their granary, while down in the terrace cottages forty children go to sleep with their bellies cramping from hunger.”
