"Some units of the Strike Force are practicing their archery close by today." Now he nodded in a northeasterly direction. "About fifteen minutes' ride that way. Why don't you join us, and we can see how skilled you are."
Camp had been pitched for about an hour, but Axis had still not seen Inardle. He'd not glimpsed her all day, but had not been worried as one of the Emerald Guardsmen told him he'd seen her speaking with BroadWing. Axis had assumed she'd spent the day with the Strike Force.
But he'd expected her back well before now.
"Yysell?" he said to his body servant. "Have you seen Inardle?"
"No, my lord," Yysell said, laying out fresh clothes for Axis across the newly acquired and far more commodious bed. Axis had no idea where Yysell had found it, but he was profoundly grateful. He didn't want to spend another night like the last.
He stripped off his dirty shirt and washed his face and upper body. "If you see her, tell her to come to dinner in Maximilian's command tent."
"Yes, my lord."
Axis dressed slowly, wondering where she was. Had she decided to leave Maximilian's column?
No, surely not. She would have said something.
Wouldn't she?
Stricken with doubts, and beginning to worry, Axis set off for Maximilian's tent.
BroadWing was already with Maximilian, together with StarDrifter, Egalion, Garth, and Ishbel.
Axis nodded a greeting to everyone, spoke briefly with Maximilian, then made for BroadWing.
"Have you seen Inardle?" he asked.
BroadWing raised an eyebrow. "You've lost your second-in-command?"
"Have you seen Inardle, BroadWing?"
"I saw her earlier in the day. She spent some time at archery practice with some of the units of the Strike Force, but left after a few hours. She couldn't keep up."
"Archery practice?" Axis said. "She's only just recovered from some terrible injuries. I would have thought that archery practice was the last thing she'd need. I'm not surprised she `couldn't keep up.'"
"She insisted on taking part and I would think she was quite capable of making those decisions herself.
Being your second-in-command and all."
Axis gave him a terse nod and turned away, more worried than ever. He was also angry at the birdman.
Axis respected and liked BroadWing, but he thought the birdman was so set against Inardle that she could have shot Gorgrael out of the sky with a single arrow and he would still be contemptuous of her skills.
Perhaps, Axis mused, he should have been more circumspect in the manner in which he'd introduced Inardle as his lieutenant.
He circulated among the group as they shared wine before sitting down to dinner. He had a brief conversation with StarDrifter, mostly about Salome, who had gone to bed early as she was so tired, but extricated himself the moment StarDrifter asked, somewhat archly, where Inardle was.
He didn't want to get into an argument with his father about Inardle. Not tonight.
Axis was talking with Maximilian about the possibility of using several units of the Emerald Guard to scout the territory south of them when a movement at the door of the tent caught his eye.
It was Yysell. He had such a stricken look on his face that Axis immediately made his excuses to Maximilian, then joined Yysell outside the tent.
"Inardle has returned," Yysell said. "My lord, you need to see her. Now."
But Axis was already several paces away, jogging back to his tent.
She was sitting on the bed, face turned away from the door so that he could not immediately see it, clutching her left arm to her chest. The jar of liniment that she used to rub into aches in her shoulder and wing was lying smashed at her feet, the liniment dirtied and unusable among the dirt she'd tracked in on her boots.
She must have been trying to open the jar, desperate for pain relief, and had dropped it.
"Inardle?"
She turned her face even further away, her body visibly trembling, and, heart thudding in anxiety, Axis crouched down in front of her. "Inardle?"
She was crying, silently, her face white and drawn.
Axis stared at it a heartbeat, then looked at her left arm.
He saw the frost first, running the entire length of the arm.
Then he saw the bruises and contusions on her forearm.
Appalled and increasingly angry, Axis looked further up and saw her upper arm and shoulder. They were covered in patches of what he first thought were bruises, but which he realized were in fact layers of black frost over swellings and contusions.
He looked further back and saw that her wing was once more swollen, frost riming every single feather.
"Fetch Garth Baxtor!" Axis snapped at Yysell, who was out of the tent within a heartbeat.
Axis sat on the bed, took Inardle's chin in gentle fingers, and turned her face toward his.
She was in agony.
He had to close his eyes briefly in order to keep his anger in check. When it did explode, he wanted to be far distant from Inardle.
"How long did BroadWing keep you at archery practice?" Axis said.
"It wasn't his fault, Axis. He--"
"How long did BroadWing keep you at archery practice?"
"Until dusk," she whispered.
Axis cradled her gently against his body, hiding her face in his shoulder, not wanting Inardle to see his expression.
Until dusk?
"Garth will come," he said quietly. "He can help."
She was crying harder now, and Axis rocked her gently back and forth, wishing he could do something immediately to aid her pain. Stars, her broken left wing, as well as that shoulder and arm, must be in agony. Inardle would have used her barely healed flight muscles for archery, and to keep her at it hour after hour, and without even the courtesy of an armguard if the condition of her left forearm was any indication...
That had been deliberate.
BroadWing would have known the damage it would have caused.
Had he been amused, to watch her suffer while trying so hard to "keep up"?
"Axis?"
It was Garth, ducking inside the tent flap, and Axis was grateful to see he'd brought his medicine bag with him.
"BroadWing kept Inardle at archery practice for over ten hours today," Axis said. "Her shoulder...and wing..."
Garth met his eyes, gave a nod of understanding, then started to examine Inardle. He kept up a constant monologue of soothing words, persuading her to bend her arm, pausing whenever she cried out in pain.
He ran gentle hands up and down the arm, then over the shoulder, then finally moved behind her to examine the wing.
At that point he caught Axis' eyes again, and this time there was anger in Garth's own eyes, as well as deep concern.
"The bones are still healing well," he said.
But, thought Axis.
Garth came about the bed and squatted in front of Inardle.
"Inardle, I am going to rub some liniment--"
"I broke the jar you gave me," she said. "I'm sorry, I should have been more--"
"Inardle, forget the broken jar," Garth said. "It doesn't matter. I will mix some more for you, and I will also mix a strong draught of analgesic, and you will drink it. Once that is down then I will massage the wing and shoulder. It will help the swelling to go down."
"It's the swelling that's doing the damage," Axis said, and Garth nodded. He moved over to his bag, took out several bottles, and combined their contents into a mug that Yysell held out.
Then Garth brought the mug over to Inardle, and sat on her other side. "Drink, Inardle," he said, and she drank without protesting, which made Axis realize just how much pain she was in.
"I'll be back in a few minutes," Garth said. "That analgesic mixture needs some time to take effect."
Axis nodded, and Garth rose and left, asking Yysell to come with him on some errand.
"I'm sorry," Inardle whispered once they had gone.
Axis said nothing, just holding her
a little tighter and rocking her gently back and forth.
"Don't say anything to BroadWing," she said. "Please."
Axis closed his eyes again, unable to speak. That was not something he could promise.
"Axis," she said, now raising her face to look at him. "Please."
"He knew what he was doing, Inardle. These injuries are deliberate."
"I should have been able to keep up."
Stars, now she was talking about "keeping up." Had BroadWing taunted her with that all day, as she fell further and further behind while her shoulder and arm broke down?
"He is angry at me," Inardle said, "and I need to earn his respect. I--"
"Shush, Inardle. You need to earn no one's respect." Axis pulled her as tight as he dared, kissing her forehead and then her cheek. "Inardle," he said, "you amaze me."
Axis said that with such wonder, and such admiration, that Inardle started to cry again. Axis kissed away the tears and cuddled her close until Garth came back.
She was asleep now, exhausted by the archery practice, the pain and the emotion of the past day, and Garth and Axis stood just inside the doorway of the tent, talking in quiet tones.
"The wing was healing well," Garth said. "But after today...two of the major tendons in the wing are in danger of separating completely amid all the bruising and swelling. The stress Inardle put her arm and shoulder through--"
"The stress that BroadWing put her arm and shoulder through."
"Yes, well, what happened today has inflamed muscles and tendons very badly. The muscles will heal well enough, as most of the tendons, but there were two tendons in her wing that were under substantial strain anyway, and which had sustained considerable damage with Armat's initial attack. Axis, I don't like it. I think it is very possible that what happened today will cripple that wing. Inardle may never be able to fly again."
Axis stared at Garth, feeling his anger seething upward in great black waves.
"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.
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