The morning light across Stonewake’s inner bailey had turned from pale amber to cold, brilliant silver. Frost coated the cobbles in a thin, crystal-clear glaze that crackled under the iron-shod boots of the final squads.
At the head of the fourth rope lane, Fellis Dain stood with his wooden tally rod resting in the crook of his braced left arm. His uninjured right hand held his paring knife poised above the seasoned pine wood.
“Fifth company, last squad of four, step to the table,” Fellis called out.
Four veteran pikemen stepped forward from the line. They were older soldiers, men who had served six or eight winters under Marshal Krail’s banners, their leather brigandines worn smooth at the shoulder straps, their iron helmets scarred with old blade notches.
The two forward soldiers stepped to the calfskin mat, their unbonded copper-and-linen bracelets hanging loose around their right wrists. But they halted before the cedar wedge where Kezra Venn’s bonded survey notebook lay open. Then, the first soldier—a grizzled sergeant named Corvin whose beard was tipped with tobacco stains—suddenly stopped.
His eyes were fixed upon the open rag page. The glowing green outline of the 1,024-pace square seemed to hum in the morning air, its crystal-clear grid lines pulsing with the living mass of three hundred and sixteen soldiers already bonded into the stone.
