“By the gods, Axis,” Isaiah said, “I never thought to find the great StarMan himself loitering under a bush!”
Chapter 18
The Outlands
The shepherds had built a fire and Axis sank down before it, shaking both from the pain in his shoulder and from the aftermath of the fight. Isaiah had extracted Inardle from the shrubbery, and now helped her to sit beside Axis.
“Isaiah,” Axis said. “How . . . what are you doing here?”
“Let me see to your wounds first, Axis, then we can talk,” Isaiah said.
“Don’t bother with her,” Axis said as Isaiah bent closer over Inardle. “She can heal herself.”
Isaiah gave him an odd look at that. “Inardle is —”
“She can heal herself,” Axis said again, his tone harder. “Waste no pity on her.” He looked at Inardle, huddled into herself, her wings and one arm covered in blood, and despised her. Was she going to use this trick on Isaiah, now?
“Normally I could,” Inardle said, “but those arrows were poisoned, Axis. They wanted to make sure they killed me. The arrows were tipped with senzial, a poison made from a fungus grown on rocks in the high mountains. It negates any ability a Lealfast has to heal themselves.”
Axis grunted, not believing her. He wanted to get Isaiah alone, that he might fully convey the depth of treachery of which Inardle was capable.
“The poison won’t affect you in any significant way,” Inardle said, and Axis grunted again.
“But it will kill me within the day,” Inardle finished, softly.
Axis did not respond.
“Perhaps —” Isaiah said, looking between the two of them at this exchange, then said nothing more as one of the shepherds came up with bowls of herbs steeped in warm water and clean rags so that he could clean the pair’s wounds.
“The Lealfast will come back,” Axis said. “You’ll need to keep an eye out —”
“The Lealfast are dead,” Isaiah said, gently lifting out one of Inardle’s wings, despite her moans, so that the shepherd might attend to its wounds.
“Dead?” Axis said.
Isaiah nodded to the west, and Axis rose so he could see.
There, some distance from the camp and to one side of the flock of sheep, lay a pile of several Lealfast bodies. Four of Isaiah’s men were dragging further corpses over to the pile and gathering faggots so they could burn them.
“They were invisible!” Axis said. “How did you . . . ”
Isaiah’s twinkling eyes caught Axis’ at that moment, and Axis stared. “You have your power back?”
“Every last wonderful piece of it,” Isaiah said. “You know that Ishbel and Maxel succeeded at DarkGlass Mountain?”
Axis nodded as he sat down once more.
“Well, the River Lhyl runs again,” said Isaiah, “and so also does my power. The One’s defeat freed both of us. You shall need to be polite to me again.”
Axis laughed softly. “You could see the Lealfast.”
“Yes. I used your friend eagle . . . he has been anxious about you, Axis. Anyway, I saw them, and took my bow and my arrow, and directed my men to do likewise, and I allowed them to see with my eyes the vision I received from the eagle, and so the Lealfast died.”
“And you are here because .”
“I could feel you approach. I left the army early this morning to intercept you. And thank the gods I did, eh?”
“At least this god I shall thank indeed,” Axis said. “You saved my life, Isaiah. Thank you.”
“As you did your best to save Inardle’s,” Isaiah said, finally letting her wing go as the shepherd finished. He sank down before the fire, crossing his legs and looking between the two of them. “There is a story to be told, I think.”
“And much news to tell you,” Axis said, then winced as the shepherd began to clean his shoulder.
“Then we shall eat and rest, and in the doing you may tell me,” Isaiah said, and as he spoke one of his men set a burning faggot to the funeral pyre of the Lealfast and it burst into flame.
Chapter 19
The Outlands
Isaiah sat thinking as he watched Axis and Inardle sitting distanced about the fire. They had talked while they ate (well, while Isaiah and Axis ate, Inardle took nothing), all three sharing news, and now Isaiah was not quite sure what to say. He felt sorry for both of them, but at the same time was angry . . . more at Axis than at Inardle.
Still, their personal relationship was not his problem.
“You actually think,” he said to Axis, “to ally with the Skraelings as their lord?”
“What we actually thought,” Axis said, “was to ride to your rescue. The alliance with the Skraelings was an added attraction.”
Isaiah chuckled. “I simply cannot imagine you allying with the Skraelings, Axis. How could it possibly work?”
“Inardle says she can manage it,” Axis said.
Isaiah glanced at Inardle. He did not think she would be managing very much at any time in the near future.
It will kill me within the day, she had said, and Isaiah supposed he should see if he could do anything for her . . . but what? He was no god of healing, not of deadly wounds.
Hereward had been simple, but poison? Isaiah decided that Inardle was a beautiful creature who had made some hard and perhaps foolish decisions in the past weeks, and if she was going to die . . . well . . . better her than Axis.
Isaiah decided that the one thing the Lealfast were good at was causing problems.
“You think that the One did not die at DarkGlass Mountain?” Axis said. “That he exists elsewhere?”
Isaiah nodded. “The Skraeling implied that he still lived, that he transferred elsewhere, and I suspect Hereward if only for the simple reason that her neck wound reopened at the same time I felt the One vanish. I imagine he has taken residence within someone else . . . whether they know it or not. But who? I don’t know.”
“But you still suspect Hereward,” Axis said, and Isaiah nodded again.
They were silent for some minutes, before Isaiah spoke. “We may as well spend the night here, then ride for the army in the morning. There is no point in arriving late at night and Lamiah surely is enjoying the chance to resume complete command.”
“We are going to need to think about what happens when we near Elcho Falling,” Axis said, for the moment putting to one side the problem of the Skraelings. “Kezial and his army are undoubtedly there by now. They may or may not have allied with the Lealfast, and they may or may not be dead, but whichever way their fate has fallen we are going to face a formidable force. A deadly force.”
“Eleanon must control, what, thirty or thirty-five thousand fighters, Inardle?” Isaiah said.
She nodded, clearly in pain, her face drawn and a sickly yellow.
“And the rest of the Lealfast Nation,” Isaiah said. “Can they fight?”
Inardle had to clear her throat twice in order to speak. “Many of them, yes. As, I believe, happens with the Icarii, all Lealfast men and women in their youth go through training. They will not be as sharp as the force currently about Elcho Falling —”
Axis winced at that.
“— but they will still be very good. And you must not forget they are now changed by the One. They fought while invisible within Elcho Falling and that was not something my brothers and sisters could do previously.”
“If the Skraelings are still in league with the One by the time we get to the citadel,” Axis said, “we are going to be in deadly trouble. From what you tell me, it sounds very much as if they are herding you into a trap.”
Now it was Isaiah who winced. “Perhaps we will all have clearer wits by morning. Axis, how is your shoulder?”
“Well enough,” Axis said. “The shepherd cleaned and stitched it tidily. I am grateful.” He nodded toward the second fire, where sat Isaiah’s men and the three shepherds. “The Outlanders are good men.”
“Indeed,” said Isaiah. He rose and moved over to Inardle. He might as well have a look at her wounds, if only to say that he had tried. With the way she looked now, he didn’t expect her to be alive by morning.
He squatted beside the Lealfast woman. She flinched as he laid a hand to her shoulder, but did not resist while he ran his hand down her arm and lifted her injured hand, unwrapping the bandage the shepherd had placed about its wound.
The arrow had gone through the back of her hand, emerging from her palm. When she and Axis had rolled from the horse, the arrow had ripped its way free, completely tearing through the section of her hand from central palm to thumb. It was a bad injury under any circumstances, worse when it had spread poison through Inardle’s system.