“Will you sit with her until I get back?” he said.
“Yes.”
“Good. When I get back, I may have more injured parties for you to work your skill on.”
Then Axis strode through the door of the tent, and shouted to Yysell to saddle his horse.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
On the Road to Serpent’s Nest
Axis pushed the horse into a gallop and headed slightly north of the camp. For what
happened now he didn”t want any accidental witnesses.
He was too angry.
Finally, he reined in the stallion, abruptly enough that the horse almost sank to the ground
on its haunches, then swung it about in circles, calling out with his power.
StarDrifter! BroadWing! Now! Get here now!
He sent his anger seething out with the message.
They”d know well before they got here what they”d face.
It took them just over a quarter of an hour to join him, both arriving together, both
circling warily before landing a few paces away.
Axis jumped off the horse, not caring that it cantered off into the darkness.
He tackled BroadWing first.
“What the fuck did you think you were doing?” he yelled, striding up to BroadWing and
shoving him hard enough in the chest that the birdman staggered back a pace or two.
StarDrifter grabbed at Axis, but Axis snarled, flinging away StarDrifter”s arm so that the
Talon retreated a few paces.
Axis turned back to BroadWing. “You knew what you were doing to her! You didn”t
even have the grace to fit her out with an arm brace! What did you think when the blood started
to run down her forearm, BroadWing? That she was being weak?”
“She refused to wear—” BroadWing began, but Axis hit him so hard that BroadWing
tumbled over in the dirt.
“Axis,” StarDrifter began.
“You wait your turn!” Axis snarled, and StarDrifter once again subsided.
Axis leaned down and hauled BroadWing up. “I have liked and respected you,” he said,
“but by the stars, I never thought I”d see you act this way!”
Then he turned to his father. “You knew about this. You were there.”
That was sheer intuition on Axis” part. He didn”t believe that BroadWing would have let
matters get so out of hand without, at the least, some tacit support from his Talon.
“She said she was all right, Axis,” StarDrifter said.
“For the stars” sakes, StarDrifter, what do you have against her? You accepted WolfStar”s
daughter in my bed, why not Inardle? Or is it that you suspect her to be somehow more beautiful
than the Icarii? Somehow more powerful? Are you jealous of her?”
“The Lealfast are arrogant and untrustworthy—” StarDrifter began.
“And the Icarii are not? You two pathetic examples are not? ” Axis took a breath, glaring
between the two men. His hot anger was over; now it was as icy as the frost of pain that covered
Inardle”s body.
“The Lealfast”s arrogance exists to cover uncertainty,” Axis said. “The Icarii arrogance
exists to cover…yet deeper and crueler arrogance.”
“How is she, Axis?” BroadWing said. He had picked himself up from the ground and was
rubbing at his jaw.
“Thank you for asking,” Axis said. “She”s almost certainly permanently crippled. The
damage done to the tendons in her wing today will likely see her unable to fly again.”
He stepped forward and gave his father a shove in the chest this time. “You know what it
is like to be flightless, StarDrifter. How can you justify visiting that horror on another merely
through your petty small-mindedness? ”
“Don”t forget who it was beat Azhure almost to death when he thought her a traitor!”
StarDrifter shouted, shoving Axis back. “Don”t you dare to lecture me!”
“And as I remember,” Axis said, “you stood there then, too, and encouraged me,
StarDrifter. You have a talent, it seems, for provoking unmerited cruelty in others.”
“I think we have all said enough,” BroadWing said, looking warily between Axis and
StarDrifter, and wondering if the entire future of the Icarii was about to self-destruct in a battle
between these two powerful Enchanters.
“If you resented my association with Inardle,” Axis said quietly, “then you needed to
approach me about it, beat me senseless, damn it, not a woman who over the past few weeks has been beaten, raped, and humiliated by half of the known world, so it feels to me. What the fuck
has she done to deserve what you both did to her today?”
Finally BroadWing and StarDrifter dropped their eyes.
“When I first encountered the Strike Force,” Axis said to BroadWing, “they were gaudy
birdmen and women fluttering uselessly about the peaks of the Icescarp Alps. If they”re
something better than that now, then that is due to me.”
Then Axis looked at his father. “When first I encountered the Icarii, StarDrifter, they
were cowering within Talon Spike, full of hot words and arrogance but without a single iota of
courage between them, without a single wit between them, to wing their way down from the
icefields into the sun. If they”ve achieved something more than that, then that is due to me.
“I think the time has arrived,” he continued, his voice even softer now, but still vibrating
with anger, “to give something back. Generosity will do as a start.”
Axis stared at the two birdmen before him, then he turned and walked away a few steps,
whistling for his horse. When the stallion whinnied and trotted obediently out of the darkness,
Axis gathered up the reins and swung into the saddle.
“Has it not struck you,” he said to BroadWing and StarDrifter, keeping the horse on a
tight rein as it circled restlessly, “that there was only one person on that archery field today who
demonstrated leadership and courage, and it most certainly wasn”t either of you.”
Then he turned the stallion”s head for camp, and booted his heels into its flanks.
Garth”s head gave a final nod and he slipped into sleep, slouching comfortably in his
chair.
As he did so, Inardle”s eyes opened and she looked about the tent.
Yysell was nowhere to be seen, but there, toward the back wall…
The air moved and Eleanon materialized.
Inardle”s eyes flew to Garth, and Eleanon gave a little shake of his head. “He will not
wake,” he said, walking over to the bed and crouching down beside it. “Tell me what has
happened,” he said. “Did Axis do this?”
“No!” Inardle said. “He…” She sighed, then, speaking softly and rapidly, told Eleanon
what had happened, both in Armat”s camp and since.
“You have done well,” Eleanon said softly as she finished. “You have done what I
asked.”
“And look at the price I have paid for „doing well,”” Inardle said, waving a hand at her
wing.
“You know you are powerful enough to heal yourself with a crook of your finger. And
you know also why you don”t do it—because it binds Axis ever more tightly to you. He is such a fool.”
Inardle dropped her eyes away from Eleanon. She could hardly bear the guilt she felt.
“You are in Axis” confidence?”
Inardle gave a small nod. “I told Axis we had little power.”
“Ah, Inardle, you are worth your weight in jewels. You have done well. He suspects
nothing?”
“No.” Inardle lifted her eyes back to her brother. “I had to sit in a damp pit for days,
Eleanon, and suffer rape, all for you.”
“All for us, Inardle.”
“All for us,” she repeated dully. She took a breath. “Eleanon, you went south after Axis
dismissed you, didn”t you? What happened? Did you meet with Bingaleal? You are different—I
can sense it about you. So different. The same difference I sense about Bingaleal.”
“Yes. I am different. I have spoken with the One.”
“Ah…” Inardle said on a breath.
“The One can give us what Maximilian is too weak to offer,” said Eleanon. “The One can
give us hope and dignity and freedom from both the Skraelings and the Icarii, Inardle. He can
give us a home and a future. He can give us power. The Nation have accepted him, and we—”
Both their heads jerked toward the tent flap.
“Axis rides close,” Inardle said.
“Yes. Listen, Inardle, continue with what you do. Draw Axis ever closer. You will prove
more than invaluable. I will rejoin you, suitably humble, when Elcho Falling rises, and bring my
fighters with me. Watch for me. We will talk more then.”
Eleanon leaned over, kissed Inardle on the mouth, and was gone.
Inardle kept her eyes closed and her body still, pretending sleep when Axis returned. She
felt him bend down, kiss her forehead softly, then heard him settle in a chair close by the bed.
She listened to his breathing. It did not slow or deepen: he was staying awake, watching
over her.
Inardle didn”t know what to do. She felt trapped by a guilt that was growing deeper with
every day, and that guilt had only been exacerbated by Eleanon”s visit.