Chapter 254: The Cost of Holding
Morning brought the grim light of survival to Bastion Six.
The pale corruption was gone from the streets. The massive anomaly outside the southern wall was nothing but a mountain of gray ash. The city still stood. But victory carried a heavy, bloody invoice.
Aegon walked the frozen mud of the southern approach.
The Vanguard medics and surviving soldiers were moving through the gorge. They pulled bodies from the black ice and the ruined clay. One hundred and fourteen men from the garrison were dead.
Down in the subterranean bays, thousands of freezing civilians remained huddled in the dark. Nobody had issued the all-clear. The city was too exhausted to remember to tell them the war was over.
Near the heavy iron gates, two medics lifted a body from the mud.
