The Caverns of Kronos

Contingency Undone

"Hold still!" said Captain Benjamin Nerus impatiently. "I can't stitch this thing if you keep moving."

General Canta Patroclus held up a hand to say he understood, then braced himself as the Captain inserted the needle into the skin above his right eye. Around him, those of his men who had avoided injury were tending to those not so fortunate. Merely binding wounds with bandages for the most part. The General's injury had been dripping blood into his eyes, though. Interfering with his vision, and so required the kind of attention usually left until the casualty could be taken to the houses of healing. The General endured it stoically as the needle penetrated his skin again and again, therefore, each time with a sharp jab of pain, until the Captain finally tied it off and cut the thread with his knife.

"There," he said as he eyed his work with satisfaction. "Matron Hattie couldn't have done a better job, though I do say so myself."

"How are the others?" asked the General, fingering the fine stitching.

Nerus sighed. "Could have been a lot worse," he said as he took the General's hand and gently pulled it away. They'd treated the injury with alcohol, of course, but he might still get it infected if he kept dabbing his dirty fingers all over it.

He took a bandage from the medical kit and began wrapping it around the General's head. "No-one died. Agrippa is the only serious casualty. Other than him, it's just bites and cuts. They'll need to be seen to, of course, and soon. You know how fast con bites fester."

Patroclus nodded. "My fault. I led us right into the ambush..."

"You got us out of the ambush. There must have been twenty of them, and they took us cold, by surprise. According to standard military doctrine, we should all be dead." He glanced across at a large, hairy corpse lying in the entrance to one of the corridors.

The General smiled. "I've never been a big fan of standard military doctrine."

"That has been commented upon by many people. Makes me wonder how you ever got to be a General."

"His Lordship and I have something in common. We both like results, and we don't much care how we get them."

He waited patiently for the Captain to finish bandaging his head, then reached for his backpack and removed the Coronet of Farspeaking. The bandages made it awkward to sit it on his head and, as usual, he was acutely aware of how it looked on him with all the gold and jewels. Couldn't they have made it look a little more military? he thought in annoyance. It had clearly been made for a woman, all those centuries ago, but they couldn't afford to be fussy. It worked, and that was what mattered.

He adjusted the bandages until he had the thing more or less on his head and then concentrated. After a few moments the single ruby between and above his eyes began to flicker with an inner red fire as contact was made. The flicker failed to become a steady glow, though, indicating that the spell connecting him with his Lord had weakened still further. The further they went, the weaker it got.

"My Lord," he said out loud, "Can you hear me?"

"General?" said a voice in return. It sounded distorted, echoey and weak, as if it were coming through a pipe hundreds of feet long. "I can barely hear you."

"You're very weak as well, Lord," replied Patroclus, raising his voice. "I'm afraid that if we go much further we may be cut off altogether."

"Don't go any further then," said Lord Rajus. "It's important that I be able to call you back when the Konnens give in to our demands. Just circle around the city at the same distance you are now."