Chapter Text
Standing atop Wall Rose, you'd hardly know there were any other walls at all. Even with a telescope, Erwin could only see as far as the edge of what had once been Parada Forest and which now was little better than a dream. Beneath his feet the stone of the Wall rooted him to the ground.
"Have a care!" shouted Lieutenant Adler, lighting the touch-hole and dodging back. Embers flew from the taper in his hand, scattering over the stone and smouldering. Adler cursed, trying to stamp one out –
The cannon fired with a sharp crack, right in Erwin's ear. The stink of cordite seared his nostrils. The shell smashed into the throat of a Titan fourteen metres high, severing the meat of its neck. Erwin only had time to gaze down into its face, its eyes wide and cow-like, before the steam rose and the corpse began to disintegrate.
"Whooo-hooooo!" Adler ran to the edge of the Wall to get a better look at his kill. His euphoria was almost infectious; he was grinning brightly as he found his chalk and scratched out a thick white notch on the parapet. The Garrison were enthusiastic, at least. "It's just a pity they don't stick around."
"Oh, we've always found that more useful than not," said Erwin lightly.
"Yeah, I guess the last thing you guys need is more corpses," said Adler. He slapped a gloved hand against the cannon's barrel. "Big Bessie here does the job ri – aaargghh – "
He snatched his hand away from the burning hot barrel, leaving a sticky patina of badly-oiled leather on the bronze.
"That was unwise," said Erwin very mildly.
"I'm not the one – " Adler was peeling off his glove; it looked painful. He flapped his hand in the air, trying to create a cool breeze over the reddened flesh. "I'm not the one who was stood next to the damn cannon when it went off!"
"You have to become used to it firing," said Erwin. "Being too frightened of it is as dangerous as being too confident." He considered the distance between Adler and the cannon, and himself and the cannon, and gestured at a point several metres away. "There. That's how far away you would have to be to survive the initial explosion, never mind ducking shrapnel. You can't possibly run that far in the time between lighting the touch-hole and the cannon going off."
"So you think I should just stand there?" asked Adler incredulously.
"If it blows, we'll both die anyway," said Erwin. He found it difficult to resist the note of condescension creeping into his tone. "I take my chances. It also gives me the advantage that I don't scatter burning embers everywhere, which is much safer for my squad in any case."
"I'm trying not to die," said Adler, his eyes narrowing in a scowl.
"You're not doing it very well," said a voice behind Erwin's shoulder. Erwin didn't turn, but he could feel the ghost of a smile edging onto his face.
"Levi," he said. "Do you have a message for me?"
"Yeah," Levi said, extending a letter held between two fingers. "Mailbag came up from Marebrook. Some assholes in Sina want to talk to you. I guess it'll make a change from the assholes here."
Erwin took the letter, which had indeed been postmarked as it went through the Stohess gate, and flipped it over. His stomach dropped. The royal seal was stamped into the red wax on the back.
"Did you just call me an asshole?" Adler demanded. His face was flushing angrily. Thwarted of worthier prey, he had turned his temper on what he must have assumed was Erwin's batman.
"Is that what I said?" Levi enquired lazily. "I guess it was."
"You little shit! How dare you talk back like that to a superior officer?"
"Hah," said Levi. "You're an officer, I'll give you that much."
Adler's hands were clenching and unclenching, his whole face dark with blood under the skin. "You'll pay for that, sweetheart, I promise you."
"Not half as much as you will, darling," said Levi.
Erwin watched the colour seep out of Adler's face. He was stilling as his body came under the influence of a terrible false tranquillity. Erwin was familiar with it. It was the deceptive calm of absolute, blinding rage.
Moving forward swiftly, he put his body in between the two of them and his left hand out in a soothing gesture towards Adler. His right hand came down over Levi's neck, enveloping his slender nape. "There will be no duels here, either of you." His voice was as clear as a bell. Adler reacted sharply, jerking back. "We fight Titans, not each other."
"You're going to let him get away with cheeking me?" Adler said, but his tone was resentful, not furious.
"Captain Levi's discipline is not your affair," said Erwin, and noted with satisfaction Adler's mortified twitch at captain. "In any case, Lieutenant, you need to clean and reload the cannon. Be careful and check for damage behind the first reinforce ring. That's the most dangerous place to have a crack."
"Yes, sir," said Adler, his jaw setting. He spun on his heel and knelt to his task.
Erwin dropped his hand from the nape of Levi's neck. Levi blinked, turning his face upwards to look at him. It was only now that Erwin realised Levi had been motionless throughout, from the moment he'd handed over the letter. He still held himself coiled tight, ready to spring for Adler's throat, and his expression was utterly serene.
"Captain," he said. "Walk with me."
He strode off quickly, trusting that Levi would keep up if he had to march in double-time. Below them, three Titans mauled at the base of Wall Rose, but Erwin ignored the sounds of the slavering beasts.
"Why did you stop me?" asked Levi, falling perfectly into step with him despite his shorter stride. "He was going to challenge me to a duel. I've never fought a duel before."
Erwin found himself laughing. "I couldn't just stand there and watch you kill him."
"I don't see why not," said Levi. He shoved his hands in his pockets, ruining the line of his trousers. "He wouldn't have disrespected you again."
"You're bloodthirsty today," said Erwin. "Are any of the Garrison Corps giving you trouble?"
"I can handle them," said Levi disdainfully. As if by mutual decision, they paused on the Wall's edge and glanced down. Fifty metres below, a Titan let out a long, slow wail and beat its fists against the smooth stonework. It looked disconcertingly like a toddler having a tantrum, except for the full, lipless mouth of sharp teeth that drew back too far from the jaw. "They're practically raw recruits."
"They get appallingly excited by killing a Titan, don't they?" Erwin reconsidered his altercation with Lieutenant Adler. "What kind of rate are they managing?"
"About one a day," said Levi. "In a good week." He stared down at the Titan – hard to tell what class it was, from this angle – and then, after some deliberation, spat over the parapet. All around them, the guns roared again in a volley. Four or five shots followed after, late and disconsolate, like the last person clapping after a round of applause.
"Well," said Erwin dryly, "at least their zeal is charming."
"At this rate we'll run out of shot by the end of the year," said Levi. "All the brass was in Maria territory."
"I wish that was the only thing we'll run out of," said Erwin. "I don't fancy our chances regarding bandages and clean syringes, either. I hope they're going to the refugees, but somehow I doubt it."
"No," said Levi tersely. "Black market."
"I bow to your superior knowledge," Erwin said. Levi shrugged his shoulders.
"What was in the letter?" he asked, with the awkward abruptness that characterised all the questions he truly wanted the answers to.
"I haven't read it," said Erwin. "I was distracted." Levi's mouth edged up into a smirk. Erwin shot him a quelling glance, and dug his thumbnail into the wax seal, severing its grip on the paper. "Here we are. To Erwin Smith, thirteenth commander of the Survey Corps – greetings and health – I am summoned, apparently. You were right."
"Of course," said Levi.
"I'll have to leave tomorrow," Erwin said, flicking the letter closed. The broken seal looked ridiculous now, worn into a smudge by the warmth of Erwin's hand. "I'll need you to handle some of the day to day business while I'm gone."
"That's fine," said Levi. His mood seemed to have dropped; the face he made when the next volley boomed was more sullen than usual. When the smoke from the gunpowder finally began to dissipate, an overjoyed cheer went up. Some of the smoke had been steam; another Titan was rotting at the foot of the Wall.
"There," said Erwin. "That's two in one day. Perhaps their drill is improving after all."
"You're such a fucking optimist, Commander," said Levi, without rancour. Beneath them, Erwin counted thirty – forty – fifty-three Titans clawing at the mile-long stretch of Wall Rose that was manned today. Tomorrow the Garrison would spend the morning marching another mile, dragging their guns behind them, and set up shop there. The original idea had been to thin the ravening hordes evenly, so that no place along the Wall would be weaker than any other.
It had been unimaginative.
Levi woke, as he always did, exactly two minutes before reveille. He lay there, wide awake, as the bugle call went up and then he shifted the bedclothes aside with a sigh.
He retrieved his trousers from over his single chair, and dressed with quiet efficiency. Outside his room, he could hear the sounds of the fortress waking up. Someone above him was shouting, probably at the male cadets. He wished them well.
Breakfast was the usual hubbub of voices to tune out and comrades to ignore. Levi found his usual seat in the corner across from Hange, and proceeded to do both. This suited Hange, whose stare was glassy and shadowed.
"I was up all night reading Chernov's article on different grasses on Marian farmland," they said, pinching the bridge of her nose where their glasses had made indents.
"Any good?" asked Mike, who was more willing to humour people at half past five than Levi was at lunch.
"Eh, he wasn't able to complete his research," said Hange dismissively. "Not that you'd know it! He went on for pages and pages! A lot of good studies were lost when Shiganshina fell, it was a fucking tragedy."
"That's rough," said Mike, accepting this view of the situation. He seemed to think they were joking. Levi could have told him better.
"Do you think maybe I could collect some samples, next time we're out in Maria territory?" Hange said, musing. "Do a fellow scientist a favour, I mean. And then he'd be really grateful and let me use his big microscope whenever I wanted."
"I think you're pushing it at 'grateful'," said Mike.
"It's true," Hange said mournfully. "Academics just hate being helped. I've tried so many times – "
"He's two days overdue," said Levi.
There was a moment of awkward silence. Hange said, "Uh, yeah, I noticed."
"What the fuck is there to do in Sina?" Levi said, addressing the empty seat against the wall. He glared at it, feeling personally wronged.
"Lots! There's libraries, and the university, and nice restaurants, and pubs, and churches, I guess, if you like that sort of thing, but I don't think Erwin does, do you?"
Hange paused for breath, and Mike said: "He could be visiting friends, maybe. Or he just got delayed. It happens."
"Or maybe he was out one night and fell passionately in love with a barmaid, and now he can't bear to tear himself away from her side, and actually what we're waiting for is our Dear Hans letter!"
"Not a barmaid," said Mike, pained.
"I can't imagine Erwin falling in love with the youngest and most beautiful daughter of a noble house, can you?" said Hange in their most reasonable tone.
"This is stupid," said Levi, pushing back from the table. "I'll see you assholes later."
"You brought it up," said Mike, and at the same time, Hange said, "That's captain assholes to you, soldier!" Levi felt free to turn his back on them both.
They were actually one captain down, he thought as he made his way outside. Perhaps that was what Erwin was kicking his heels in the capital over: the Council forcing a choice on him. Levi had been given the field promotion, Adric's blood and brains staining his uniform, but none of them had thought it would stand muster once the Council got wind of it. There were usually one or two deserving candidates from the MPs who'd made the city too hot to hold them, and Levi flattered himself that it would stick in Erwin's craw to favour one of them before one of his own.
He filled his gas tanks from the outside store, which someone had forgotten to cover with a sheet the night before. They were on the rota, and Levi decided to give them a filthy look later. The blades had fared better than the tanks, being stacked off the floor, but Levi bothered only with one set. Moving out into the open air, he stamped the dirt on the training field once, to see how it would feel to land a jump. The ground was hard with a light overlay of frost. It had been an easy winter so far.
The sky was still dark, which was probably why Levi was alone out here. In the winter even the toughest of the Corps were slow to escape the warm cocoon of the mess. In this they were encouraged by Mike, who preferred for himself a long, lazy breakfast, and then to work the whole day through until dusk without even stopping for a sandwich. The old commander had hated it. Erwin didn't seem to mind. He had told Levi that he didn't much care when the work was done, so long as it was done in good time and with the minimum of fuss. Levi, who more than any of them liked the rigidity of three meals a day whether you wanted them or not, had sneered.
"It makes them useless," he'd said. "If you don't have discipline."
"No one in the Corps is useless," Erwin had replied. That was true, but Levi suspected that people in the Corps who didn't train properly, at the correct time of day, were best used to slow down Titans.
He crouched, eyed the nearest wall of the training ground, and shot off a grappling hook towards the top of it. He could feel the rush of air behind him as he leapt after his hook, buoying him up until he hit the wall with the ball of his left foot, pivoted and aimed for one of the swaying pillars in the centre that passed for Titans. This could get hairy quickly, so he tugged on the line when he felt the thud of connection shudder up towards his arm, satisfied himself that it would hold his weight, and used it to swing in a full arc around the pillar. It must have looked like some demented version of a maypole dance.
Levi had seen a maypole dance only once, in the summer of that year. The Survey Corps had attended a village fête behind Wall Rose, and Erwin had poured him cup after cup of the local poison until Levi, flushed and clenching his jaw to keep from smiling foolishly at everyone he saw, had consented to dance a reel. At that point, he had taken philosophically the necessity of dancing the woman's part ("I don't think you could pick me or Mike off the ground," Erwin had said, with such an air of authority that Levi had, in his inebriated state, felt it to be gospel truth) and only some time later had become aware that they were no longer dancing a reel, but running around the huge pole holding ribbons. The only part he really remembered after that was when the village mayor, an elderly woman with a harsh, lined face, had put the bag of silver coins into Erwin's hands. Erwin hadn't been shocked, exactly; the mayor had got up at the start of all the palaver and said the fête was to raise money for the refugees of Wall Maria. The money was supposed to be delivered by the Survey Corps; that was why they were there. But Erwin had, very briefly, been surprised. As if the village would say, "we want to raise money for the Maria refugees", spend weeks and weeks putting on the fête, invite the Survey Corps and then let them journey all the way there just to say, "Haha, never mind".
Levi threw out another hook with much more force than was necessary, and took off after it with a deepening scowl.
The first light of dawn was beginning to streak across the sky when his squad began to file out of the mess hall. Levi smiled at them, which appeared to be a cause for concern among the younger ones, but in fact he was pleased. He had only been out here for three quarters of an hour on his own, which was an improvement over last week. He dropped to the ground in front of them.
"Who wants to ride into town with me?" he asked, and then, when his highly paranoid squad remained silent, added: "The correct answer is yes."
"Happy to," said Eld.
"Delighted," said Hilde.
"My heart's desire," said Katze, the little suck-up. Levi regarded her with the most approval.
"Good," said Levi. "Saddle up, we're couriers today."
An hour's ride, he calculated, would bring them into the local town for eight o'clock. The postmistress would be awake by then to receive the Corps's weekly postbag, which she never appreciated the weight of the way she should.
But more importantly, Levi thought, turning away to stride towards the stable, she would have all the letters from the last two days. And there might be news from the capital.
It was much later that night when Erwin returned to the fortress that served as the Corps' current headquarters, feeling old and tired and sick at heart. The bitter cold, so much sharper out here in the countryside, and without the heat off the seething mass of humanity behind Sina, bit deeply into his bones. It felt like death.
He took the proffered lantern from the carriage driver's hand and allowed him to see to the horses. The driver was a decent man and hadn't charged him too brutally for insisting he be driven back tonight from Marebrook, instead of waiting until the morning.
"There'll be a bed for you in the barracks," he said. The coachman shrugged his thanks, quite used to dossing down in the stables with his animals, and Erwin left him. Each step up the narrow staircase to the kitchen side door was a torture to his knees.
You're just tired, he thought.
The flickering circle of pale light around him gave him no comfort as he slipped through the kitchens into the back stairs corridor. On the other side of the wavering line he could feel the darkness closing in, pressing against him like an old enemy. Erwin had been frightened of the dark as a child. As an adult, he was frightened of very little.
The stone floor beneath his boots wasn't helping matters. One of the soles had worn through on the ball of his foot. All the way from Mitras he had been nursing a blister there, and now the cold stone ground against it with every step. Kristenburg had been the property of the Survey Corps for nearly a hundred years and in all that time no one had ever requisitioned a carpet. Probably no one ever would.
Erwin reached the third flight of stairs and hesitated. Above him was his bedchamber, which, while not palatial, was at least clean and usually neat. He was very tired. It had been a long journey.
He turned and went down the corridor instead. At the end and round the corner was his office, where he could sit and think awhile. The bone-deep exhaustion of his body was no match for the state of his nerves, and he knew he'd get no sleep until his mind had worn itself out, too.
There was a light under his door. Erwin frowned slightly, making more of an expression than he would normally, but there was no one to see it. His mind ran over all the people who might be awake and in his office at this hour, but very few of his acquaintance had any business there and still fewer any desire to do it. Only –
He pushed the door open. "Levi?" he asked.
Levi froze in the act of writing, as if he'd been caught forging and not trying to do Erwin's job for him. Erwin smiled and let the door swing shut behind him.
"I'm surprised to see you awake," he said pleasantly. "It's very late, you know."
"I know," said Levi. He put the pen down – Erwin's pen – and stood up. "Your letter said you'd be back tomorrow."
"And you thought you'd get some last-minute work done before I arrived?" Erwin twitched the paper out of Levi's unresisting fingers and glanced over it. A medical supplies requisition for the coming month. Well, it was useless now. "That's good of you, Levi."
"It needed to be done early," said Levi, his tight stance betraying the intense discomfort he always seemed to feel whenever someone thanked or complimented him. "There's shortages in the town. We won't be able to buy in extra."
"Just so," said Erwin gently. "Thank you very much."
"I was going to go to bed soon anyway," said Levi. "See you in the morning."
"I'm afraid not," said Erwin, coming to a sudden decision. His expression must have changed, because Levi's posture eased and he straightened from his hunch.
"What is it?" he asked, immediately alert.
"I need you to assemble the other officers," said Erwin.
"It's nearly midnight, they'll be asleep," said Levi, but he was already moving past Erwin to the door. It had been a complaint, not a question. Levi was reliable like that. It wasn't until he was halfway out of the door that he hesitated and came back. "Other officers?"
"That was the first bit of news," said Erwin. "Congratulations, Captain."
He watched Levi's countenance with satisfied hunger as the news sank in. Securing the promotion hadn't been easy. For a heartbeat Erwin saw a fierce pride in Levi's face, the smile of a man who had clawed his way to victory against the odds. He had never so much as admitted he wanted the captaincy, still less this badly. Then it was subsumed by his usual scowl.
"Tch," he said. "I guess there wasn't anybody else to give it to."
There hadn't been, but Erwin said: "You've earned it a hundred times over," which was also true.
"Hah," said Levi, and vanished around the corner.
It was quarter of an hour before he returned, a quarter of an hour Erwin spent watching the clock and trying to plan out what he would say to them when they came.
It's good to see you all again. Unfortunately –
I have some bad news.
Eventually they trudged in all together behind Levi, as if they'd all been too sleepy to do anything but follow him like a trail of ducklings. Hange was the only exception; they danced from foot to foot impatiently. The world always went too slow for Hange. Mike was yawning. His two newer captains, Guerin and Reynaud, both stood to attention when they saw him, their sloppiness slightly worse than if they'd slumped.
"Commander," said Guerin, her pale eyes blinking away sleep. "I didn't realise you were back."
"Less than an hour ago." Erwin prevented himself, through an act of will, from tapping his foot. Guerin would likely take it amiss. "I've brought you all here – "
It was the wrong way to begin.
" – because I have some urgent news," he finished anyway. They looked at him enquiringly, with what seemed to Erwin a bizarre kind of innocence, and his nerve momentarily failed him. "Levi's promotion to captain has been confirmed," he said instead.
This caused a minor flurry of congratulations to Levi, who bore them with tolerable patience before he said: "It doesn't matter. You didn't bring us here in the middle of the night for that, Erwin."
"No," said Erwin, over a sharp protest from Reynaud regarding Levi's lack of respect. "You're right, Levi. I didn't."
He lifted himself from where he had been sitting on the edge of his desk and walked over to the window. This was useless if he had been looking for something to shore up his resolve: outside he could see only the black of night. Intellectually, he knew it was merely the courtyard fifty feet below; he thought about pitching himself out. It would all still happen, but it wouldn't be on his head.
Absurdly, he thought of what Levi would say. Coward, probably. It's still your responsibility.
"The other news I have to relate is less pleasing," he said, turning back to his officers. "We've received our orders. You are undoubtedly familiar with the refugee situation?"
Erwin was gratified to note that everyone, even Hange who paid little attention to anything besides their work, straightened and became attentive. In the capital, he'd met military police who'd protested the ruling from the Council on the grounds that the shortages resulting from the refugees weren't that bad, which had been a losing argument even before they'd presented their list of the reductions and privations the MPs were willing to undergo for the greater good.
"It is, I am told, worse than even we realised," he said. "The Council have decided that the only possible solution is to retake Wall Maria."
The silence that followed was dead already.
"With whose army?" asked Mike eventually. He sounded as if he weren't sure he was awake.
"A conscript army," Erwin said. "Nevertheless, I have been assured that their strength will be as the strength of ten, because their hearts are pure."
"From the refugees?" Mike was still attempting to follow his train of thought through to, what was, for him, its natural conclusion. "Huh. It could be done, maybe. If we go through the lists and pick out the likeliest, if we put all the money we've got for the coming year into it, we could assemble a force of, eh, eight to ten thousand by the end of next December? Those wouldn't be bad numbers. I wouldn't mind fighting Titans with an army like that."
"Very reasonable," said Erwin. His mouth was dry. He thought distantly that his hands might be shaking, so he shifted his stance to parade ground rest and put them behind his back. "Unfortunately, we move out at the beginning of next month. We will begin with two parties of refugees, each consisting of about ten and a half thousand people, and each leaving through the Trost and Karanese gates. I require that each of you give me your estimates for the supplies necessary for this venture by the end of tomorrow – today, I suppose," he amended, glancing at the clock.
The atmosphere in the room was as heavy as lead, pressing down on Erwin's shoulders. There was a moment of indecision, as if no one could decide which argument to raise first.
"Ten and a half thousand – "
" – we can't feed that many people, even if we could keep them alive!"
"Only two gates? Are we not trying to retake the area outside Chlorba?"
"I can't finish a report like that in less than a day, I'd need a week – "
"What the hell are we going to do with a bunch of farmers?" demanded Mike. "It's no better than slaughter!"
"Make do," said Erwin. Mike stared at him as if he'd never seen him before.
"That's exactly what this is, isn't it?" said Levi. "Slaughter."
Erwin looked at him. Levi gazed back, steady and piercing. Erwin wished he knew what he was thinking. I failed you most of all.
"We will have to do what we can to mitigate losses," he said. "Levi, I need you to rework your projections for medical supplies to cover what we'll need for the initial expedition and we'll start from there. Take Elphberg's old office, it's yours now anyway. Hange – "
They were already scribbling on their hand with Erwin's pen. "I'll co-ordinate with Guerin over swords and gas," they said. Erwin felt himself relax slightly. Hange believed in dealing with the problem in front of them.
"Reynaud, you and Mike should look at food and sundries. We're hoping to secure viable farmland within the first month, so – "
"We've missed harvest by a mile," said Mike. "We won't be able to plant until March at the earliest."
"We'll cross that bridge when we come to it," said Erwin. "Tomorrow, Mike. Please."
The please seemed to get through to Mike as nothing else had done and he settled back against the bookcase. Erwin went over assignments again, asked if there were any questions (none; they looked as shell-shocked as he felt) and dismissed them to their beds. Hange, he was quite sure, went back to their office, and Levi to rescue Elphberg's for human habitation, but Mike lingered.
"Why tell us tonight?" he asked abruptly, his eyes narrowed. His slack posture against the wall seemed to Erwin to be that of a large cat waiting to spring. "Did you think we'd all be too tired to argue properly? Too confused?"
This had certainly been the case; Erwin would have suffered a singularly more unpleasant interview with five fully-alert captains, and relaying it in this fashion had saved him a storm of horror and protest. But it had not been his first thought. He let out a long breath, digging his fingertips into his forehead.
"What do you want me to say, Mike? I'm tired, too, so let's have it."
"You think any of us will go back to sleep, now?" Mike asked. His tone had softened; he'd seen Erwin perform the same gesture many times.
"I suppose not." Erwin might. He could feel his brain weighing down his head. Even with everything, he thought he might well sleep. "But it was important."
"Yeah." Mike tried to shove his hands in his pockets, realised that he was wearing pyjamas, and sighed, shaking his head. "Well, you look better than you did when I came in, a lot less pale. I guess a problem shared really is a problem halved, huh?"
"I prefer to think of it as spreading the shit evenly," said Erwin, and then, very finally: "Good night, Mike."
"Night," said Mike. He padded out of Erwin's office, making hardly any noise. Erwin could not say the same for himself; exhaustion made him clumsy, and he knocked over a pile of books by his sofa on his way out. Heretic books, he thought, although he supposed that all books were heretical, in their own way.
There were twenty-three steps between him and the stairs to his room, but the second door to the right was Elphberg's office. Erwin paused outside for two, three, four heartbeats. He could see the light from the oil lamp gleaming in the tiny gap between door and stone.
He raised his hand to knock, and stayed there, unmoving. What was Levi thinking? About the expedition, about Erwin? He'd promised to follow him…
Following him into certain death had been part of the deal. It was only Erwin himself who hesitated.
I promised you clarity of purpose.
Well, that had been a lie, hadn't it?
Erwin withdrew his hand and went on his way, the fourteen steps to the stairs echoing oddly in his own ears.