“Yes, my lord.”
Axis dressed slowly, wondering where she was. Had she decided to leave Maximilian”s
column?
No, surely not. She would have said something.
Wouldn”t she?
Stricken with doubts, and beginning to worry, Axis set off for Maximilian”s tent.
BroadWing was already with Maximilian, together with StarDrifter, Egalion, Garth, and
Ishbel.
Axis nodded a greeting to everyone, spoke briefly with Maximilian, then made for
BroadWing.
“Have you seen Inardle?” he asked.
BroadWing raised an eyebrow. “You”ve lost your second-in-command?”
“Have you seen Inardle, BroadWing?”
“I saw her earlier in the day. She spent some time at archery practice with some of the
units of the Strike Force, but left after a few hours. She couldn”t keep up.”
“Archery practice?” Axis said. “She”s only just recovered from some terrible injuries. I
would have thought that archery practice was the last thing she”d need. I”m not surprised she
„couldn”t keep up.””
“She insisted on taking part and I would think she was quite capable of making those
decisions herself. Being your second-in-command and all.”
Axis gave him a terse nod and turned away, more worried than ever. He was also angry at
the birdman. Axis respected and liked BroadWing, but he thought the birdman was so set against
Inardle that she could have shot Gorgrael out of the sky with a single arrow and he would still be
contemptuous of her skills.
Perhaps, Axis mused, he should have been more circumspect in the manner in which he”d
introduced Inardle as his lieutenant.
He circulated among the group as they shared wine before sitting down to dinner. He had
a brief conversation with StarDrifter, mostly about Salome, who had gone to bed early as she
was so tired, but extricated himself the moment StarDrifter asked, somewhat archly, where
Inardle was.
He didn”t want to get into an argument with his father about Inardle. Not tonight.
Axis was talking with Maximilian about the possibility of using several units of the
Emerald Guard to scout the territory south of them when a movement at the door of the tent
caught his eye.
It was Yysell. He had such a stricken look on his face that Axis immediately made his
excuses to Maximilian, then joined Yysell outside the tent.
“Inardle has returned,” Yysell said. “My lord, you need to see her. Now.”
But Axis was already several paces away, jogging back to his tent.
She was sitting on the bed, face turned away from the door so that he could not
immediately see it, clutching her left arm to her chest. The jar of liniment that she used to rub
into aches in her shoulder and wing was lying smashed at her feet, the liniment dirtied and
unusable among the dirt she”d tracked in on her boots.
She must have been trying to open the jar, desperate for pain relief, and had dropped it.
“Inardle?”
She turned her face even further away, her body visibly trembling, and, heart thudding in
anxiety, Axis crouched down in front of her. “Inardle?”
She was crying, silently, her face white and drawn.
Axis stared at it a heartbeat, then looked at her left arm.
He saw the frost first, running the entire length of the arm.
Then he saw the bruises and contusions on her forearm.
Appalled and increasingly angry, Axis looked further up and saw her upper arm and
shoulder. They were covered in patches of what he first thought were bruises, but which he
realized were in fact layers of black frost over swellings and contusions.
He looked further back and saw that her wing was once more swollen, frost riming every
single feather.
“Fetch Garth Baxtor!” Axis snapped at Yysell, who was out of the tent within a heartbeat.
Axis sat on the bed, took Inardle”s chin in gentle fingers, and turned her face toward his.
She was in agony.
He had to close his eyes briefly in order to keep his anger in check. When it did explode,
he wanted to be far distant from Inardle.
“How long did BroadWing keep you at archery practice?” Axis said.
“It wasn”t his fault, Axis. He—”
“How long did BroadWing keep you at archery practice?”
“Until dusk,” she whispered.
Axis cradled her gently against his body, hiding her face in his shoulder, not wanting
Inardle to see his expression.
Until dusk?
“Garth will come,” he said quietly. “He can help.”
She was crying harder now, and Axis rocked her gently back and forth, wishing he could
do something immediately to aid her pain. Stars, her broken left wing, as well as that shoulder
and arm, must be in agony. Inardle would have used her barely healed flight muscles for archery,
and to keep her at it hour after hour, and without even the courtesy of an armguard if the
condition of her left forearm was any indication…
That had been deliberate.
BroadWing would have known the damage it would have caused.
Had he been amused, to watch her suffer while trying so hard to “keep up”?
“Axis?”
It was Garth, ducking inside the tent flap, and Axis was grateful to see he”d brought his
medicine bag with him.
“BroadWing kept Inardle at archery practice for over ten hours today,” Axis said. “Her
shoulder…and wing…”
Garth met his eyes, gave a nod of understanding, then started to examine Inardle. He kept
up a constant monologue of soothing words, persuading her to bend her arm, pausing whenever
she cried out in pain. He ran gentle hands up and down the arm, then over the shoulder, then
finally moved behind her to examine the wing.
At that point he caught Axis” eyes again, and this time there was anger in Garth”s own
eyes, as well as deep concern.
“The bones are still healing well,” he said.
But, thought Axis.
Garth came about the bed and squatted in front of Inardle.
“Inardle, I am going to rub some liniment—”
“I broke the jar you gave me,” she said. “I”m sorry, I should have been more—”
“Inardle, forget the broken jar,” Garth said. “It doesn”t matter. I will mix some more for
you, and I will also mix a strong draught of analgesic, and you will drink it. Once that is down then I will massage the wing and shoulder. It will help the swelling to go down.”
“It”s the swelling that”s doing the damage,” Axis said, and Garth nodded. He moved over
to his bag, took out several bottles, and combined their contents into a mug that Yysell held out.
Then Garth brought the mug over to Inardle, and sat on her other side. “Drink, Inardle,”
he said, and she drank without protesting, which made Axis realize just how much pain she was
in.
“I”ll be back in a few minutes,” Garth said. “That analgesic mixture needs some time to
take effect.”
Axis nodded, and Garth rose and left, asking Yysell to come with him on some errand.
“I”m sorry,” Inardle whispered once they had gone.
Axis said nothing, just holding her a little tighter and rocking her gently back and forth.
“Don”t say anything to BroadWing,” she said. “Please.”
Axis closed his eyes again, unable to speak. That was not something he could promise.
“Axis,” she said, now raising her face to look at him. “Please.”
“He knew what he was doing, Inardle. These injuries are deliberate.”
“I should have been able to keep up.”
Stars, now she was talking about “keeping up.” Had BroadWing taunted her with that all
day, as she fell further and further behind while her shoulder and arm broke down?
“He is angry at me,” Inardle said, “and I need to earn his respect. I—”
“Shush, Inardle. You need to earn no one”s respect.” Axis pulled her as tight as he dared,
kissing her forehead and then her cheek. “Inardle,” he said, “you amaze me.”
Axis said that with such wonder, and such admiration, that Inardle started to cry again.
Axis kissed away the tears and cuddled her close until Garth came back.
She was asleep now, exhausted by the archery practice, the pain and the emotion of the
past day, and Garth and Axis stood just inside the doorway of the tent, talking in quiet tones.
“The wing was healing well,” Garth said. “But after today…two of the major tendons in
the wing are in danger of separating completely amid all the bruising and swelling. The stress
Inardle put her arm and shoulder through—”
“The stress that BroadWing put her arm and shoulder through.”
“Yes, well, what happened today has inflamed muscles and tendons very badly. The
muscles will heal well enough, as most of the tendons, but there were two tendons in her wing
that were under substantial strain anyway, and which had sustained considerable damage with
Armat”s initial attack. Axis, I don”t like it. I think it is very possible that what happened today
will cripple that wing. Inardle may never be able to fly again.”
Axis stared at Garth, feeling his anger seething upward in great black waves.