"S-sir... you... you collapsed outside my house..."
The woman's voice was faint and trembling, every word seeming to squeeze through clenched teeth.
She remained facing Cassios, her body rigid, her shoulders trembling slightly. Her fingers clutched the bloodstained rag so tightly that her knuckles had turned white.
"I... I was alone... I couldn't drag you... it was windy outside, and I was afraid a patrol might come asking questions... cause trouble... so I had to, had to move you inside first..." she explained incoherently.
Cassios's foggy brain slowly processed this information.
He lowered his gaze and looked himself over.
Yes, he was half-reclining amid broken bricks and dust, with chunks of collapsed wall and snapped boards beneath him.
Fragments of memory began to fit together: he had staggered to the edge of the camp, overwhelming weakness and dizziness had struck him, then the world had spun—a dull impact, the sound of a wall collapsing.
An utterly unfamiliar emotion, mingled with lingering dizziness and physical exhaustion, welled up in the veteran's chest.
"Sorry about that, ma'am." His voice was still hoarse and rough, but he deliberately reined in its harshness, trying to make it sound less threatening.
He braced a hand against the ground and tried to stand, his metal gauntlet scraping against the rubble with a grating sound.
"I'm... all right now. Something... urgent. I have to go."
He shook his still somewhat aching head, and his vision finally cleared enough to take in the cramped space he had barged into.
Poverty.
That was his immediate impression.
Even calling it "four bare walls" would have been generous.
The walls were crudely pieced together from boards and scavenged metal sheeting, and the floor was packed earth, damp and cold.
The stove built from a few stones in the corner was probably