Dragon Bones (Hurog #1)(71)
"And they'll be back when they're finished."
Axiel grunted as men do, and Tisala decided to take it as an affirmative. "Right. Then we'll take Oreg and bed him down with the rest of our sick men. I'll send someone back for Penrod." She'd seen enough men in battle to know that battle fever and its aftermath took people strangely sometimes. As long as Oreg wasn't wailing and sobbing tomorrow, he'd be no worse off than any other soldier she knew.
"I'll come back and get Penrod after I'm through with Oreg. Penrod and I've been comrades for too long to leave him to other hands." Axiel picked up the young mage without visible effort, though Tisala doubted there was a stone of weight between them.
"I'll find Ciarra and let her know what's going on." She held Axiel's gelding while he dealt with the difficulty of getting Oreg on his tall horse. She bit her lip and didn't say anything disparaging about the Northern horses. Some people you could tease, and others you didn't. Despite her father's comments, she did actually know which were which, and sometimes she even cared.
Axiel covered Oreg with the blankets from both of their bedrolls, but it didn't stop the shaking.
"I've got to go get Penrod's body."
Oreg didn't appear to hear him. After a moment, Axiel stepped into his saddle. His horse let out an almost human sigh, but made no other protests.
"That's it Foxy Lad," he told his horse. "I don't know why the aftermath of battles are always more a trial of endurance than the battles themselves, but that's how it is."
Axiel was tired, too. There was some basis for human rumors of dwarven endurance, but he was half human, and his arms told him that he'd been in a fight. A dull ache in his ribs let him know that he hadn't come out unscathed, but it would have to wait until after Penrod was taken care of.
You'd think after all these years, Penrod would have learned to watch his back. Axiel stopped himself. Much easier to just accept death rather than rail at it, and he should have learned that by now.
Penrod's body lay undisturbed. The growing shadow gave the glen an unsettling feel, though it might just be that he was here alone. Axiel bent down to pick him up.
"Sleep well, old friend," murmured Axiel. He hefted the body as carefully as if Penrod had been wounded.
Ciarra cried silently as the flames consumed Penrod. Axiel rested his hands on her shoulders, but his eyes were dry. Penrod was neither the first nor the last comrade he'd fed to the fire. He watched the bodies of the fallen blacken, dwarven eyesight letting him see what the flames concealed from the humans around him. When Ciarra turned away and buried her face in his chest, he wrapped his arms around the child.
"Come, lass," he said. "Let's get cleaned up and set up the tent. If we don't hurry, we'll be doing it in the dark. Your brothers will be back soon and ready for sleep."
It was nearing darkfall when Beckram and Kirkovenal came upon the camp. The dying embers of the funeral pyre told them that there had been a battle long before they arrived, so Beckram was careful to hail the camp before riding in. No one he asked knew where Ward was. But a delicate hand caught his sleeve while he was talking to yet another Oranstonian.
"Ciarra?" he said. Then, when he got a closer look at her, "What's wrong? Did something happen to Ward?"
She started to shake her head, then shrugged instead. Tightening her grip on his arm, she dragged him behind her. Kirkovenal dismounted, too, and followed them.
Ciarra took them to the center of the camp, where Beckram saw Axiel at the cooking pot.
"Beckram," Axiel said. "What are you doing here?"
"Looking for my cousin. Do you know where Ward is?"
Axiel handed off his ladle with a "Mind you keep stirring, or it'll burn on the bottom."
"We're not sure where Ward's gotten himself off to," said Axiel. "As far as we could determine, he, Tosten, and Bastilla went off chasing Vorsag. We had a minor skirmish with the Vorsag earlier today. Afterward, we found Penrod dead in a small clearing on the far side of the battlefield. From the tracks, the three of them took off south. What do you want him for?"
Beckram had the whole ride from Callis to put Kirkovenal's information together with Ward's storytelling and had come up with a few theories.
"Ciernack in Estian has been selling information to King Kariarn and probably his father," he began. "At first, it was military information, but the new king of Vorsag wanted more; he wanted magic. So the people working at the tavern bought artifacts and probably stole a few, too. A couple of years ago, about the time Kariarn's father became ill, Ciernack got several new workers, including a slave girl, Bastilla. Except she wasn't really a slave at all; she was working for Kariarn."
"Bastilla was working for Kariarn?" asked Axiel.
"It's the only reason we could come up with for her to run to Hurog," explained Beckram. "Bastilla was no slave running for her freedom. Kirkovenal knows of at least one man she had killed and another she tortured. Ciernack didn't give her orders, she gave them to him. We think that Bastilla heard the stories about Hurog's treasure and went to check them out for herself - with her lover, Landislaw, in pursuit to make sure she made it back."
Axiel shook his head. "I saw her feet after she ran to Hurog. I saw the scars on her back."