“Get it, lads,” Darius snapped ordering a file of warriors toward the bull.
“Quick, before it can recover,” the wizard declared as he rushed forward. He paused just outside of range of the damaged bull and sparks shot out his wand, scoring the sheer, red hide of the spirit creature. The spell didn’t seem to do any appreciable damage to the monster, but it encouraged the men and moments later six spearmen fell upon the beast, stabbing and chopping at it with their mixture of weaponry.
This time when the monster bellowed, its pain filled cry was tinged with despair.
“We’ve got ’em on the run,” a man bellowed, and the cry was taken up by the others around her as men pounded past her in pursuit of the barbarians.
Falon stared after them, feeling a bone-deep weariness and lethargy that quite literally had sapped her will to move.
“Here,” Darius said appearing out of nowhere and wrapping a bandage around her arm, “let me take a look at that.”
“It was a club,” Falon said dully.
“What?” Darius asked absently.
“A spiked club,” she explained.
“Ah,” the Imperial replied, “we need to get you back down to the wagon; you’ve taken a few good hits.”
“Cloud is around here somewhere,” Falon said dully, as she looked around. She didn’t spot her horse, but she did see Erik Knightson dragging a certain, unconscious, baron back down the hill.
As Erik passed, she could see that of his eyes, one pupil was so small it was almost a pinpoint while the other one practically covered the green of his eyes.
Fighting off a pang at his absent, openmouthed expression, she looked away and looked right into blue eyes of the Imperial working on her ruined arm. Those blue eyes had once felt deep enough to fall into, but for some reason no longer were.
She smiled at him sadly, yet at the same time feeling strangely comforted by Darius’s presence. The Imperial had somehow lost much of the foreign mystique he had seemingly possessed during the relatively short time she had known him. All the days and evenings spent training had left her with a deep appreciation of the man, to the point she now felt almost embarrassed of the way she had first reacted when meeting the Imperial for the first time.
She was saddened, however, because while she liked him as an instructor and a sergeant and, yes, possibly even a friend, she no longer found herself falling into his eyes the way she once had.
“You’re a good man,” she told him appreciatively.
The Imperial looked surprised. “I am not a good man,” he told her firmly.
“I can tell,” she confided, as only one who was detached from reality and looking at everything as if through a long tube can, “you are—even if you made me trick most of the men into joining us.”
“Hush,” he hissed, glancing out of the corner of his eye a single time. Seeing that no one was paying them any attention, he searched her face with concern. “Were you hit in the head?” he demanded, pressing his fingers against the side and back of her head to check.
“I don’t remember,” Falon said distantly.
“Enough nonsense,” the Sergeant said firmly, “up you go.” He gripped her under the arm and lifted her to her feet.
“You’re good,” Falon said, switching back to her original train of thought randomly.
“I am many things: skilled, trained, experienced in certain things even…but good is not one of them,” Darius grunted.
“That’s sad,” Falon sighed and then squinted as she peered around, “where’s my horse?”
“In a nearby clearing but it would take too much time to go and get it,” Darius said firmly, “now come along.”
“Falon!” Ernest cried, riding up alongside her on Bucket.
“Hello,” Falon said happily as the pain in her arm was strangely absent.
“What are you…“ Ernest said, and she could tell that he was still talking but it was as if he was speaking from far away and she couldn’t understand him anymore.
Falon remembered them urging her up atop the family donkey, along with the pain that resulted from doing so, but the trip down the hillside was a blur. She became fearful when she recognized the same Wench that had patched her up last time.
Firm hands pressed her back down into the wagon bed and without the energy to fight any longer, Falon lay back and passed out.
Chapter 33: Back on the road to Ice Finger Keep
Falon woke up with a gasp. Lunging into a sitting position, she pressed a hand against her racing heart. The last thing she remembered was kneeling in the grass, waiting to be attacked and not having the strength or will to defend herself.
“Where am I?” she asked herself, her mind galloping a mile a minute. As if the question had unlocked something inside her, she started to remember the rest of the battle. Darius had arrived, as had Ernest. Schmendrick had defeated the bull, and then Darius had put her on Bucket and brought her down the hill. After that, her choppy memory became hazy.
Relieved that she hadn’t been captured—and no longer thinking she was still in the middle of a battle—Falon collapsed back onto a bedroll that felt suspiciously like her own.
Yes, it was definitely hers and now that she’d had a moment to take stock, she could see that she was once again inside the confines of her tent.
“I’ve got to stop waking up like this,” she groaned, and then remembering the last time she’d woken up and started making noises in her tent, her mouth snapped shut. Moments later, she was checking her clothes.
She held her breath for several long seconds and then sighed; her clothes were on and no one was bursting in yet. Relieved, she closed her eyes and drew a few calming breaths. And then something she wouldn’t have thought possible, even as much as half a minute ago, occurred and she drifted back to sleep.
**************************************************
This time when she woke up, she felt the urge to stretch and so she did so quite enthusiastically—at least until her right arm twinged. After that she was more careful. She didn’t need to tear the newly-healed skin before it had time to toughen up. She shivered, remembering the terrible condition of her feet the first time she and the Wicks Militia had marched into the muster field outside Swan Keep, and the way she had re-torn the healing skin of her feet by being too active, too soon. Then she silently corrected herself, as it had been the first and only time that she had been to the Keep.
Getting up she made sure to secure the tent flap from the inside, and then rummaged in her campaign backpack. Pulling out new small clothes and grimacing after she picked up her boots and took a sniff inside, she began her morning ablutions.
When she was ready again to face the world, Falon unsecured the tent flap and cautiously opened it. Peeking outside and failing to see a line of applicants, or a horde of well-wishers, Falon heaved sigh of relief.
When her stomach rumbled she knew it was time to get her hands on some grub. Stepping outside her tent, she immediately stumbled over Tug, her Clerk.
Barely regaining her balance before she fell, Falon had to hop quickly to regain her footing. For his part, Tug came up with an evil-looking, curved knife that couldn’t have been more than three inches long, looking ready to kill. Seeing that it was only his commanding officer and direct superior, he gave her a foul look and muttering something uncomplimentary under his breath as he lay back down on his bed.
Which bed, Falon noted archly, was positioned literally right outside her tent. With a huff, she finished extracting herself from the outskirts of the rotund clerk’s bedroll and stalked off into camp.
Spotting a nearby fire, she headed over quickly.
“Falon, yer awake,” Ernest said tiredly.
“Yeah, good to see ye, Fal,” Duncan muttered.
“What’s gotten into you two?” Falon asked warily.
The two boys looked up at her with red, bloodshot eyes and Falon recoiled.
“Try walking half the night, and then having to stand wa
tch for another two hours after that, to keep the Ice Raiders off,” Duncan grumped.
Falon’s eyes widened. “Did they attack the camp?” she asked with concern.
“Can’t let down our guard—which meant two hour watches. After we pitched the tents, made fires for those of us without tents,” both boys gave her hard looks, “and then bolted some food.”
“Sorry,” Falon muttered, not really sure how any of this was her fault but caving into peer pressure and taking responsibility as their friend, their officer, and one of the few people with their own tent.
“Not yer fault that ye…I mean you were knocked around by those savages,” Ernest said.
“It bloody well is his fault!” Duncan snapped.
Falon’s eyes narrowed.
“Charging off ahead of the rest of us like some kind of hero—ye almost got yerself killed,” the older farmer brother growled.
“I was tasked with taking the hill by the Prince,” Falon glared. “It wasn’t my decision!”
“And just why couldn’t ye have ‘taken’ it with the rest of us?” Duncan glared right back.
“I don’t think he was trying to get himself killed Duncan. Let it go,” Ernest said wearily.
“You don’t think I was trying to kill myself, Ernest?” Falon said feeling angry and more than a little outraged.
“Hey. I’m not the enemy here,” Ernest snapped back, “none of us here are. So let’s stop arguing.”
Falon felt angry enough she feared she was about to turn into a tea kettle ready to shout, but forcefully bit her tongue by reminding herself that she was an officer now and needed to set a good example.
“My feet are sore,” Duncan said flatly and then turned away.
Falon gaped, as apparently that was the only apology she was going to get for this whole wretched affair. “I’m going to go find some breakfast,” she growled, but before she could storm off in a huff, Duncan shoved a trencher of bread with several strips of bacon and a boiled egg into her hands.
For a long moment she was silent. “Thanks,” she said grudgingly.
“Weren’t yer fault the savages kept us up all night,” Duncan grumped.
For the next few minutes she sat there eating breakfast with her friends, and if the silence didn’t start off particularly companionable, by the end it did somehow manage to feel that way.
“So what news?” Falon finally hazarded to ask after her belly was starting to feel comfortably full again.
“messengers say we’ll reach Ice Finger before midday,” Duncan reported.
“They say that’s why the Prince had us push on into the night,” Ernest added.
“That’s good, I guess,” Falon said, pleased that they might actually reach somewhere warmer than here.
“The Sergeant says almost a dozen men came down with serious frostbite last night,” Ernest disagreed. “If it hadn’t been for the healer, he’d have had to start trimming off toes and fingers.”
“That’s disgusting,” Falon said, looking down at her half eaten second trencher of bred. “You should know better than to talk about such things when people are eating,” she said strictly, and put the remaining half of the boiled egg she was about to eat back onto the trencher as she placed the slab of bread in her lap. She didn’t feel as hungry as before.
“It’s the truth,” Ernest protested.
“So?” Falon gave him a piercing stare.
“Oh all right, I’ll try and be more careful in the future,” Ernest said. “What are ye, me mother?”
Falon fought the urge to reach over and smack him in the back of his head. “So?” she asked, clearing her throat and pointedly ignoring the mutinous look both boys were giving her. “Now then, other than marching all night and frostbite, is there anything else I should know?”
The boys exchanged looks and then shrugged.
“I got nothin’,” Duncan said almost happily.
“Me neither,” Ernest agreed.
“Great,” Falon sighed. Picking up her trencher, she had half an urge to throw the rest of it in the fire but then thought better of it. After all the hard work they’d done just to get this food, the last thing she could countenance was throwing it away!
“Alright, I’m going off to find Darius,” she said unhappily and, turning up the collar of her coat, she set her shoulders and headed away from the nice warmth of the fire in search of her company sergeant.
Finding Darius wasn’t as hard as she’d feared, and after his report—which was not much different from what the boys had already told her—she was ready to get started. Together she helped him rouse everyone in their half of the Swan Battalion and began breaking camp—making sure along the way, of course, that everyone had a hot meal inside them for the last leg of this trek across the frigid north lands.
“Looks like we’ll be ready before the Princely Guards,” Falon observed with satisfaction, pointing to His Highness’s men-at-arms. They were not even to the point of breaking down their tents yet.
Darius spat off to the side. “We’re the tip of the spear again,” he replied sourly. “No reason they should get up at the same time as we do,” he then muttered something about ‘bloody barbarian armies.’
Falon frowned. “I’m sure the Prince, and his Generals, have good reason,” she said finally.
Darius shook his head. “Ours is not to reason why. Ours is just to march and die,” he said, expelling a bitter breath.
Falon looked at him with censure to cover up her surprise. “What about morale, Sergeant?” she asked, emphasizing his rank respective to hers.
Darius gave her a sharp look and then started to look embarrassed. “I’ll keep it sheathed, Lieutenant,” he said more formally.
“I’m surprised at you, Darius,” Falon said with genuine perplexity. “I’d expect you to be the first one to squash any talk like this. What’s gotten into you this morning?”
Darius’s shoulders hunched and then he straightened. “Won’t happen again,” he said a tad gruffly, “I may have heard some of the other under-officers, from the rest of the army,” his eyes cut towards the Princely Guard as he said this, “make a few choice comments such as ‘sword fodder to the fore’ within my hearing.”
Falon flushed, feeling angry at such disrespect for the forces leading the way to Ice Finger Keep. She took a quick breath in and blew it back out through her nostrils. “If you give me the names I’ll speak with their officers about this,” she said tightly.
Darius gave her a look that made her feel like she’d never learned which end of the sword to use, let alone actually been through one major battle and a running series of barbarian hit and run attacks.
“Afraid I don’t know their names, and it was still dark outside—” Darius began stiffly.
Falon raised a hand to cut him off, irritation flashing through her. “We need to finish getting the men ready,” she said sourly.
“The Lieutenant is wise,” Darius said eventually in a neutral tone.
The Lieutenant was upset, was what she was, but she also knew better than to open that particular jar of worms.
Pressing her lips into a tight line, she turned away and focused on getting the wagon they had commandeered from the now-deceased Gearalt and his men ready to roll out.
Chapter 34: The Plot Thickens
Although the beat of the barbarian war drums accompanied them all morning, the savages never showed up in force and no one was killed during the cold trek to the baron’s keep.
Thankful for small favors, Falon was also pleased to see that her warriors had a harder, tougher look to them than they had prior to all the recent battles and hard marching.
Riding Cloud Breaker back down the twin lines that formed her column of men, the young Lieutenant was concerned when she saw a pale-faced older man limping along, as if every step hurt him.
“Perhaps you should see a Wench about those feet of yours,” Falon said in that polite way she had been learning was really more of an order than a
request.
“Nothing doing, Squire Falon,” the older warrior said, knuckling his forehead and tugging on a small lock of hair.
“Even so,” Falon said putting some steel in her voice. She noticed that more of the men had taken after the Raven Band and started calling her by her title as a gentleman, instead of her Officer’s rank in his Lordship’s army, and she secretly felt a little pleased by it.
“Sorry for intruding, Squire,” one of the man’s file members said, butting into the conversation. “But we’ve already been, and they said there’s not much they can do that we’re not already doing.”
“Oh?” Falon asked with surprise and took another look at the still limping warrior.
“We trim his feet every evening before bed,” younger man, who looked like he was probably related to the older one somehow although there wasn’t enough age difference for him to be the man’s son—at least not as far as she could tell.
“During meal time’s more like it,” the older man said with a wan smile.
“And right after we put the fire to it, we haul him over to the Healing Wenches so’s he can be ready to march in the morning,” said the younger.
Falon looked back and forth trying to figure out what they were talking about.
“What are you talking ab…” she trailed off, as she realized that she knew these symptoms. Weakness, fatigue, foot trouble and looking paler than normal; her own father had suffered from the rooting sickness that took too many of the Old Blood when they started to get on in years. “The rooting sickness,” she whispered.
“Aye, Sir,” the men agreed, the younger one looking more than a little surprised that she was familiar with the condition.
“I’m not a ‘Sir;’ just a Squire,” she corrected them absently, “and my father has the disease. That’s why I’m here.”
The Painting (Rise of the Witch Guard Book 2) Page 27
