I am four miles under Bracken Shelf on the goat track, short of the firs where Mill-sled Four went in. The paying road runs up and east, which is where the Joined Host prefers to be seen. Daylight left is a little over an hour. The sun is already in the tops. The map from the sled shows this fold as open pasture. In the margin it says "opportunity edge." The fold is firs, a sink, and a shelf hawk that strikes what beats the air.
Mill-sled Four flew from the Joined Host garrison at Harrow Hold. Harrow Hold has housed the pact force since the last treaty. The hold did not ask for a reassurance pass today. The sled was on a presence circuit. Three ponies are dead. Twelve are hurt. The Host confirmed those numbers near dusk and called it an incident.
A mill-sled is a basket under a geared rotor. Pegasi bring it up. A crystal motor from the Crystal Empire holds the height. The machine is loud. The Host uses it when the arrival ought to be seen from the road.
Bramble Stitch lives at the tree line. She keeps the track the map leaves out. She had the hawk in sight before the sled cleared the saddle.
"She quarters, then she hits whatever is flapping," Bramble Stitch said. "Laundry. A mail kite. Today, their blade. I told the gate last week. They filed her under wildlife, managed."
The hawk hunts in the hour before the rock goes cold. It folds, it hits, and it sits. On the Host sheet the bird is a managed species, and the presence circuit flew with that line as written.
Moss Tack rode the near side of the basket. Ponies from the shelf carried her to the gravel where the goat track meets a Host lamp wagon. The wagon had come by the paying road. Her foreleg was in a slat Bramble cut. She could talk.
"The blade went soft," Moss Tack said. "Then the trees were over us. Twelve of us can still say it. Three can't. Write the three down."
Copper Gauge paced the scar with a cord and a wheel. The first broken branches sit thirty paces below the saddle. The basket lies a hundred and ten paces into the firs, on its side, rotor in pieces. He read the ground.
"The paper is short by a sink," Copper Gauge said. "The sink was in the open."
Colonel Holm Vesper said the flight was routine and the mission unchanged. He would not name a cause. Major Sunny Leaflet of the Public Wing had a touring party on the paying road to see what her card called a stable opportunity. She said tomorrow's exhibition walk would go ahead on an alternate scenic route. The party turned around when the rotor quit. They stayed on the paying road. One of them asked if the hawk was part of the visit.
The Far Desk in the Crystal Empire signs the Host's routes. Penny Ledger keeps the sortie book. She had already marked Mill-sled Four as flown. The book has a box for returned and a box for overdue. It has no box for a basket in the firs. A correction needs a surviving officer's sign and goes in the morning batch.
"The entry stands until second bell," Penny Ledger said. "Families may inquire after the batch."
A Dragon Lands counter, posted to walk boundary stones, saw the sled tip and went into the firs. The relief wagon waited on the paying road until Bramble reached it. The Host does not pay her. At the gate, the detail was lengthening the wildlife line.
Harrow Hold's night office has three tarps, one cart, and the names. The Host has the sleds, the treaty, and the road. Two of the injured were already on the gravel, carried by shelf ponies, when the lamp wagon got there.
On the bounty board by the garrison gate, after the Host confirmed the count, the Bracken Shelf card was still pinned. It read: light walking, good views, escort provided.
The card sits over an older slip for the same shelf. The older slip lists the sink in plain letters. A scenic line had been pasted across it.
I am still on the goat track, and the daylight on it is gone. The hawk came back once and sat the broken fir with her wings folded. Bramble Stitch stayed until the names were read off the slats. The Host marked the circuit complete at the paying road.
