Jovan's Gaze

Chapter 27

CHAPTER 27

The plateau looked out over the open fields. Meekwood forest was at the very edge of the horizon, but it still seemed ominous, as though the forest itself sought our blood. Far off to the east, my binoculars could see the faintest hint of fires from a village. To the north, though the darkness hid it, the deepest parts of Krona awaited us. This plateau was well across the border.

The border was hard to find just by looking, even in the light. Still, it could be felt. Even so many years after the war, when the lands emptied of people and the borders stopped meaning anything, the border remained. It was like passing through a curtain from the light, into the darkness. A blind man would know he had crossed the threshold. It was felt, not seen or heard. The skin crawled, the heart raced, the ears grew sensitive to every slight noise. I could already feel the slight itch under my skin.

Danlis looked out over the nighttime landscape, surveying it with his binoculars. He was looking for danger, and listening for the howls of wolves.

"They won't follow us this far out," I assured him. "Not after what we did to them."

"We lost two good soldiers," he muttered. "I'm not sure who came out ahead, back there."

I nodded, trying to pretend sympathy. In truth, their deaths worked in my favor. There were two less people to contend with, when I finally chose to escape. Still, I nodded with a show of empathy, hoping to keep Danlis focused on the threats around us, instead of the one standing beside him.

"Soldiers take risks," I said, knowingly. "I did, you do, and so did they."

Danlis looked to me, his eyes cutting through me like the fire from his rifle. He shook his head, and turned away.

"At least we got our wolf," he muttered, as he walked back to the dropship.

The carcass was wrapped in a tarp, set down under the left-side canvas benches in the troop hold. The deck of the hold was covered in blood. Nobody was about to squander their water to clean it off. Bowder sat on the edge of the gantry, rifle in hand. He was very quiet. When the pilot, fixing the lights in the ceiling, asked for a tool, Bowder reached over to a toolbox and offered the proper item to him without comment. Everything was cast in long shadows, the only light being a handful of flashlights.

Nesing and Hewel were sitting quietly in the corner of the hold, while Aragas did his best to see to Nesing's leg. Hewel held the light, while Aragas cut away Nesing's pant leg. The lower leg had several deep wounds from where the Kronan wolf had dug in. The leg had not been broken, which was quite the achievement, considering how we had all been thrown around the hold. Still, the wounds were not too bad, and a high dose of painkiller was enough to keep Nesing quiet. Hewel seemed worse off than Nesing, the violence and blood obviously bothering him.

Blood did not bother me. It never had. Growing up on a farm, I had seen my share of it. Even the blood of men, which came in such massive quantities upon the grounds of battlefields, did not turn my stomach. I was always able to focus on other matters. Of course, now I was covered in it. My fatigue shirt was soaked through with it, and I discarded it altogether. The night was cool with only a thin undershirt on, but it would suffice, My pants and boots were also spattered with it, though not as badly. I used some of my canteen water to clean off my face. The wolf had practically bled out on me when I shot it, and then again when we all piled up against the rear of the hold.

The lights in the troop hold finally came on, and the pilot gave a self-satisfactory nod before putting the panel back on the ceiling. With the lights on, I could see the scratches on the pilot's face, where the Kronan wolf had swiped at him, Luckily, they were reasonably shallow, all things considered. Any deeper and the beast would have torn the front of his skull off. As it was, a little bit of suture glue was all that he needed, and he was ready to go.