The streambed fight had barely gone quiet behind me — I could still hear the wounded being carried back through the gate, still feel the particular ache in my shoulder that meant Noa Genesis had spent more of itself than either of us had noticed at the time — when I realized the front gate's noise hadn't dropped the way a battle's noise drops once one side breaks off. It had simply moved.
I found Selena forty yards past the gate, already three strides into a run she had no orders to make.
"Selena!"
She didn't stop. I hadn't expected her to. Eleven days on the eastern line had worn her discipline down to exactly one shape — hold, hold, hold, until the one moment holding stopped being required of her — and the retreat horn had apparently been that moment. Her halberd trailed a line of frost across the churned mud behind her, the ground hardening and cracking under each footfall like something trying and failing to keep pace with her temper.
