The dawn of Day 144 broke cold and sharp over the limestone castle walls of Stonewake Citadel. He carried a bitter draught from the northern ice fields that rattled the canvas covers on the baggage wagons.
At first light, Captain Hest Vale assembled the company clerks on the inner parade ground. Four heavy pine tables had been hauled from the orderly room and lined up along the paymaster’s porch. There, three strongboxes bound in blackened iron sat under the watch of four sentries with loaded crossbows. Long sheets of sheepskin parchment—the master muster rolls containing the names, ranks, and service terms of all three hundred and ninety-two soldiers of the guard post—were unrolled and pinned to the timber planks with lead weights.
From the vaulted barracks arches, the first company of eighty pikemen formed into a double column. Their steel helms shone dull grey in the frost. Their boots crunched all at once on the frozen gravel, four paces between files. Steam rose in pale clouds from their sheepskin collars. Their captain, a scarred veteran named Kroll who had lost his left ear at the siege of the lower gates five years earlier, stood at the head of the file with his company roster clutched in an iron-studded gauntlet. Beside him, two company corporals carried open wooden trays stacked with coiled copper-and-thread travel bracelets, ready to distribute them by platoon order.
