"Please, Inardle," Axis murmured, and he felt her relax a little in his arms and accept the elixir.
While they waited for it to have an effect, Garth and Zeboath attended to some of Inardle's lesser wounds and bruises. One or two of the wounds needed a stitch, but most just needed a clean and, in the case of the bruises, a rub with an unguent and a gentle application of Garth's Touch.
"Most of these will have vanished within two days," Garth said, cleaning Inardle's face and running one of his fingers lightly over the bruising there. "Your left arm, though, will take longer, perhaps a week, as its swelling is related to the severity of the break in your wing."
Inardle just tipped her head, as if she didn't care, but Axis felt her tense at the mention of her wing again.
It was more than possible that Inardle dreaded Garth and Zeboath splinting her wing, but Axis thought she was likely far more worried about whether or not she'd be able to fly again. In his former life Axis had known two Icarii who had been wing-crippled in accidents, and who could no longer fly.
Both had killed themselves within two years of their initial injuries.
Zeboath and Garth had now positioned themselves to either side of Inardle's broken wing.
It looked frightful--very swollen, crooked into an unnatural position, the bruising showing beneath the feathers as great spreading stains of black and red.
"How long ago did this happen?" Garth said.
"Four days," Axis said.
Garth winced, again sharing a glance with Zeboath.
"Please fix it," Inardle whispered, and Axis tightened his hold on her a little, leaning his face against the back of her hair. He wished, quite desperately, that he'd never verbally attacked her in the pit.
Zeboath helped support the wing while Garth ran his hand very gently over it. At one point he raised his face and locked eyes with Axis, and Axis knew the news was not going to be good.
"All the main supporting bones are broken," said Garth, "although fortunately they're broken cleanly. If they'd been smashed..."
"The tendons attaching muscle to bone are also torn, and very badly bruised. The swelling is bad and I
am not sure I can do much while it is so extreme. The bones need to be set, but..."
"What happens if you delay?" Axis said.
"Setting the bones?" Garth said. "Well, they're already starting to heal themselves through calcification.
Clots of blood, and bone tissue, have formed about all of the breaks--this will eventually resolve itself into new bone."
"So if you don't splint it now, the bones will start to set themselves into their current unnatural shape."
Garth nodded.
"I think that what Garth is trying to say," Zeboath said, "is that the wing can likely be healed reasonably successfully if the bones are splinted into their proper position. The tendons will heal by themselves once the bone has healed. But as the swelling now is so bad, that is going to be both terribly difficult and terribly painful. If we don't do it, then..."
"There's every chance Inardle won't fly again," Axis said.
"Set it now," Inardle said.
"It will hurt," Garth said, gently. "Very, very badly. What we gave you will not blot out the pain, and we have nothing else. Inardle, we are going to have to further injure the wing in order to set those bones, and I am terrified we will cripple you completely."
"Set it now," said Inardle. "I cannot bear the thought of not flying again."
Garth hesitated, exchanging yet another concerned look with Zeboath.
"Set it now," said Axis. "I know how my father felt without wings. Set it now."
Inardle twisted her head slightly to be able to look at him. "Thank you."
Garth looked at Axis and gave a very slight nod, and Axis tightened his hold about Inardle.
The physician stood up and asked Zeboath to hold out the wing as far as possible, then Garth stamped down on it with as much force as Armat once had.
CHAPTER TWO
Armat's Camp, the Central Outlands
They escaped?" Armat stared at the soldier before him.
"We were attacked by a mighty force, my lord," the soldier stuttered. He was afraid for his life in bringing this news to the general.
As well he might be, Armat thought. "What mighty force," he hissed.
"A great winged army, my lord. There were thousands of them! They swept down from the heavens and--"
"Shot every one of your horses, but left you alive," Armat said. "What extraordinarily poor marksmanship, eh?"
"Such extraordinarily good marksmanship," Ravenna murmured to one side.
Armat wasted a moment giving the witch and Lister a hard stare.
"Were they the Lealfast?" Armat asked the soldier.
"No, my lord. They were...something else."
"The Icarii Strike Force," Ravenna said. "It could only have been them."
"And who the fuck," Armat said, his tone low and dangerous as he turned to Ravenna, "are the Icarii Strike Force?"
"They were legendary fighters among the Icarii," Ravenna said. "Led and trained by Axis SunSoar. I
imagine that there were some members of the Strike Force among the Icarii refugees rejoining with Maximilian's column."
Armat was so angry he could not speak. He wanted to strike Ravenna, but was restrained by the fact that he thought he might kill her if he lost control that badly, and he had enough common sense left to know that he still needed her.
"You had not thought to mention them to me?" he finally ground out.
She gave a small shrug. "I had not realized they'd reformed, Armat. I had no idea...but it could only have been them if not the Lealfast."
Armat swore. He gestured to the soldier to leave, and the man almost stumbled in his haste to get out, grateful beyond measure that Armat's ill will was now directed at Ravenna and not at him.
"How many does Axis have?" Armat said. "A `great winged army.' Thousands?"
"Probably only a handful," Ravenna said. "That soldier likely exaggerated. But they're undoubtedly good...and now they have their fabled commander back."
Armat's temper finally gained the upper hand. "Get out," he said. "Get out!"
Word spread rapidly along the Isembaardian camp.
Axis SunSoar had made his escape, and in legendary spectacular manner.
Soldiers murmured about the Strike Force, but most of all they murmured about the fact that Axis had spared every last man. He'd made certain they could not catch him, but he had chosen not to harm them.
When Insharah heard the news he lowered his face into a hand in sheer relief.
Then he felt shame that he had not helped.
CHAPTER THREE
The Central Outlands
Axis sat with Inardle in one of the supply wagons. It had been emptied of its supplies and its deck covered with many layers of canvas over which had been thrown blankets. Inardle lay with her broken wing stretched down the length of the wagon. It looked heavy and awkward in the splints Zeboath and Garth had applied, and almost twice as swollen as when they'd begun their work.
Inardle had fainted with Garth's first stamp on the wing, and Axis was glad. The repositioning and splinting had been a brutal affair, requiring both Zeboath's and Garth's full strength, as well as two guardsmen called in to help. Axis couldn't help them. He stayed holding Inardle as tightly as he could, murmuring her name occasionally into her hair, frightened both by the frost which encased her body as it reacted to the pain and by his own emotional reaction to it.
When had she come to matter so much?
Eventually Axis had been forced to close his eyes, burying his face in Inardle's hair. It hadn't helped; the sounds of screaming bones and tendons weren't any less if he couldn't see.
Now, thank God, it was over. Garth and Zeboath had looked haggard and utterly exhausted once it was done, collapsing onto the ground, unable to speak for long minutes.
But they had fixed the wing. Garth said that as long as
the splints remained in place for the next few weeks, and the wing was kept as immobile as possible, there was every chance it would heal enough that Inardle could use it again.
"It might be a little crooked," Garth had said, "but if there is no infection, and if the bones heal cleanly, and if the tendons regrow, and if...well. We can hope, and we can pray. Zeboath and I have done the best we can, Axis."
Axis had nodded, and thanked both of them.
She actually looked better, now, he thought, as he sat in the weak late-afternoon sun and watched her.
Whatever Garth had done to her bruises had made a difference, even in the course of this day. Most had faded; the swelling about her face had virtually disappeared. She hadn't regained consciousness yet, and Axis wanted to be there when she did, if only because Zeboath told him she would need to drink something, and take some more of the pain-numbing elixir he'd mixed.
That was the only reason, he told himself, he'd not moved from her side all this day.
"Axis?"
Axis jumped a little, turning his head.
Georgdi had ridden his horse up to the side of the wagon.
"She looks frightful," Georgdi said. "Makes me glad I have never had wings."
Axis managed a weak smile. "StarDrifter wanted to give me my wings," he said. "I still have the wing buds, they've just never developed. But I said no. I'd have to agree with you, Georgdi. Wings are not worth the trouble."
"Not for their owners or their lovers," Georgdi said, and went on before Axis could speak. "Axis, I've slept and eaten, and I need to be on my way. I'm going to ride directly for Serpent's Nest, collecting what I may in terms of a military force as I go. I don't think there's any point in my diverting to meet up with Maximilian to pass the time of day. Tell him I'll meet him at the mountain."
Axis agreed. "Good luck, my friend," he said, holding out his hand. "I want to fight by your side again...so make sure you get to Serpent's Nest safely."
Georgdi grinned and gripped Axis' hand for a long moment. "You'll be safe here?"
"BroadWing says there is, as yet, no pursuit from Armat's camp. No doubt his men are trying to explain why their horses were shot out from underneath them. We'll be safe here for the moment."
"Axis...why didn't you want any of the men to die?"
"Because I want them to remember, and to tell as many of their fellow soldiers within Armat's army as they may, that when I had the chance to kill them I did not. They'll know that is not something Armat would have done."
Georgdi nodded. "You'll stay with Inardle?"
Axis glanced at her. "For a day or two, until I know she's well on the way to recovery. Then I'll ride hard for Maxel, and leave the Emerald Guard to escort Inardle at an easier pace."
"Well then," said Georgdi, gathering up the reins of his horse, "may the gods grace you, Axis, and her."
She woke in the middle of that night, suddenly, with a great cry, leaping halfway into a sitting position.
Axis, who had been asleep himself, only just managed to restrain Inardle before she shifted--and damaged--her broken wing.
"Inardle. It was just a dream. It is gone now."
She was heaving in great breaths, obviously distressed. The blanket had fallen off her chest as she'd jerked upright, and now Axis started to tug it back into position, feeling embarrassed and awkward at his clumsy attempts.
Damn it. Had he ever been this self-conscious, even as a youth?
"Risdon..." she said. One of her hands had found his, and now clutched it tightly.
"Risdon is dead."
She continued to take deep breaths, staring into the night, then very gradually relaxed.
And immediately became aware of the pain in her wing. She turned to look, and gave a soft cry at the sight of it.
"Garth says it should heal well," Axis said.
"Axis..."
"Drink some of this, Inardle." He reached for the flask Zeboath had left, twisted off the cap with one hand, and put it to her lips.
She drank, a little reluctantly, but she drank.
"When the pain has subsided," Axis said, "you'll need to eat and drink something."
She nodded, her eyes looking up at the stars. "I didn't think you'd still be here."
"Look, Inardle, I am sorry for what I said to you in the pit. I was angry, but I had no right to--"
"You had every right to be angry, Axis. What happened in Armat's camp wasn't your fault."
Axis didn't speak for a long moment, and when he did so, it was with some hesitation. "Inardle, one of the enchantments I know and that I can work with great effect with the Star Dance available to me is a Song of Forgetting. I can erase your memory of what happened in Armat's camp."
"Everything?"
"Yes, everything. The enchantment is linked to location, so everything in the camp."
"What happened to me in Armat's tent?"
"Yes."
"What Risdon did?"
"Yes."
"The time in the pit?"
"Yes. Inardle, I can--"
"You coming to rescue me."
"Yes."
"Lister was my lover, you knew that?"
"Yes." Very soft, now.
"I didn't love him, Axis, but I liked and respected him immensely. I lived with him for years. We were friends as well as lovers, or so I thought."
"Inardle--"
"When I heard that you'd returned from the dead, I was consumed almost with hatred. We all hated you, Axis. The great arrogant StarMan. The magnificent war leader. Your elevation to god. Your hatred of the Skraelings."
That last was almost whispered.
"How could you be anything but a cruel, self-absorbed man?" she continued. "You would regard us with nothing but contempt."
She looked at him then, with the barest hint of a smile. "And regard us with contempt you have done, but perhaps we have deserved it. But for everything else we were wrong. Axis, you thought to rescue me when Lister couldn't be bothered, when he'd decided I got in the way of his ambitions. I know enough that you risked everything to do that--you risked your own life. You could have made an easy escape with Georgdi and Zeboath, but you did not choose that. Instead, you came for me."
She freed his hand, and reached up her own to touch his cheek briefly. "Thank you for rescuing me--you will never understand what I felt that instant I knew you were in the tent--and thank you for your offer of a Song of Forgetting.
"I will decline it, I think. Of everything that was agonizing and humiliating in Armat's camp, there was one shining moment I want to remember the rest of my life--that moment when I realized you'd come for me."
As she had done to him, now Axis reached out his fingers and softly touched her cheek.
A line of frost trailed where he ran his fingers, and he lifted his hand.
"I hurt you," he said. "I'm sorry."
"That wasn't pain, Axis," she said, very softly.
Axis remembered what she had told him while he was stitching her wound. Pain, delight, and physical joy. Arousal.
He tore his eyes away from hers, looking down at her body under its covering blanket (Damn that blanket! Her prudishness wasn't Icarii. It must be her Skraeling blood). He thought how good it would feel to lower his mouth to her breast. What would it be like, then, to taste that frost under his tongue?
He realized he was staring too long, and that his thoughts must be written all over his face.
He stood up, a little too quickly. "I'll send Garth or Zeboath over. You need to eat and drink."
Then Axis vaulted over the side of the wagon and walked away, forcing himself not to look back and cursing himself for such a stupid display. He found Zeboath and sent him to Inardle, telling him that she was awake and hungry.
Then he sought out Clements and told him that he wanted his (once Risdon's) horse saddled and ready at dawn the next day, together with two or three guardsmen.
Inardle didn't see Axis again that day. She'd recognized what he was thinking and feelin
g in that moment before he'd jumped out of the wagon and walked away, and knew that Eleanon would have crowed with delight if he had known of it.
She knew that she, too, should be pleased at Axis' feelings, but instead she felt confused.
She could not keep her distance from this man, nor pretend to herself that she was indifferent to him.
She'd had no idea that when he touched her, she would respond as she had.
Lister's touch had never caused her frost to rise.
She could hardly believe that Axis had risked so much for her in rescuing her from Risdon.
She could hardly believe how glad she had felt when he had come for her.
Inardle shifted a little on her makeshift bed in the wagon, wincing with the pain. What was she thinking?
Axis would only ever cause her sorrow.
It was what he specialized in.
Her task was only to fall into his bed, and use him.
Not to fall in love with him.
The next morning, when she woke, Inardle resented the bitter pang of disappointment that Zeboath was by her side, and not Axis.
"Where is Axis?" she asked.
"He rode out an hour ago," said Zeboath. "He's gone to Maximilian. I'm sorry, Inardle, we'll catch up with him in a week or so."
"It is of no matter to me," Inardle said.
It was a long ride to catch up with Maximilian, and Axis spent it not talking to his three companions.
Instead his thoughts were exclusively on one person.
His wife, Azhure.
CHAPTER FOUR
Isembaard
Eleanon walked forward, his feet crunching over the coarse sand and grit of the northern Isembaardian plains. To his left rose Hairekeep; to his right the desolate plains undulated westward toward the River Lhyl. Before him stood Bingaleal, with the twenty-five thousand Lealfast fighters he'd brought with him into Isembaard ranged behind him in ordered ranks.
They were all different. Their eyes as they watched him approach were sharper, their posture more still, their demeanor more confident than Eleanon had seen previously in any Lealfast.
They were stronger.
They were assured.