chest.
She breathed, at least.
Isaiah stood, stretching his back as he looked around. There was movement on the eastern
horizon, now faintly stained with pink.
Skraelings probably, looking for food.
Food.
He and Hereward had very little left. Hereward had existed for days while she waited for
him by living off supplies from the riverboat. But while the boat had been well stocked from the
kitchens of Aqhat, most of the food had been spoiled in the horrific Skraeling attack—neither
Hereward nor Isaiah felt much like eating grain sodden with clotted blood—and what remained
was now almost exhausted. They would need food soon.
Isaiah looked once more at Hereward, then bent down, picked up his sword, and trotted
off into the lightening landscape.
Two hours later Hereward stirred, then, with some difficulty, rolled over toward the fire.
Isaiah sat there, cooking something in a pot on the coals.
It smelt like meat, and Hereward”s mouth watered.
“Isaiah?”
“How are you?” he asked.
“Alive,” she said. “Just. Isaiah…what is that you”re cooking?”
He grimaced. “Four Skraelings had run down an antelope to the north. I managed to
chase them off…there are a few mouthfuls left. Not much, I am afraid, and not the choicest bits.”
“It smells good, nonetheless.” Hereward looked at Isaiah more carefully. “You”re
injured.”
“Not badly. One of the Skraelings caught my arm with its claws. It will heal soon
enough.”
Hereward struggled to sit up, overbalancing slightly as she almost blacked out with the
effort.
“Isaiah, please, go on without me. You can leave me here. You don”t need me to hold
you up.”
“Such a tempting idea,” Isaiah said, allowing a little humor to creep into his voice, “but I
can”t do that. You”re all of my Tyranny I have left.”
He was rewarded with a small smile.
“This is almost cooked,” he said. “Do you want—”
“I would eat it raw!”
Isaiah smiled—that was her desperation for blood talking—and dished out some of the
barely cooked meat into a bowl.
“Insharah,” Armat said. “Risdon tells me that you have decided to join us.”
Insharah paused just inside the door of the tent, and saluted with his clenched fist across
his chest.
“I am loyal to Isembaard,” he said.
“Well, that is as may be,” said Armat, “but why are you here? ”
“Because you, too, are for Isembaard.”
Armat said nothing, watching Insharah carefully.
“I bring the remainder of the army,” said Insharah, “save for some few thousands who
decided to remain with Maximilian.”
“So also Risdon informed me. Did you not kill Maximilian?”
Insharah blinked. “No. I…I asked his permission to leave his command so that—”
“Don”t treat me like a fool, Insharah. Do you honestly want me to believe that
Maximilian just waved you good-bye happily and with warmest best wishes?”
“He did not want to hold us against our will,” Insharah said. “He knew how desperate we
were to aid our families. He did, indeed, wish us well.”
“But you didn”t tell him that you were riding toward me.”
“Not in so many words, my lord, but he must have realized we”d join up with you.”
Armat turned away, pretending to toy with some maps on a table so that he could think.
Ravenna had let him know that Insharah and the army were on their way to join him.
She”d told him that she”d interrupted their sleep with nightmares of the cruelty their families
endured, and thus Armat was not in the least surprised to discover Insharah in his tent, and
approximately two hundred thousand men within a few hours” distance, but he was surprised to
hear of Maximilian”s willingness to allow the army to go.
Maximilian was either smarter than Armat had given him credit for, or he was a complete
fool.
Armat himself was not such a complete fool that he believed the latter option.
Maximilian was up to something, but whatever that “something” was, Armat knew he would not
discover it from Insharah, who was enough of a fool to think that there was anything left worth
trying to save in Isembaard.
“Well then,” Armat said, turning about with a genial smile on his face, “I shall admit
myself glad to have your company again, Insharah, and that of the men you drag at your heels.”
“When will we march for Isembaard?” Insharah said.
“When we are strong enough,” said Armat. “There are more men yet to join us, and
supplies to organize. Now, go find Risdon and get him to organize you some breakfast, and tents
and horse lines for the men soon to arrive.”
Insharah saluted again, and walked over to the door. He paused just as he was about to
duck through and looked back to Armat.
“Axis SunSoar and Georgdi were in this area,” he said, “together with a large force of
Lealfast. Have you come across them?”
“I slaughtered them,” said Armat. “They were fools. But lose that look of dismay,
Insharah, for Axis still lives. At my pleasure.” He paused. “They wanted to stop us, Insharah.
They did not want us to go home to Isembaard.”
“Axis—”
“Axis is none of your business. Now leave me.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
The Central Outlands and Isembaard
Axis woke only very slowly. His head throbbed with pain, and he didn”t want to wake
enough that he might actually move it.
Stars, why come back from death if he had to endure this level of pain again?
“Axis?”
That was Zeboath”s voice. Axis decided to ignore it.
“Axis…”
Go away, Axis thought, not wanting to use his voice in case even that small amount of
movement within his head increased the pain.
“I”m going to place a compress against the back of your head, Axis.”
“Don’t! ” Axis whispered, then moaned as agony flared up the back of his skull.
He felt a hand on his shoulder, and then a cool wet cloth placed at the back of his neck.
The pain flared again, but then very, very slowly subsided.
“Axis,” Zeboath said one more time, and Axis finally, and highly reluctantly, opened his
eyes.
At first he saw nothing, and had a moment of panic as he thought his injury must have
blinded him. But then his eyes grew accustomed to the darkness, and he saw that he, Zeboath,
and two others were sitting in some kind of cellar…there was a faint glimmer of light above
them from a shuttered window…or perhaps slatted wood.
Axis was sitting slouched against a wall, and he closed his eyes again as he slowly, and
very painfully, tried to sit up a little straighter, accepting Zeboath”s assistance without complaint.
Stars, he was weak!
“What happened,” Axis said, squinting once more into the darkness. “Where am I? Who
else is here?”
“We”re in a pit,” came Georgdi”s voice, “somewhere in Armat”s camp. So far as we can
work out it is midmorning. It was last night that Armat captured us. You”ve been unconscious for
most of the night.”
“One of Armat”s men hit you on the back of the head with the hilt of his sword,” Zeboath
said. “We thought at first he”d killed you.”
“Death would have been less painful,” Axis muttered. “Trust me, I”ve been there before.
Who else is here?”
“I am,” came Inardle”s voice, and Axis looked in the direction of her voice and saw her
crouched against a far wall.
“How are you?” Axis said.
“Stiff,” she said. “Sore. Heartsick.”
“Did Armat…” Axis couldn”t finish.
“Armat killed all the Lealfast,” said Zeboath. “My assistants he spared, but I do not know
where they are.”
Shit, Axis thought.
“So what do we do now, StarMan?” Georgdi asked, a little light sarcasm in his voice.
“Wait,” said Axis. “We wait.”
Isaiah and Hereward had eaten what little meat there was, Isaiah making sure that
Hereward had the larger share.
“We cannot leave for a few days,” Isaiah said. “You are too weak.”
“Isaiah, I—”
“Please don”t suggest that I leave you behind. I won”t do it.”
Hereward almost said she was sorry again, then decided Isaiah had probably heard that
too much. She was both physically and emotionally numbed from all that had happened over the
past day. She could barely move, and her upper body throbbed painfully where the Skraeling
talon had penetrated. Her body and robe were encrusted with blood, and she wanted nothing
more than to wash…but they didn”t have enough water to spare, and what they did have they
certainly couldn”t afford to contaminate with dried blood.
It was ironic, she thought, that they camped on the banks of such a great river, and there
was no water.
While her physical condition distressed her, what Isaiah had told her—as well as what the
One had done with that pyramid—had shocked her as even the Skraeling attack on the riverboat
had not.
Hereward simply could not comprehend that so much had been happening, and that so
much had not been as it had appeared. She found it difficult to grasp the fact that what she”d