Honor-Bound [ Lore of Penrua: Book III ]

46

Uachi stood at the top of the hill, surveying the scene before him with a sinking heart. The battlefield was still smoking, and the land was littered with corpses.

"Gods below," murmured Diarmán. He was standing a few paces away, his hand on Uarria's head. "There isn't a living man on that field."

As if on cue, a cry split the silence. It rocked through Uachi's bones, rattling him to his core. He had heard such a sound before: it was the sound of a man who was not long for this world, a man who would suffer every moment until he was gone.

"Stay here with the horses," he told Diarmán, turning to his own mount to take his bow and quiver. He slung the quiver over his head and tightened the strap, and then he checked his knives out of habit, though every one was in its place. "Keep Uarria with you. Farra, come with me." He clicked his tongue and set off down the hill.

It took him a quarter hour to find the man. Farra trailed at his heels, her hackles up and her whiskers aquiver as she prowled through the human wreckage around them. The wounded man was lying in a patch of bloodied mud that had soaked his black-and-yellow livery, holding his belly with both hands. He looked up at Uachi, his hands and his lips quivering. "Water," he gasped. His voice was hoarse, his lips parched and flaky. He had surely been lying there, the sole survivor adrift in such human wreckage, since the previous day.

Pity tugged at the back of Uachi's mind, and he pushed it ruthlessly away. "Tell me: where are Koren and Jaeron?"

The man rocked his head from side to side. "Please...Water. Please..."

"Tell me, and I will give you some water." Water wouldn't help this man now, though. Even had there been a healer at Uachi's right hand, this man was going to die.

"Gone. They're gone...Left us here to die."

"Gone where?"

"Don't...know. Disappeared." His face went slack, his eyes wide. "The stones. Those red stones."

With an uneasy feeling, Uachi knelt at the man's side. He reached for the water skin strapped to his belt. "The red stones? Bloodstones?"

"Nngh...please..." The man's eyes rolled, bloodshot and wide, watching Uachi's hand.

"Tell me where they went."

The man shook his head. When he coughed, a thin trail of fresh blood streaked down over his chin, already smeared with red. "Don't know...Gone in a blink. Unnatural."

Uachi cupped the man's face in his free hand. "Thank you. Quiet, now; be calm. I'll give you a drink."

The man let his eyes fall closed; he looked sleepy, his deep complexion waxen and gray. Uachi slid his hand forward along his belt, away from the water skin. He unsheathed his dagger silently. In two efficient motions, he pushed the man's head back, exposing his throat, and drew the blade swiftly across from ear to ear. The soldier made a gurgling sound; blood bubbled from his throat, soaking the collar of his tabard. Before Uachi had drawn a second breath, it was done.

He wiped his dagger clean and stood up. When he turned back the way he had come, he saw Diarmán approaching him across the field. He led both agitated horses, one bearing Ealin, still glassy-eyed from her morning tea, and on the other side of the beasts, Uachi could make out Uarria's movements trailing at Diarmán's heels.

Anger rose in his breast at once. "I told you to wait!" he snapped. "I didn't want her to see this!"

"I was uneasy, and the horses were skittish. I think it best we get across this field as quick as we can," Diarmán said. He sounded distracted, his eyes lingering on the newest corpse on the field.