Redfield's walls were nearly empty.
Two sentries walked the eastern battlement at the pace of men counting down to the end of a shift. Nobody stood at the arrow slits, and no barricade timber lay stacked behind the entrance, because there was no reason to stack any.
The gate was open. The southern road was empty. The beacon platform above the gatehouse held a cold brazier and one bored soldier sitting beside it with his back against the parapet.
Cillian looked at the timer, then at the fort, then at the timer again, and his eyebrows climbed.
"Four thirty-six," he said. "We were at three thirty-one when we finished this place last time."
"So we're an hour up before we've swung anything," Finn said.
"We're an hour up, and last time this fort ate fifty-six minutes of us."
