At four in the afternoon, as the winter twilight turned the tall ballroom windows to deep cobalt blue, Senior Justice Vance rose from the center seat of the dais. Justices Harlan and Grey stood beside him, their black silk robes falling straight to the floor.
The entire assembly—judges, clerks, veterans, and spectators—stood in total, breathless silence.
Justice Vance cleared his throat and unrolled the broadsheet decree stamped with the Three Crowns of the King’s Bench.
“In the matter of the Iron Line Defense Locked deposit and the Petition of the Fourth Commoner Conscript Levy,” Justice Vance read, his voice ringing with the majesty of royal law. “The High Court of Military Court trial, having inspected the rock-solid metal archives excavated from Bastion-Nine, and having received the confessions of the respondents, enters unanimous judgment:”
“First: The official campaign patent of Marshal Brand is declared null, void, and fraudulent, having been got by perjury, erasure, and active crushing weight of military evidence.”
“Second: The four cohorts of the Fourth Commoner Levy under Captain Danel are declared the true, lawful, and heroic defenders of the Iron Line frontier. Their names shall be inscribed in the Great Roll of the Kingdom’s Army.”
“Third: The fifty-thousand-crown Iron Line Defense Fund, together with all piled up interest, is hereby encumbered under an immediate Royal Payback Debt claim, to be disbursed in unending pensions to the two thousand four hundred survivor lineages.”
