They spent three days at the farmhouse.
Not resting — working, in the focused methodical way that replaced resting when resting was not available. Auren dictated testimony in Orren's careful hand, filling pages with the architectural truth of the campaign — dates, decisions, the specific names of the consortium members whose letters he had received, the exact wording of the orders that had made the eastern regiments expendable, the tactical logic that had been presented to him as doctrine and that he now annotated with what it actually was.
Ysse organized the documents into three complete packages — each containing a copy of both record books, Auren's testimony, the mineral survey references, the post-phase maps. Different handwriting on each cover. Different chains of custody documented. She did this with the precision she applied to everything, and when she was done she looked at the three packages and said nothing for a while.
"This is everyone," she said eventually.
Kael looked at her.
"Everyone who died. Everyone who was marked as terrain. Everyone who won't be written down." She touched the edge of one package. "It's all in here. The proof that they existed and were used and were erased. That's what this is."
No one said anything for a moment.
"Then we make sure it can't be erased again," Bren said.
The three delivery routes Auren had identified were mapped by Orren with the same care he gave everything. The historian in the free cities was six days east by horse. The trade auditor was in a city south of the border, twelve days by road. The journalist in exile was in the northern free ports, accessible by water.
"We can't all go together," Kael said. "Three packages, three routes."
"Four of us," Bren said.
Kael looked at him.
"Ysse and I take two routes. You and Orren take the third and find the journalist." Bren said it with the clarity of someone who had already worked through the argument. "We split the risk. If one route is intercepted the others complete."
It was the right decision and Kael didn't like it.
"We just got out," he said.
"I know."
"We promised —"
"We promised to survive," Bren said. "We're surviving. We're just doing it in different directions for a while." He looked at Kael with the directness that had replaced fear. "We'll find each other after. Pick a place."
Kael thought about the city. The Low Quarter. The mill above which his two rooms sat, swept clean, the floorboard fixed.
"The eastern square," he said. "Low Quarter. The board where the recruitment notice was posted."
"Ninety days," Bren said.
"Ninety days."
Bren held out his hand. Kael took it. They held the grip for a moment in the way you hold things that contain more than the gesture can carry.
Then they let go.