Asag raised the wooden cup to his lips, letting the sour, thin wine wash away the lingering grit of three months of ash and iron. It wasn't the fine vintage of the capital, but it served to dull the echoes that haunted him after so close a brush from death.
He bit down on the rim of the cup, feeling the grain of the wood against his teeth.
During the siege, he had been a priest, refusing even a drop of spirits. It would have been too easy to find companionship in a cask when the walls felt like they were closing in. But how could he have looked his men in the eye if the Bastion fell while he was sodden? How could he tell a mother or a widow that her son died because his commander was too drunk to see the ladders rising? He would sooner have the crows pick his eyes out than present a loss born of his own weakness.
