The report from Harr used the direct format from a soldier, with the event order, facts only. The handwriting was a mirror of the man himself, compressed and efficient, like commands delivered under pressure. Harr had reduced the nest extermination, the matriarch encounter, and the mine condition into eleven lines.
The twelfth line contained the casualty figure.
Beorn read that line twice.
Roughly one third of the company lost to death or injury. That meant around thirty men either would not return to Ashmark or return injured badly enough to leave service, from days to permanently.
Something dark moved at the corner of the page.
He realized after a moment that it was the charcoal in his own hand, he had started sketching without noticing. The drawing beside the casualty figure had nothing to do with the mine, the kind his hand created when his thoughts were working through problems faster than words could contain.
