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 believed to have been a secure life had in fact been so precarious.
And Isaiah had sat there on his throne and overseen the entire disaster.
Hereward tried to be angry with him, but she couldn’t summon the energy. Breathing was more important for the moment.
“Hereward,” Isaiah said, “I’ve said some things to you that were unnecessary. Words that were hard and cruel. I was wrong to do that. You are far more than ‘just’ the bastard daughter of a slave and servant within my palace.”
He stopped for a moment, choosing his words carefully. “The book that hit you on the head has been missing for some two thousand years. It chose you to reveal itself to and it chose to involve you in…all of this.” He waved a hand about as if indicating all of Isembaard’s troubles. “You are far more than just Hereward the kitchen steward.”
Hereward was so incensed she had to close her eyes briefly. Isaiah had to make her something other than a serving woman in order to feel comfortable? “Does that make you feel better about traveling with me, Isaiah?” she said.
He sighed softly, then rose and left the campfire.
Axis had shifted himself closer to Inardle. His head still throbbed painfully, but the pain was subsiding little by little, and he no longer felt nauseated or so weak.
“How are you feeling, Inardle?” he asked, his voice low in a somewhat futile attempt to keep their conversation private in their cramped conditions.
“My wound throbs,” she said, “but it is well enough. Zeboath said you’d done a fine job in stitching.”
“Zeboath is very kind. I fear you will be marked for life with the scar I have made for you. The wing?”
“It throbs, and is swollen. Zeboath says he will need to wait for the swelling to go down before he can examine it properly. Axis…” Her voice broke, and she paused to compose herself. “They all were killed. Every one of them. The screams…”
“Inardle—”
“They died—and in fear and agony. How can one man be so cruel, Axis? What drove Armat to it?”
“Necessities of war, perhaps,” Georgdi answered, breaking their illusion of privacy. “Armat understands the Lealfast as his enemies, and there was little else for him to do with a field full of wounded Lealfast than to slaughter them. Armat would not waste valuable resources on trying to save them, Inardle, and he could not have left them alive at his back!”
“Would you have killed them?” Inardle said.
“I don’t know,” Georgdi said. “If I had been afraid enough of them, then yes, perhaps. Axis? Would you have left a few thousand injured Skraelings at your back?”
Axis silently cursed the man for the question. Did Georgdi not know that Inardle was half Skraeling? No, he answered himself. He probably didn’t.
“No,” said Axis, “I would not have left them at my back. I would have, and have in the past, ordered them put to death.”
Inardle’s entire body tightened at Axis’ side, and he felt her pull away from him slightly.
“They were injured, Axis,” Inardle hissed. “They were no threat to anyone!”
“Then they should not have been injured in the first instance,” Axis snapped. “For the stars’ sakes, Inardle, how could Eleanon have been so witless? He led them into slaughter!”
Inardle did not answer, but Axis could feel her trembling in anger.
“Axis is right,” Georgdi said. “If so many died, then it is Eleanon’s fault.”
“Eleanon didn’t—” Inardle began.
“Will you tell me what training the Lealfast have had?” Axis said. “I asked Eleanon and Bingaleal once, and they snapped at me something about being an elite force. Well, I think we can all dispense with that myth here and now, yes? What fighting experience have the Lealfast had, Inardle?”
She didn’t answer.
“You have lived in the northern wastes for stars knows how many thousands of years,” Axis said. “What enemies did you have there? Against whom did you perfect—” that word was laden with sarcasm “—the arts of war?”
“Did you fight the Skraelings?” Georgdi asked.
“We are unable to fight the Skraelings,” Inardle said, very low.
“Why not?” Georgdi asked.
“Inardle, as all the Lealfast,” Axis said, “is half Icarii and half Skraeling. The Lealfast are, apparently, unable to harm their blood kin.”
Axis couldn’t see either Georgdi, or Zeboath—who was keeping well out of this conversation—very well in this darkness, but he could sense their shock.
“We trained in the frozen wastes,” Inardle said into the silence, her voice very quiet and now completely devoid of emotion.
“Against whom?” Axis said.
There was a silence.
“We shot at the snow rabbits,” Inardle said, loathing having to paint herself and her fellows in such a ridiculous light. Damn Eleanon! “We used them to perfect our skills with the bow and arrow.”
We shot at the snow rabbits? Axis was so appalled that he did not know how to respond.
“Then should we be faced with an invasion of devious rabbits,” said Georgdi, “we can all rest easy knowing we have such skilled soldiers to hand.”
Axis couldn’t help himself. He laughed.
“I apologize, Inardle,” Georgdi said, his own voice still riddled with amusement.
Axis supposed he should apologize, too, but he couldn’t. He just sat there in the silence that followed Georgdi’s apology, allowing his amusement to go some way to relieving some of his frustration and anger.
“Why did you stay, Axis?” Inardle said eventually. “You could have left at any time. There is no need for you to be here.”
“I couldn’t leave the Lealfast,” Axis said. “No matter how angry I am at Eleanon, or at the entire situation in general, I just could not walk away from them.”
“Unlike Eleanon,” Georgdi said, “who lost no time in escaping.”
“That is not fair!” Inardle said. “Axis commanded him to go.”
“The only thing that is not fair at the moment,” said Axis, “is that Georgdi and I are making you the focus of our anger and frustration. I think what we say about the Lealfast in general, and Eleanon in particular, is fair enough. I asked Georgdi to go, and he didn’t. Eleanon went, not through any cowardice as such, but because he was so shocked by what had happened at the gully that he simply could not think. As a leader and a commander, Inardle, he has a great deal to learn.”
“And you shall teach him, I suppose,” she said.
“If ever I get out of here,” Axis said, “then maybe. And if ever I think it worth the effort.”
“Are you such a good commander?” she said. “I heard that the main reason you stayed was because of me. Zeboath told me while you were unconscious that you spent hours searching for me among the wounded.”
Thank you so much, Zeboath, Axis thought.
“Surely it is a pitiful thing,” Inardle continued, her voice hard and bitter now, “to risk so many men just for your concern for a half Skraeling?”
“I risked myself only,” said Axis. “Zeboath and Georgdi remained, or returned, of their own free will. Perhaps they were fixated on you, too.”
This was beginning to sound like a lovers’ spat, Axis thought, becoming ever more uncomfortable and wishing he’d not allowed Inardle to needle him. Damn Zeboath!
“You should have left me,” Inardle said.
“Trust me when I say I’m coming around to that conclusion myself,” Axis shot back.
“Oh, peace,” said Georgdi. “Listen for a moment.” He paused so all could strain their ears, although Georgdi thought Axis and Inardle would spend the time fuming at each other. “There are men moving about above us,” he continued. “Perhaps someone will be kind enough to remember us, and give us some breakfast.”