It was night the time upon which they waved their last to the dead.

Asag could scarcely remember the taste of a full night’s sleep. Even when he managed to shutter his eyes, his ears remained trapped in the siege; he could still hear the rhythmic, bone-deep ring of axes shrieking against each other.

It wasn’t as brutal as it had been in the beginning.Just thinking back on the first weeks made him wonder just how they had even managed to sleep.

For now however an uneasy and brittle peace had settled between the two forces as the previous rate of assault inevitably withered when the ditches became filled with rotting flesh. The fury of the first weeks had been replaced by a dull, grinding lethargy that Asag was more than happy to maintain, as he was in no hurry to dislodge anymore of his already hard-held lines.

From the high battlements, they would watch the enemy spears glinting in the distance. The two sides regularly traded insults across the killing field, though most of the "dialogue" consisted of open palms slapped against crotches and middle fingers thrust toward the sky. On the first day of the lull, some peacock from the League had been dim-witted enough to trot within earshot to shout his provocations.

The brave and dumb idiot had received three arrows in reply: two for his guts and one for his breast. It had been entertaining to listen to his high-pitched screams as he hit the mud, but the novelty wore off quickly. Eventually, someone with a steady hand silenced him with a clean shaft to the head, and the silence returned.

Some mornings, the enemy would push their mantlets forward, wide enough for three or four archers to crouch behind. The League men would kneel in the muck, find their breath, and let fly through the narrow slits. The mantlets were draped in thick, wet hides to ward off fire, so Asag and his men didn’t even bother wasting fire on them; they simply tucked themselves behind the stone crenels and waited for the thwack of bodkin points against masonry before replying with their own.

The arrows rarely did much damage, though luck eventually found a gap. A stray shaft had caught Arly clean through the thigh during a morning watch. It had earned the lad five days of soft bedding and a ration of thin ale, but now he was back on the wall, patrolling with a heavy, rhythmic limp.

It was nice to have a wobbling companion to pace the stones with, thought Asag , though he would never be soft enough to admit it to the man or anyone really.

But that was during the day, when he guarded the gatehouse. Not it was night and he was back with his legions giving final farewells to their companion.

A particularly sharp wheeze of wind sliced through the courtyard, tugging at Asag’s hair. It had been weeks since he’d seen a bath, and the strands were a matted, tangled mess, far removed from the lavender-scented grooming he maintained at court.

Some people even called him Fair-hair. He did not know how to feel about.

Still above all, he missed that smell, the soft, floral comfort his wife and daughters loved. Here, the air tasted only of shit, rotting bodies, sweat , iron, and the looming scent of pine pitch.

In the center of the Bastion’s yard, great bundles of hay and seasoned timber had been piled high. Atop them rested the dead. It felt wrong, as if it were an insult to give them a mass pyre when each man deserved his own sanctified ground, but necessity was a cruel master and a stingy purse. They had wood to spare, but that did not mean they could go and waste it around.

Asag stepped forward, the cold biting at his neck. A few stubborn stalks of hay poked out from the base of the mound like reaching fingers.

How long before it would be himself upon that pyre?He wrestled the thought away as he gave start to the tradition.

"We stand here to give our final wave to these warriors," Asag’s voice rang out, steady despite the hollow ache in his chest. "Brave men and dutiful, each and all. Long and hard they have fought; may the Warrior welcome their souls. May the Weaver tend the ends of their threads, and the All-Knower judge them with mercy. May the Father Protector give them the warmth we could not."

He lowered the torch. The flame licked at the dry hay, and a thin ribbon of grey smoke began to coil upward into the dark sky.

"And with death, may life begin anew," he said solemnly.

"And with death, may life begin anew," the hundreds of soldiers echoed, their voices a low, rolling thunder that seemed to vibrate the very stones of the fortress.

Asag pressed the torch deeper into the pile, watching the fire catch. He looked upon the faces of the fallen. There were fewer today, mostly those who had finally succumbed to festering wounds in the sickbeds. His eyes snagged on a stocky man with a face like a chopped block of oak. The lids were closed, sparing Asag the haunting stare of glassy, sightless eyes.

Kollo. He remembered the name now and the notion did not put him in any good mood.

He had been the one to sit with Arnold after his first wounding; he’d returned to the walls even after an arrow had carved a furrow through the side of his neck.He was a brave man....

Had he been struck again? Asag would never get his answer. The flames rose, beginning to lick at the man’s jaw and ear, and Asag, only then, forced himself to look away.

He retreated from the heat, his heart drumming a bit more at the sight of it, he would never get comfortable with fire ever again. He did his best to appear straight, sensing the heavy and exhausted eyes of the garrison following him. They were all so tired.

"If any man has a word for the dead, speak it now," Asag commanded.

Silence followed, broken only by the hungry crackling of the timber. Then, a voice rose from the back of the crowd. A man stepped forward, not a legionary of the Third, but one of the local garrison who had manned these walls long before the first Habadian shadow fell.

"I’ll speak for Lary," the man said, his voice rough. "He had no sons, no wife. It’s only us friends who’ll feel the hole he’s left.

He was a good man, as much as any can be in these times. Always had a smile to spare. I’ve known him since I was a lad without hair on my chin. It was him that talked me into this job, it was a nice pay" He paused, looking at the fire perhaps realising now that all that silver was not worth the trouble he had been living in for months.Still what use was to cry on spilled milk?

"If I had wine, I’d toast him. May the Gods guide his soul."

"May the Gods guide his soul," the men repeated.

"Though," the soldier added in an afterthought, "Lary would’ve wanted me to collect his bonus too. Anyone think the clerk’ll go for that?"

A chorus of hoarse and weary laughter rippled through the yard. Even Asag felt a smirk tug at the corner of his mouth. It was a soldier’s mourning, there was just so much death and one needed to find reason to smile even where there was none, else their sanity would slip away or chip like stone with an chisel.

The man stepped back into the shadows, and a second soldier, a young one with a bandaged arm, began to move toward the fire. "I have a word for—"

He never finished it as from the darkness beyond the walls, a sound broke that small pocket of peace they were lingering on.

Not even time to mourn the dead, Asag thought as his skin got cold when a horn echoed in the air.

Aooooooooooo

It rolled over the courtyard, drowning out the crackle of the funeral pyre.

Asag’s hand clamped onto the hilt of his sword with a white-knuckled grip. Around him, the weary solemnity of the mourning dissolved instantly into the usual and practiced tension of men who now were expected to fight and perhaps die in the dark. 𝙛𝓻𝒆𝒆𝒘𝙚𝓫𝙣𝙤𝒗𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝙤𝙢

"Not even the decency to let us say our fucking farewells," a legionary muttered, his voice thick with a tired, simmering rage. He spat into the mud and grabbed his halberd, already shoving his way toward the ramparts, visibly limping as he went.

"Can’t see a damn thing!" another shouted, fumbling with the strap of his shield. "I hate fighting in the night. Fucking hell...."

"Aye," another growled "Night was made for sleep and fucking, not bleeding in the dirt. I’m going to gut some Habadian cunt just for the inconvenience."

They scrambled toward the stone stairs, their boots a frantic staccato against the cobbles. Asag moved to follow, reaching for the helm he’d set aside for the pyre, but he froze halfway.

The reason?

Aoooooooooooo.

A second horn.

In the courtyard, the frantic movement slowed. Heads turned, eyes wide with a confused expression. Men stopped on the stairs, looking at one another as if to confirm they hadn’t simply imagined the second blast.

"A second?" a soldier asked, his voice cracking. "Did the bastards get repelled before they even hit the ditch?"

"Maybe it was Old Noff on the east watch?" someone suggested, though his voice lacked conviction. "He’s half-deaf, probably blew the wrong note and forgot he did it once already?"

"Nah, Noff is the blind one, not the deaf that one’s No-Ear Luke." another recalled , though he didn’t move toward the wall. "But he is still old enough to be senile."

"Two is for a repelled attack," a levymen that limped with the aid of his spear whispered, the firelight bathing his young and soft features. "Think there is going to be three?What was it for? I... I can’t recall it...."

The courtyard fell into a suffocating silence, the only sound the roar of the pyre behind them.

Many people recalled what that sound was, and some even begun to pray for it.

And then, it came.

Aoooooooooooooooooooooooo.

The third blast was the longest of all, a triumphant, lonely sound that echoed off the grey stones of the Bastion and bled into the mist.

Asag stood paralyzed, his fingers trembling against the cold steel of his helmet. He almost let the heavy iron slip from his grasp. His heart was hammering against his ribs, not with the adrenaline of battle, but with a realization so immense it made his head swim.

"Three," Asag whispered, his voice barely more than a rasp. "The enemy is retreating....."

"Retreating?" a soldier asked, looking at Asag as if he were a prophet. "Does that mean... ’’

Asag looked at the pyre, where the flames were now consuming the bodies of the men who had at last held the line and gave their life for it.

Then he looked at the weary, blood-stained faces of the survivors.

"Aye," fierce heat stinged his eyes as a smile bloomed on his face. "It means we won."