Caelum sat back, his face expressionless. “Get him out,” he said, and two guards reached down and hauled Zared to his feet.
Again he shamed himself by crying out, and from somewhere within the fog of his own agony he heard Leagh echo his pain.
They threw him in a rough pen made of wickerwork wound between uprights of slender timber. As a prison it was not very substantial, but it was ringed with guards, all standing facing inwards with swords drawn, so Zared sank to the dirt in the freezing night air and concentrated only on drawing breath.
“Zared?” A whisper. Herme. “Zared, oh gods! How badly are you wounded?”
Zared did not have the strength to reply. He vaguely heard other voices murmuring about him, Theod and several of his commanders, but then there was a movement, and he felt Herme and the others step back.
“Zared.” A soft voice. Leagh.
He reached within himself for the strength required to open his eyes and stare at her. She was on her knees beside him, her hair tumbling loose about her shoulders, her face lined with horror for his pain. She reached out a trembling hand, terrified to even touch him, then snatched it back.
“I did not think you would betray me,” he said. “I misread you.”
She began to cry, silently, hopelessly. “Zared… I…
I came… I came only to beg Caelum to talk with you. I could not,” she paused and gulped, wiping away her tears with the back oi her hand, “I could not bear to see Tencendor riven apart like this. I thought Caelum and Askam would listen to me of all people! I only wanted to make him see reason, see that he ought to talk with you.”
“Instead you have seen your husband riven apart,” he said. “See?”
He reached out and wiped his fingers down her cheek, leaving bloody trails. “See?”
Leagh began to shake uncontrollably. The blood had smeared the corner of her mouth, and she could taste its coppery bitterness. “Instead, Caelum took what I told him and sent the Strike Force to tear you apart as you met the Norsmen! Oh gods, Zared, I did not mean for this to happen. Not to you!”
He stared at her tears and shaking shoulders, and reached out a hand. “Leagh. Leagh… I do not know what to do.”
She grabbed at his hand, clasping it between both of her own. He could feel her entire body shaking through the contact.
“Leagh. I do not know how I can bear this pain any longer.”
Caelum slumped wearily in a chair in his tent. He had won his encounter with Zared, but felt little satisfaction from it.
Gods, what should he do with the man? Four thousand had died screaming in the burning disaster of Kastaleon – but could he blame Zared for that? No. He should have sent in a scouting party first. That disaster was as much of his making as it was of Zared’s.
“Of course,” Caelum said wryly into the empty tent, “Zared made the fatal mistake of assuming he was up against a capable commander.”
By rights, Zared was a traitor. By rights, he should hang from the gallows in the morning – along with Herme and Theod.
But could Tencendor risk losing one more man when it faced such devastation from the Star Gate?
Axis had spoken in his mind earlier. The Star Gate was warded, but no-one knew if it would hold. Axis had shared the sight of the Demons bulging behind the ward; Caelum had been appalled.
Tencendor could not afford civil war now. Every effort had to be concentrated on holding the Star Gate. Axis had asked for his help, and within a day Caelum intended to lead the combined force as hard as he could for the Ancient Barrows. He did not know what it could do against these Demons, or what part it could play in holding the warding, but an army surely could not hurt.
Caelum dropped his head into one hand, trying to rub the tiredness out of his eyes. How could everything go so wrong in only a few short months? Zared initiating rebellion, Demons threatening through the Star Gate, Drago escaping and haunting his dreams with promises of revenge, and RiverStar lying cold and bloodied on the floor of her chamber.
“Oh gods!” Caelum whispered, wishing he had not thought of her. “RiverStar!”
And he bowed his head and wept.
Askam stood tense and furious, unable to believe what he’d just witnessed. He had spent the night organising Caelum’s force to be ready to march east towards the Ancient Barrows, and was now trying to get Zared’s men to obey as well.
Trying.
Gods! Why would they not listen to him?
“Lads,” he tried. “Has not Caelum granted you your lives? Is it too much to ask that you now serve him?”
The soldiers standing before him stared insolently.
“Damn you!” Askam said, tiredness and frustration breaking his temper. “Obey me or -”
“Or what, my Lord?” asked the soldier standing before him. All Zared’s commanders were penned and guarded. Only the common soldiers faced him now -surely their lives in exchange for obeying their true lord was a fair enough deal?
“Or what)'” the man repeated. “Imprison us? You’d need all the cattle yards in Tencendor to do that. Set your men against ours, perhaps? Then you’d lose half your force by daybreak. Prince Askam, we owe our loyalty to one man only. The King of Achar. Zared.”
“And if we discover him dead at dawn,” shouted a voice further back in the throng of men crowding before Askam, “then by the gods you’ll not be long to follow him into the AfterLife!”
Askam paled, with anger rather than fear. “Your self-styled King has no kingdom, no power, and lies in a cattle pen himself. You have no choice but -”
“We have every choice,” said the soldier, very calmly, and at a motion of Tüs hand the crowd behind him swelled and surged forwards.
“Zared!” they cried. “King Zared!”
The noise jerked Caelum out of his fitful slumber.
“What’s that noise?” he said, rising from his chair as a captain burst into the tent.
“My Lord StarSon! Mutiny! Zared’s men have rebelled!”
“Then get Zared in here… fast!”
Damn, he thought as the captain ran from the tent. I should have foreseen this.
The tent was surrounded by shouting, milling men -Zared’s men as well as Caelum’s Norsmen – by the time several guards dragged Zared forward. Leagh, dishevelled and tear-streaked, followed as close as she could, Herme and Theod under escort directly behind.
Zared looked barely alive. The guards sat him in a chair and he slumped forward, only Leagh’s quick hands saving him from falling straight out again.
“Stars!” muttered Caelum. He knelt by Zared’s side, took a fistful of his hair in his hand, and pulled his head up.
Zared stared at him with sunken, pain-filled eyes. His skin was grey, covered with a sickly sheen. His flesh was cool to the touch.
“Get a surgeon in here, now!” Caelum said, and a soldier ran from the tent.
Caelum turned back to Zared. “Zared, do you still have your senses about you?”
Zared managed a weak smile. “I thought you thought I’d lost them a long time ago.”
Some of the lines about Caelum’s eyes relaxed in relief. If he could still joke then there was life in him yet.
The surgeon arrived, and Caelum stepped aside to let the man examine Zared; none of Caelum’s powers could aid healing. The surgeon pulled away the rough bandage that Leagh had wound about Zared’s torso and probed, none too gently.
Zared yelped in pain, and Leagh grabbed at his hands, lest he interfere with the surgeon.
“Shush, my darling,” she whispered, but Zared turned his head aside.
Leagh’s eyes clouded with pain. She had thought only to be doing the right thing. She had thought that Caelum would surely listen to her plea for a negotiated settlement. But no, he had used the information she’d brought to try and kill Zared. And now Zared thought her the betrayer.
Perhaps he was right.
“The wound is deep, and has caused some serious internal lacerations,” the surgeon said. “But the blade was clean, and I do not think the wound will putrefy. Here, I will stitch it, and bind it, and as long as he does not engage in too much strenuous activity over the next week or so, he will probably heal, although this side will likely always be stiff.”
He reached down into a sack he’d brought with him and pulled out a pouch of instruments. Chatting away, apparently completely oblivious to the tensions within the tent, he stitched Zared’s wound up in several layers, starting with the deep muscle and working back to the skin.
Zared grunted at the first touch of the needle and forceps, and then winced at each successive jab that slid toughened catgut through his flesh, but he managed to endure the ordeal with little fuss.