Dominic cl's Arc

Chapter 1 of 4

Dominic reached the front of the mess line and the cook shut the pot. "Nothing left," the cook said, and waved the next man forward. Dominic had stood in that line every night for a week. Every night the food ran out one man before him. He was a foot soldier in an army that fed its own last, and he was learning his name meant nothing here. He stepped aside and let the others pass. His stomach cramped. Down the long table, men laughed over full trays. Bread, stew, salted meat. Dominic had eaten a crust that morning, stolen from a crate. He had not seen his pay in three weeks. The clerk who kept the ledger looked past him each time, as if Dominic stood behind glass. He knew why. His sergeant had marked him a problem for asking questions. The mark spread. Now the rations skipped him and the coin never came. A hungry man could not march. A man who could not march got discharged into a ditch. Dominic decided he would not starve quietly. He walked to the head of the hall, where the general ate alone at a raised table. Magnus Stoneheart was the commander of the whole garrison, a short thick man with white hair and a chest of gold stars. Stone dust clung to his boots. Men said he could crack a wall with a stamp of his heel. Every soldier in the room went still when Dominic stopped before him. "Speak," Magnus said. He did not look up from his plate. "I've had no rations for a week, sir. No pay for three. My name gets skipped." Dominic kept his voice flat. "I can't fight on nothing." Magnus set down his fork. He studied Dominic the way a man studies a crack in a foundation. "Who marked you?" "My sergeant, sir. For asking where the coin goes." The general's jaw tightened. He rose, and the floor seemed to shift under his boots. He crossed to the ledger clerk, took the book, and ran a thick finger down the page. His face darkened. Names were crossed out. Coin that should have reached the ranks stopped somewhere higher. "You'll eat tonight," Magnus said. He tore Dominic's name free of the mark with a stroke of his pen. Then he turned to the whole hall. "This soldier eats first tomorrow. And I want every ledger from the quartermaster on my table by dawn." The cook found bread and cold meat and pushed a full tray at Dominic. He ate standing, fast, ashamed of how good it tasted. But Magnus watched him the whole time, and Dominic understood the cost. The general had not helped a hungry man. He had found a witness. Tomorrow Dominic would be dragged before the officers who ran the theft, the ones with rank and friends. He had eaten tonight. He had also made powerful men his enemies.