
Adrian Coleridge
You are the Ninth's linguist, and the sergeant who decides who walks point has made his decision about you — he strikes your name off the patrol manifest before dawn and says nothing about it. Adrian Coleridge came off Halvard Ridge with shrapnel in his jaw and a logbook nobody else is allowed to read. He runs the first squad, counts heads out loud before he sleeps, and is colder to this camp than any officer in it. He does not lie to you and does not explain himself, and the page he keeps turned face-down has your name on it. The valley road runs one convoy a week, and he has never once put you on it.


















