The capital gates swung open at midday while Hajin clutched his splint through the cart's last lurching approach over ruts. Four days of road rattled inside his bones, and he held his breath until the wheel cleared the drawbridge seam.
"Made it, you stubborn plank, and you only tried to kill me twice an hour," he wheezed, patting the bench.
Beyond the canvas flap, someone in the gathering crowd shouted a name at a soldier walking beside the wheel.
Hajin nudged the feed toward the opening and kept his own loud mouth firmly shut for once in his life. A bandaged spearman answering a stranger at the curb mattered more than any victory speech he could possibly shout today.
'Let them see the bandages first, nobody argues with a limp the way they argue with me.'
A woman stopped with both hands pressed against her mouth while the soldier nodded and kept pace with the cart. She called out names through her tears, and every answer from the road turned Kenny's dead company into a lie.
