She nodded and though he struggled to swallow, Rygar got the liquid down.
“Better?” asked Kroke, looking at Rygar.
The scout managed a slight nod.
“Good.” He placed a stick in Rygar’s mouth. “You bite down as hard as you need to on this, but whatever you do, I need you to stay still. Understand?”
Rygar swallowed hard and managed another nod.
Kroke looked over to Elyse. “You still want to help?”
“Yes.”
“Alright then. I need you to keep him still because no matter how hard he tries not to move, he’s gonna start jumping the second I start pulling and tugging,” said Kroke, ignoring the scout’s whimper. “The more he moves, the worse it gets for everyone. So I need you to hold him down like your life depended on it, understand?”
Elyse nodded. “Just show me where to be so I’m not in your way.”
Kroke showed her how to hold down his arms and chest. He then sat on Rygar’s legs. “Look away. I saw how pale you got when you first saw the wound. This could get messy and I don’t need you passing out on me.”
She looked away and swallowed as Kroke gave her one last bit of instruction.
“Oh, and breath through your mouth.”
Elyse knew Kroke had started when she felt Rygar shaking and heard him grunting. She watched helplessly as tears streamed down Rygar’s face and she began praying to the One Above in part for help and in part to drown out the slew of curses sputtering from Kroke’s mouth as he worked. When the hissing of hot steal against skin replaced the curses, she knew the arrow was free. By that point, Rygar passed out from the pain.
The smell of burning flesh reached her. She took three quick steps and emptied the contents of her stomach, nearly falling over as she heaved.
She turned back to Kroke where the mercenary pulled out a white bandage. He didn’t look up. “I warned you, didn’t I?”
“Yes, you did,” Elyse muttered.
“If you’re done, get over here. I need to show you how to take care of this in case I’m not able to.”
Elyse hobbled back to Kroke as he put some sort of salve on the blackened skin and wrapped the bandage around Rygar’s wound. She grimaced and felt her stomach turn as she saw the size of the gash.
Kroke noticed the gesture. “If you’re going to throw up again, you better get up now.”
“No, I’m ok.” She paused. “What happened? The wound is so much bigger.”
Kroke sighed. “A piece of the arrow broke off and I had to fish it out as best I could.” He shook his head. “I did a number on him though and I ain’t a healer. Now, we’ll just have to wait and see.”
“So in the morning, he’ll be able to travel?” asked Elyse.
“Absolutely not.”
“But you stopped the bleeding?”
“For now, yeah. But it’ll start back up again if we try to put him on a horse and jostle him around.”
“So, then what do we do?”
“We get comfortable. I don’t want to travel for at least a couple of days.”
“But Jonrell told me we had to get to Ithanthul as soon as possible.”
Kroke pointed. “There’s the road.” He gestured toward their supplies. “And there’s a pack. Grab a horse and go if you feel like you need to.”
“By myself?”
“That’s the only way you’re leaving here tomorrow.”
“But…”
Kroke cut in, his voice raising. “We leave when he is safe for travel.”
“How long will that be?” asked Elyse, startled.
“As long as it takes.” He turned his back to Elyse and started walking toward the woods.
Fear gripped her. “Where are you going?”
“Firewood,” he yelled back without turning around. “We need more to get through the night.”
“What about me?” she shouted back.
Kroke didn’t answer as he ambled out of sight. She became aware of the stillness around her, quiet except for the crackling fire. She shivered as she caught sight of the lifeless corpses of the soldiers. She felt numb, not from the cold, but because she realized how close she had come to dying.
She looked back at Rygar who lay still, his chest slowly rising and falling. She found two spare blankets and covered him. She stoked the fire higher and looked at the bloody snow near Hadan’s body. Kroke hadn’t returned and the sun started to drop below the treeline.
Images of wolves or bears that would smell the fresh blood gave her a shudder. She needed to move at least his body away from the fire. The prospect of sleeping feet away from a dead man did not comfort her either.
She grabbed Hadan’s body by his boots and pulled. The job was harder than she expected. Eventually she realized she could tie a rope to one of the horses and use it to drag the bodies away.
Elyse settled back down next to the fire just as the last bit of light faded to black.
After checking on Rygar, she nibbled on a hard biscuit. She leaned back against a fallen log and waited for Kroke.
Elyse stared into the black beyond the fire and wondered if she would ever sleep again.
* * *
“Mmm, that’s good. Definitely your best yet, Your Majesty,” said Rygar, taking a bite of the stew she handed him.
Elyse dipped her head, embarrassed for some reason by the compliment. “Thank you. I’m not sure what I did though. I just dumped a bunch of stuff we had into a pot.”
Rygar shrugged. “Whatever it is, keep doing it,” he said taking another bite.
Elyse smiled and spooned out another bowl to take to Kroke who sat a few steps back sharpening his knives.
That’s the third time he’s checked their edges today.
Kroke sheathed his blade, set down the whetstone and took the bowl from Elyse’s hand without looking up. She stood there for a moment, waiting for any sort of comment but he said nothing.
Since the attack and the subsequent tending to Rygar, the only words Kroke had spoken to her were a few harsh instructions when dissatisfied with what she was doing. And that seemed to be just about anything, tending the fire, caring for Rygar’s wound, her cooking, and so on. So, she decided to take the initiative herself and sat down next to him. As she expected, he continued to ignore her.
“How do you like the stew?” she asked.
“It’s edible,” he said with a grunt.
She started to open her mouth to try a different approach, but failed to utter a word.
“What do you want?”
“I just wanted to see if you liked the stew.”
He set his bowl down and looked up at her for the first time. “Don’t give me that. You want to say something, so say it.”
Elyse frowned. “I want to know if we can leave tomorrow.”
“No.”
The brusqueness of his response reminded her of why she hadn’t initially liked the man. Her feelings toward him had softened after he had helped to save her life and as she witnessed the concern he had for Rygar. But with each day, she found her old feelings for the man returning. “Why not?”
“Because I said so.”
“But Rygar is doing better each day and we’ve been here for almost a week.”
“He’s not healthy enough to travel.”
“Her Majesty is right. I’m feeling much better,” said Rygar.
“That’s because all you’ve done is lay there and eat. As it is you want for a nap almost every time you get back from taking a leak. You really think you can stay on a horse all day? Don’t be stupid, kid.”
Rygar lowered his voice. “I can manage.”
Kroke grunted, then turned back to Elyse. “Like I said, no.” He picked up his bowl and started eating again but when he saw Elyse hadn’t moved and still looked at him he set it down with a sigh. “What?”
It was only then that she noticed how Kroke never addressed her as a queen or showed her proper respect. She guessed it was because her mind had been preoccupied, bu
t now that she noticed the slight, it bothered her and even made her angry.
Even Hadan had addressed me properly before trying to kill me.
As she thought about it, she realized that she hadn’t been acting much like a queen since they had left Cathyrium. Before the attack she had been sullen about being on her own, and nervous about her meeting with Jeldor. Since the attack, she had been acting more as a servant to Rygar and Kroke. Where Rygar showed constant appreciation, Kroke seemed to expect such behavior.
She decided that helping out was not something she would change. After all, Jonrell often pitched in where other commanders would not have, and the men respected him more. However, she had forgotten how important her task was. An entire army, a city, and in the end, a kingdom, depended on her success. Before, she worried under the weight of such a task, but now she felt a sense of urgency.
“I command you to leave with me on the morrow to Ithanthul,” she blurted out.
Kroke’s face twisted in shock and then the mercenary let out a low laugh, the first she had ever heard from him. The laugh was far from comforting. “You command me, do you? I don’t care if you are Jonrell’s sister, you are not my queen. I take my orders from only one man.”
“But he gave you orders to listen to me,” she said, trying to sound stern.
“Sorry, lass. But he only told me to keep you alive. The way I see it, I have a better chance of doing that here than anywhere else, and while we do that, Rygar can get himself healed up.”
“But don’t you care about my people?” she pleaded.
“You said it. They are your people, not mine. No, in fact, you’re the reason I’m not with my people.”
“But the longer we sit around, the more people will die.”
The mercenary shrugged, turning away.
“And what about the Hell Patrol?”
“What about them?”
“Don’t you care about their lives?”
Kroke sneered. “I care about little in this world.”
“Don’t lie to me. I know you don’t like being stuck with me but you’ve said over and over again that you want to make sure Rygar is alright. That means you care about him. Just like you do about the others.”
Kroke cocked his head. “What’s your point?”
“My point is the longer we wait here, the more of your men will die.”
The mercenary’s eyes widened slightly but quickly resumed their normal emotionless expression. And just like that, she knew that Jonrell was right. If you pay attention to people long enough, you can learn a lot about them. And now, she knew how to motivate Kroke.
Kroke shrugged her comment off. “They’ll get out of there before things get hairy. I’m not worried.” He didn’t sound convinced.
Elyse shook her head. “No they won’t. You know my brother, and this is too important to him. Otherwise he wouldn’t have come halfway across the world to get here. He won’t just get up and leave. He’ll die fighting. And I know just enough about his men to know that they’ll all die right alongside him without him ever having to ask them to.” She paused, watching her words turn in his head before saying what she guessed he was thinking. “And if you’re here with me, you won’t be there to help them, will you?”
Kroke was about to say something in return, but at the sound of a grunt they both turned back toward Rygar who had stood and leaned on a stick they had given him for support.
“What do you think you’re doing up?” said Kroke.
“The queen is right, Kroke. She may not have convinced you, but she has me. I’m not going to be the reason everyone dies. I’d never be able to look Yanasi in the eyes if that happened,” said Rygar, obviously missing the point that Yanasi would be dead along with everyone else.
“Sit down,” Kroke hissed. “We ain’t going anywhere now. It’s too late in the day. We’ll start first thing in the morning. Satisfied?” he asked, casting Elyse a look that could freeze water.
She nodded. “Thank you.”
He picked up his bowl and turned away from her, grumbling. “Then leave me to eat in peace. Let’s see how much you’re thanking me when we all end up dead on the side of the road on account I’m dragging a woman and half a man along with me into areas I know nothing about.”
* * *
An elbow from Kroke, whether intentional or not woke her as the black night turned a dull gray. He stood after glancing down each side of the road. He muttered something about checking on the horses. She winced first at the cold air against her body where the mercenary had lain, and winced a second time as she shook the night’s stiffness from her limbs.
They had spent the night huddled in an empty ditch, a mere two day’s ride from Ithanthul, using the sunken pocket of earth to block out the wind and provide cover from travelers. They spent the previous night without a fire. Without the extra blankets taken from the traitors, Elyse was sure they would have died during the night.
She wrapped one of the blankets around her as she watched Kroke disappear into the woods. Despite her fingers and toes feeling numb, her back hurting her from sleeping in such an awkward position, and just an overall sense of exhaustion, she found herself smiling at the white landscape, branches and fallen trees covered in a soft snow. Taking in her surroundings, it was the first time in days she had even bothered to give herself a moment of peace, so focused she had been on her goal to see Jeldor.
Elyse turned to the low snapping of twigs and the crunch of snow as Kroke led the horses toward her.
We’ll probably just eat dried jerky as we ride again, she thought with a sigh. Bending down, her hand fell on Rygar’s shoulder. “Wake up, lazy. We’ve got to get moving.”
Nothing.
She shook his shoulder this time, speaking louder. “Rygar. Let’s go. We can’t just stay here all morning.”
Still nothing. Elyse moved his head where she could see him and saw that his mouth hung open and his breathing was shallow. Panicked she called out to Kroke. She heard the mercenary covering the distance to her with a quickened pace. He muttered a curse. “Keep your voice down. What’s the matter with you?”
Elyse looked back at him. “It’s Rygar. Something’s wrong.”
Kroke handed her the reins. She stepped away, wrapping them around a nearby tree. By the time she came back, Kroke had pulled up Rygar’s shirt and inspected his bandage. It was soaked in blood.
“What happened?” she asked.
“It must have opened up last night and the fool didn’t say anything,” said Kroke.
“But I thought it was better.”
“It was better but it was never healed. I warned you this could happen,” he said, cursing himself. “Start getting some wood together. We’ll need to build another fire and cauterize the wound again.”
“But I thought you were worried someone would see us.”
“And they still might. Then again, it is early. Maybe if we keep the fire low enough, the smoke won’t be as noticeable.”
Elyse didn’t argue. Even if they got caught, she owed too much to Rygar to risk his life any further. She wouldn’t see him bleed to death because of her own fear.
Some time later, the embers of a small fire faded. Elyse and Kroke packed in tight around it as they tried to make use of what little warmth they could draw from it. They had given Rygar their blankets to stay warm. They had been able to stop the bleeding again and rewrap his wound, but he had broken out in a fever and Kroke was out of herbs.
Elyse decided she had enough of feeling helpless. She stood up and headed toward one of the horses.
“What do you think you’re doing?” asked Kroke.
“Going to Ithanthul.”
“Are you mad? He isn’t fit to travel,” said Kroke with a gesture to Rygar. “Or do you not even care what happens to him?”
She snapped her head around and felt her anger rising. “Why do you think I’m going? If I make it, I can send help and possibly a healer to you. Neither of us can do him any good right now
.”
“The roads are too dangerous for you.”
“I’ll manage,” she said, though not completely convinced.
Kroke let out a sigh and cursed. “Let me go then. You can stay with Rygar.”
She shook her head. “No. I’ll be able to talk to Duke Jeldor, you won’t.”
“You have to get there first. Do you expect to just waltz right through the miles of land between here and the city without anyone stopping you? Something can happen at any moment if you aren’t careful.”
Elyse opened her mouth to argue but was cut off.
“The man is right, woman. Anything can happen.”
They both turned at the voice and saw a soldier with a drawn bow standing over them on the road. The arrow was pointed at Kroke. Two others stood on either side with arrows notched as well. “You can get your hand away from that belt.”
Elyse caught Kroke lowering his hand, cursing yet again. She took the opportunity to speak first, not sure what else to do. “Please, kind sirs. We need some help. We are on our way to Ithanthul…”
“To meet with Duke Jeldor, eh? Aye, I heard you. Talking loud enough to scare away all the game around here. And who do you think you are that he would want to see you.”
“Don’t say….” started Kroke but Elyse shouted over him.
“I am Queen Elyse. Your Ruler,” she said, trying to sound as regal as one could covered in filth and freezing.
The soldiers laughed.
“My ruler, you say?” said the man. “I only have one ruler.” He let out a loud whistle and moments later the sound of hooves clicked closer along the dirt path.
A voice that sounded strangely familiar called out. “You found something?”
“Yes, My Lord, something you may be interested in.”
“What is it?” said the voice as a man familiar to Elyse strode into view.
“This commoner claims to be the queen. In fact they were arguing about who was going to stay with this one while the other came to speak with you. He looks pretty bad,” said the soldier pointing to Rygar.
“My Lord, surely you can see who I am even despite my appearance,” said Elyse.
Rise and Fall (Book 1) Page 42