When Basil saw the broad, sloping shape of the great hill looming against the horizon, a knot of realization tightened in his chest. His time among the soldiers of the First was over.
A few days prior, a "mover", as the agents of Lucius were called in the rough-tongued camps of the infantry, had arrived with dust on his boots and sealed orders for Jarza.
Basil was to be escorted away from the bleeding edge of the frontline and brought to Citrolis. He was to remain there, tucked behind stone and safety, until further notice.
Under normal circumstances, Basil would have flared with rage at such a decision. But the letter had carried a small, sweetening chaser: it promised that when the time was right, he would finally be brought before his father.
The pill was bitter, but not entirely unswallowable.
