despair hung on him like a coating of thick, cold mud, and Isana shivered. "I take it the Marat have already attacked."
"Just their vanguard," Giraldi said. "The rest of the horde will be here within the hour."
"Then we'd best stop wasting time with talk, Giraldi. Open the gates."
"I don't know if the Count would-"
"The Count has no say in this," Isana said. "And if the Marat take Garrison, they'll be able to destroy everything we have. We've the right to fight to defend our homes and families as well, Giraldi, and every man here who is of age is a Legion veteran. Open the gates."
Giraldi bowed his head and nodded to the young legionare. "Furies know we need the help. Do it."
The holders moved into Garrison in short order, and Isana noticed that adult men-the veterans-drove all the wagons. They pulled into the
fortress as though part of the Legion on duty there, lining up their wagons in neat rows in the westernmost courtyard. Men started caring for the horses at once, unhitching them and leading them to be watered and sheltered from the winter winds. Every Legion camp was laid out identically, enabling veterans and newly transferred units to be exactly aware of the operations and layout of any camp they came to. Even as some men picketed the horses, others began forming up the veterans into files outside the armory, and Giraldi and another young legionare began to outfit them with shields, swords, spears, breastplates, helmets.
Isana stepped down from the wagon, holding Odiana's hand and leading the dazed woman, who kept the blanket wrapped around her like a sleepy child. "Harger," Isana called, spotting the healer supervising a number of young women, barely more than children really, who were shredding bed-sheets into bandages.
The old healer turned when he saw her, a tired smile touching his face. "Help," he said. "Well, maybe we can make a fight of it after all."
She moved to him and embraced him quietly. "Are you all right?"
"Tired," he said. He looked around them and then said, "This is bad, Isana. Our wall isn't high enough, and our Knights went down in the first attack."
Isana's throat tightened. "My brother?"
"A little banged up, but well," Harger said. "Isana, we've got less than an hour. By the time the sun rises, you'll be able to walk from here to the watchtowers on Marat shoulders."
She nodded. "There, see Steadholder Otto? He's a strong crafter. Not too delicate, because he mostly crafts injured livestock rather than people, but he can mend broken bones better than anyone I've ever seen, and he can do it from dawn to dark. There are one or two other men at least as skilled as a Legion watercrafter, and many of the woman are better. You have injured?"
"Plenty," Harger said, his eyes calculating. "Really? Women better than a Legion watercrafter?"
"See Otto. He'll get our healers over to help yours. You're in the eastern courtyard?"
Harger nodded, blinking his eyes a few times. Then he clasped Isana's shoulder. "Thank you. I don't know if it will do any good in the long run, but there are men dying who won't have to now."
Isana touched her hand with his and said, "Where can I find Bernard?"
"On the wall above the gate," Harger said.
Isana nodded to him and started toward the far side of the fort. She passed the commander's quarters and the officers' barracks at the center of the fort, then walked briskly past barracks after barracks. She found the first bodies at the near side of the eastern courtyard, in the stables. Dead horses lay inside, crows already darting in and out of the stable's doors, their raucous cries rising from their darkened interiors. More bodies littered the courtyard around her-Marat, and the great predator birds had been tossed into a rough heap at one side of the courtyard, where they would be out of the way of the troops moving about inside. Legion casualties were laid out in neat rows on the other, troops wrapped in their cloaks, heads covered to keep the crows from their eyes.
The rest of the courtyard was filled with the wounded and the dying. A bare scattering of legionares stood watch on the walls, but there seemed to be so few of them.
Isana walked forward, stunned at the carnage. She had never seen anything like it. Pain pressed on her, sensed from the wounded like heat radiating out from an oven. She shivered and folded her arms. Behind her, Odiana, still