It was enough to feed everyone, and not made of men.
The sound of the door moving made me flinch hard. Elijah saw it and glanced away without laughing. I'd have to thank him for that later, but the person who came out? It wasn't Mr. Saunders. Instead, it was Gideon.
"What did you find?" he demanded as he shoved the door even wider, letting his own men make their way out to stand beside mine.
"Meat," I said, gesturing to the pile. "It's all animals."
"From where?"
"From whoever decided to drop it here," I hissed. "And they didn't stick around long enough for us to gear up, get here, deal with the doors, and everything else. Gideon, they had at least ten minutes to get away, and some things up here can move fast."
"Are you sure they're gone?" he asked.
"I can step into the burning if you want me to prove it, but either they're completely silent, or they're gone."
"We need to wait for sundown," Gideon decided. "Second squad! You're on watch for an hour. Fourth will take over after that. Tobias, send your men to find the suppliers. We'll need carts for this and bodies to move it. Let rendering know they'll be needed."
"Yes, sir," I said, gesturing for my squad to do exactly that, but I lagged behind. "Where do you want us, Gideon?"
"I want you to see which men didn't respond. Get me those names, because the elders deserve to know who's shirking their duties."
"Yes, sir," I said, turning to leave.
"And don't mention what it was!" he called after me. "A false alarm, Tobias. Nothing more."
"Understood!"
Because we didn't need anyone to wonder why meat had arrived on its own. That would lead to questions, and we all knew questions caused problems. God was supposed to do the providing of miracles. We were supposed to work hard for the things we needed. But this?
This was a sign, and one that had nothing to do with God, our piety, or anything else. For some reason, the Dragons had decided to feed us, and I didn't know why. Either they had poisoned the meat, intending to kill us all; they were trying to teach us that food tasted better when it wasn't from people; or they had some other plan.
But it didn't matter. No one would ever know about this. If the elders even admitted there was excess, they'd give all the credit to either themselves, or possibly to God, but I had a feeling they'd be the ones to take the credit.
Sixty
Callah
It felt like it took forever for the alarms to be silenced. I managed to get up and get dressed before I could hear myself think - and my mind kept jumping back to the size of Tobias's chest. We'd never changed in the same room before. He always gave me privacy, so I'd done the same to him, but when he'd yanked his shirt over his head like that?
I'd looked.
Something about the size of that man made me both terrified and excited. No, that had to be the excitement of the intruder alarm waking us both from a sound sleep. But the compound was secure, right? Who would want to get in? Ayla was the only person who sprang to mind, and she didn't have the code yet.
So to keep my idle hands busy, I straightened up our home while I waited for news. For a bit, the halls were quiet, but when sounds started out there, I dared to stick my head out. People were making their way back home. No one was screaming or trying to hide, so I could only hope that meant it was nothing.
Just when I was ready to go find him, Tobias finally returned. The man stepped into our suite like he was exhausted, then kicked off his shoes and left them laying in the middle of thefloor. That was enough to make me pause, waiting to hear what was wrong.
"Are you okay?" I asked when he said nothing for a little too long.
He ran a hand through his dusty blonde hair. "Callah, there was meat."
"What?" His words made no sense.
"Someone tried to get in, used the wrong code, and woke everyone," he explained as he bent to collect his boots and set them where they belonged. "My squad was the first out - "
"No!" I gasped.
He lifted a hand. "And there was no one there. It takes a bit to arm everyone, then to turn off the alarms. And from the size of the pile of dead animals they left, this was well-planned. Callah, there's enough meat there to feed the entire compound for amonth."
