Smoke on
the Road

Smoke had taken the road before Voss did.

It lay across the roadbed in black folds, thick enough to hide the broken wagons and the low watch post ahead, thin enough in places to show movement inside it. Men. Fire. Someone crawling on hands and knees where the ditch should have been. The smoke caught in Voss's throat before he had crossed ten paces and left a bitter coat on his tongue.

"Left ditch," he said. "Anyone breathing comes out first. Shields on the road. Eyes on the rise."

The detachment split. No acknowledgments, no wasted breath.

A shape broke from beside an overturned wagon. One of the raiders, bent under a small iron-bound chest, looked once toward the Veyr line and dropped it rather than fight for it. The chest struck hard enough to throw dust from the road. The raider kept going.

A soldier turned after him.

"Leave him. Road first."

The soldier checked himself and came back into line.

Ahead, a wagon wheel had burned nearly to the hub. Heat moved off it in waves that bent the watch post beyond. The post gate stood open. The building itself had not caught. Either the garrison had saved it before they died or the raiders had chosen not to burn it.

Voss would find out which when the road stopped trying to kill him.

An arrow came through the smoke and struck a shield with a flat wooden crack.

"Front."

The line closed. Another arrow passed overhead. Then a raider rushed from behind the wreckage with a short blade in one hand and nothing in the other, trying to hit the shields before they settled.

Voss saw the gap.

"Low."

The first shield dropped. The spear behind it drove forward, and the raider folded against the shaft.

"Hold the line," Voss said. "Make them cross the fire if they want us."

The raiders did not.

One stayed behind the stone lip of the watch post and shot whenever a Veyr shield separated from the line. Another moved low among the wagons, appearing only long enough to cut loose something small enough to carry. They were not defending the road. They were buying time for the people already leaving it.

Voss knew the work. He had ordered men to do it before.

"Forward by shields. Walk."

The line moved through heat and smoke. Boots ground grit and charred scraps into the road. A bowstring sounded from the post; a Veyr shaft answered, and the archer disappeared backward.

The raider among the wagons broke cover. A soldier lunged after him.

"Hold."

The soldier stopped at the edge of a narrow gap between two burning frames. The raider did not. He turned sideways, vanished into the smoke, and was gone.

A young officer beside Voss swore. "We had him."

"We had a gap full of fire."

"He was right there."

Voss pointed toward the watch post. "Take the door. You can hate him from cover."

The officer hesitated, then went.

A body rolled from the threshold when the shields reached it. Veyr colors. Another guard lay inside and moved when the first men stepped over him.

"Living in the post," someone called.

"Clear it."

Two soldiers entered. There was a short burst of shouting, a hard impact against the wall, then a raider burst from the rear opening. He looked toward the northern rise, saw Voss between him and the road, and chose the rise.

No one chased him.

The raider disappeared over the rise.

"Now the ditch."

Two voices answered at once.

"Clear!"

"No, it isn't!"

Voss went to see which man had actually looked.

The ditch was half hidden beneath a collapsed wagon side. A caravan guard lay under it with one leg pinned, his face the gray color of a man spending everything he had on not screaming. Brother Cael was already on his knees beside him, sleeves rolled above the elbows, blood to one wrist that was not his.

Voss had not seen him leave the road.

"This one is losing feeling in the foot," Cael said. His voice was calm, but unlike Voss he used the whole sentence. "I need the weight off him before I can tell you whether that is the least of his problems."

"Axle bar," Voss said.

One of the soldiers nearest them pointed back toward the road. "Sergeant has us clearing center."

Cael looked at Voss, not the soldier.

Voss had given that order.

"He's in the center now," Voss said. "Get the bar."

The soldier ran.

Cael returned his attention to the trapped man. "There. Better. You can be angry at us after we lift."

The guard managed something that might have been a curse.

"That's useful," Cael said. "Keep doing that."

A sergeant came through the smoke coughing into his sleeve. "Marshal, I've got two alive in the post and maybe another behind the north wall. If I give the ditch more hands, the door stays thin."

"How thin?"

"Four shields thin."

"Keep four. Give Cael two bodies when he asks."

The sergeant glanced at the trapped guard. "He'll ask."

"He usually does."

"Then I'll complain when he does."

"Do it while moving."

The sergeant went back toward the post.

Beyond him, the road climbed toward the northern rise. Dark figures moved at its edge, no more than shapes through the smoke. A runner arrived from the rear and bent over with both hands on his knees before he spoke.

"Holdfast tower has the smoke, Marshal. They're asking if the road is gone."

"It isn't."

The runner looked at the burning wagons, then back at Voss. He had the good sense not to say what his face did.

"Tell them usable status follows. Nothing else until I know it."

"Yes, Marshal."

A shout cut across the road.

"Fire crossing!"

Flame had found loose packing beneath two wagons near the ditch and was moving faster than the men beating at it with cloaks. One wagon had already sagged on a broken axle. The other still had most of its canvas cover.

Something struck the inside.

Once.

Then again.

A fist.

Voss pointed. "Open that wagon."

The nearest soldier looked at the flames licking along the lower edge of the canvas.

"Now."

He ran in.

Behind Voss, Cael said, "Lift on me. Not before."

The axle bar came under the collapsed side. Men set their weight against it.

North of the watch post, the withdrawing shapes reached the rise.

The canvas moved again.

Voss looked north once.

"Scout!"

A man came at a run.

"Take whoever is already clear. Keep eyes on them. Do not commit past the rise."

The scout stared toward the dark figures. "If we move now, we can stay close enough to see where they split."

"Then see it."

"And if their captain is with them?"

"See that too. Don't spend men on a maybe."

The scout's breath came fast from the run, but his words came faster. "Give me six more and I can make the maybe matter."

A scream tore out of the ditch as the wagon side lifted. At the same moment, the covered wagon split along one seam and a woman came through the smoke on her knees, dragging air into lungs that did not want it.

Voss looked at the scout.

"You have who is clear."

The scout held his eyes for half a second, then nodded. "Eyes only."

"Eyes only."

He ran north.

At the covered wagon, another soldier crawled inside. The smell changed when the canvas tore open—less wood now, more scorched cloth and something Voss did not name. He moved toward the watch post because naming it would not get anyone out faster.

Inside, the gate had been kicked inward. A split barrel leaked across the floor. An open ledger box lay under the table with papers trampled into ash. One guard sat against the far wall with both hands pressed to his side.

He tried to stand when he saw Voss.

"Stay."

The guard obeyed.

"How many hit the post?"

"I don't know. More than we could hold."

"From where?"

"Road and north wall. We thought the first group was all of them, then the other lot came through the wagons."

"What did they take?"

"Food. Fittings. Papers. Whatever they could carry."

"Any pattern?"

The guard blinked, thinking. "They went through the convoy fast. Knew where they wanted to be, I suppose. I was in here by then."

"Leave the rest."

The guard looked offended. "Wasn't planning to."

For the first time that morning, Voss almost smiled.

Outside, wood groaned under the axle bar. Cael's voice rose over it, not loud, simply impossible to mistake.

"Hold there. If you drop him now I'll make you explain it to him while he's awake."

The men held.

Voss stepped back onto the road.

A soldier had dragged a raider from beneath a wagon. Blood ran down one side of the raider's face, but he was conscious enough to twist when the soldier tried to bind his hands.

"He killed two of ours," the soldier said.

"Bind him."

The soldier did not move. "Marshal—"

"He's alive. Keep him that way until Cael says otherwise. Then I want what he saw."

That answer did not satisfy the soldier. It was not meant to.

"Bind him."

This time the knot was tied.

The iron-bound chest still lay where the first raider had dropped it. Voss picked it up and felt immediately that it held more than loose paper. One hinge had bent from the fall. Soot blackened the Veyr survey seal on the lid.

The sergeant saw him looking at it. "Want it opened?"

"Not here."

"Wasn't offering to use my teeth."

"Good. Keep disappointing me."

The sergeant took the chest. "Post step?"

"Guarded."

"Naturally."

The exchange was almost ordinary. Voss was grateful for that and disliked being grateful for it.

---

By late morning the fighting had thinned into work.

The road sounded different. Fewer bowstrings and shouted warnings; more men coughing, timber scraping over dirt, the dull complaint of damaged wheels being forced to turn. Smoke no longer hid the whole field at once. It drifted in torn layers, revealing pieces of the wreckage and then taking them back.

In Voss's head the road had divided anyway.

There was the road under his boots, crowded with wounded and men carrying water, tools, stretchers, anything that could move. There was the road his soldiers were making by dragging wreckage aside. And somewhere beyond the northern rise was the clean line he could have followed after the raiders, a road without pinned legs, burning canvas, or people calling for hands.

That last road did not exist.

Scout reports came back from it all the same.

Still in sight.

Then moving faster.

Then two groups, maybe three.

The captain might be with the western group.

Might.

Voss folded that word and put it with the others he could not spend yet.

A caravan woman caught his sleeve as he passed. One of her hands was wrapped in a strip of cloth already darkening through.

"My brother," she said. "They haven't found him."

"Name?"

She gave it, then hurried on before he could ask anything else. "He was with the drivers. Blue-covered wagon, the one with the tool cases, except I don't know if it was still blue after— I saw him when we stopped at the post. He went back because someone had left—"

"Slow down."

She stopped. Her eyes were wet with smoke, grief, or both.

"Start with the wagon."

"The blue one. He was sitting up front with the drivers. He hates sitting in back because he gets sick when he can't see the road."

Voss looked toward the wreckage. Three wagons still carried scraps of blue.

"Write his name," he told the nearest soldier.

The soldier patted at his belt, found nothing to write on, and looked helplessly practical about it.

Voss held out his hand to the runner beside him, tore the blank lower strip from a folded dispatch, and wrote the name himself.

The woman watched the letters form.

"You'll find him?"

"I'll look."

Her face tightened. She waited.

Voss let the silence stand.

"All right," she said at last. "If you find him, tell him Mara stayed. He'll think I ran."

Voss added the name beneath the first one.

Mara.

He had not asked for hers.

Cael had come up behind them carrying a stained strip of cloth and a cup of water. He waited until the woman left.

"Two names now," he said.

"Apparently."

Cael looked at the strip in Voss's hand. "Don't lose either."

Voss tucked it into his glove. "Go do your work."

"I was."

Cael handed the cup to a wounded guard and went back toward the ditch.

At the edge of the wreckage, a wagon had burned low enough to approach. The rear boards carried the same survey seal as the chest now guarded on the watch post step. A survivor sat nearby with both eyebrows burned away and a wet cloth over his mouth.

Voss crouched beside him.

"Those marked wagons. Were they together?"

The man coughed into the cloth. "Mostly."

"Did the raiders treat them differently?"

A pause.

"They ran past my wagon first."

"Past you?"

"I thought they were after the guards. Then one of them shouted and they turned on the marked ones. Could've been because the guards were there too. I don't know."

"And after they turned?"

The man looked toward a cloaked body. "After that they killed anyone who got between them and the wagons."

Voss followed his gaze.

They had known where they wanted to go.

A shout came from the north.

The scout returned at a run, alone and angry about it.

"They split twice," he said before he had fully stopped. "Western group went into broken ground. Eastern doubled back on its own trail long enough to make us check. Give me another section and I can push west before they get farther."

"Captain?"

"Could be west. One of the men saw someone directing the split."

"Saw the captain?"

"No, but—"

"Then not the captain."

The scout dragged a hand across his mouth. "Fine. Someone directing them. We can still catch that someone."

"Did you cross the rise?"

A fraction too much silence.

"Some."

"How far is some?"

"Far enough to know they were breaking away, not far enough to lose the road behind us."

The scout expected correction. Voss could see it.

"Any wounded?"

"No."

Voss looked at the man's dusted boots, the sweat cutting pale lines through soot at his temples.

"You crossed the rise."

"Some."

"Don't do it again."

The scout's jaw tightened. "They're still getting away."

"Then tell me where."

Before either man spoke again, wood cracked behind Voss.

The wagon with the split wheel sagged inward. A soldier threw himself clear. Cael did not; he was half beneath the fallen side, reaching for someone Voss could not see.

Voss was already moving.

He caught one edge with the sergeant and another soldier. Heat came through his gloves so quickly that his hands seemed cold first, then painfully hot.

"Up."

They lifted.

"Not yet," Cael said from under the wagon. "Hold it."

The sergeant grunted. "Brother, if you've found religion under there, finish quickly."

"I found a man. Consider it adjacent."

"Cael."

"Two breaths."

A civilian man came free with blood soaking one trouser leg and both hands locked around a small leather case. Cael crawled after him, coughing hard enough to fold at the waist.

"Clear."

They dropped the timber. Flame rolled over it.

Voss grabbed the back of Cael's coat and pulled him another step from the heat.

"I had men there."

"They were holding the wagon."

"You were under it."

"Yes. That's why they were holding it."

The answer was too complete to be a joke.

Voss released him.

The scout had not left.

For a moment Voss had the scout in front of him, the rescued man at his feet, and the north road open beyond them.

"Outer pickets," Voss said. "Mark their direction. No pursuit."

The scout's expression shut, but his voice stayed hot. "If we wait, we lose them."

Voss looked once at the man Cael had dragged free.

"Then we lose them."

The scout went.

The rescued man still had the leather case pressed against his chest.

Voss crouched beside him. "What's in it?"

"Copies."

"Of what?"

"Survey papers. Route sheets. Claim copies."

"Why did you go back for them?"

The man looked at the case as if the answer were obvious. "My supervisor told me those copies had to reach Holdfast."

"Where is he?"

The man's eyes moved toward the bodies.

Voss waited.

"He said the Orcs were opening cases," the man continued. "Not all of them. Some they took. Some they threw into the fire. I thought if these burned too—" He stopped and looked down at his leg as if only now remembering it existed. "I don't know. It seemed important then."

"It was important then."

"And now?"

"Now Cael gets your leg."

The man gave a short, frightened laugh.

Voss held out his hand for the case.

After a moment, the man gave it to him.

It was warm. Soot came away under Voss's thumb.

He passed it to the sergeant. "With the chest. Nobody opens either."

The sergeant nodded. "I'll put a man on them."

"Put a bored one on them."

"Plenty to choose from."

"Good."

Cael was kneeling beside the injured survey man now. He glanced up once. "If you're finished requisitioning his paperwork, I would like the rest of him."

Voss stepped aside.

---

By afternoon the smoke had thinned enough that distance returned to the road.

The watch post still stood. The center could take a litter and a light wagon if the driver accepted a warped route through the wreckage. Men had stopped shouting every instruction because they could finally see the person they meant to reach. The heat remained in the blackened frames, but it no longer struck Voss's face from ten paces away.

No one had seen the raid captain since the rise.

The scout delivered the report with dust dried pale on his boots.

"Western group vanished beyond the broken ground. We found sign twice and lost it twice. I can't give you a count I trust."

"Last confirmed direction?"

"Northwest from the second split."

"Captain?"

"Unconfirmed."

Voss nodded. "Send it to Holdfast."

As the scout turned away, he stopped. "One more thing. Someone carried something wrapped in oilcloth. About this long."

He showed the size with his hands.

"Could you tell what it was?"

"No."

"Put oilcloth and size in the report."

The scout held up the slate in his hand. Both were already there.

Voss handed it back.

The scout left.

Under the surviving side of the watch post roof, Cael had made a treatment space. The smell there was blood, wet cloth, and old smoke. A guard tried to rise when Voss approached.

Cael put a hand on his shoulder.

"If you stand for him," Cael said, "I'll put you back down, and neither of us will enjoy how."

The guard looked from priest to marshal and wisely stayed seated.

Voss crouched. "Can you answer questions?"

"For a little while."

"Tell me about the marked wagons."

The guard did, but not cleanly. He remembered an arrow through the post door. He remembered someone shouting about the north wall. He remembered a wagon already burning when another survivor swore the fire had started later. When Voss asked whether the raiders had called out particular wagons, the guard said yes, then admitted he had not understood the words.

Voss listened until the man's breathing shortened.

"Enough."

Cael handed the guard water.

Outside, Cael said, "Not much."

"No."

"Enough to worry you?"

Voss looked back at the marked wreckage.

"Enough to keep looking."

They walked to the watch post step.

The iron-bound chest and leather case waited under guard. Voss dismissed the soldier, then flexed his burned hand before removing the glove. The leather had stiffened where the heat caught it. His palm beneath was red but usable.

Cael noticed.

"You should let me see that."

"After the papers."

"Of course."

There was no humor in it.

Voss opened the leather case first. Soot had worked into the seams, but the papers inside were dry. Maps. Route sheets. Administrative copies. Several headings he knew, technical notations he did not.

He turned one page carefully because the edge had begun to char.

Emberstone survey claims.

Another sheet carried boundary observations and claim references. A third was stuck to the one beneath it where heat had softened something in the binding.

Voss stopped there.

Cael looked over his shoulder. "That's all?"

"That's what I can read without ruining the rest."

"You could wait until tomorrow."

"I am."

Cael's eyebrows rose.

Voss closed the case.

"Don't."

"I didn't say anything."

"You were preparing to."

"I was going to ask whether your hand hurt."

Voss looked at the reddened palm.

"It does."

"Remarkable."

Cael sat on the step beside the case. "Marked wagons. Missing papers. Survey claims."

"Yes."

"Not random, then."

"No."

A runner approached from the south. "Marshal. Holdfast again. They need to know when the road is open."

Voss looked past him.

A litter was moving down the cleared center. Behind it came a wagon with one damaged wheel that complained at every turn. Men stepped aside to let it pass, then moved back into the same space with tools and stretchers.

The runner had called it open. A litter was squeezing through sideways while men dragged another axle clear.

"Tell them usable now," Voss said. "Military traffic by dusk if the post holds. No heavy convoy until the center is inspected."

The runner nodded. "And the raiders?"

"Withdrew north. Split beyond the rise. Last direction goes with the report."

"Escaped?"

"Withdrew."

The runner waited, perhaps expecting more.

There was no more.

He left.

Cael watched him go.

"Tomorrow?" he said.

"Tomorrow."

A call came from the wreckage. Not alarm this time. Hands.

Three soldiers were trying to lift a charred wagon frame while someone beneath it struck weakly against the boards.

On the far rise there was nothing left to pursue.

Voss could still see the road that would have gone after them.

He heard the knocking again.

"Marshal?" Cael said.

Voss was already walking.

"Get the other side."

They went back into the smoke.