Soulwoven: Exile

Chapter 32

~32~

Twelve hours before the sack of Death's Head

Still alive.

Leramis woke to drums and flapping canvas on 9 Leafmonth 7983. Water dripped onto his cheek and ran down his neck. Green light and dark shadows washed over him.

They seemed to have gotten tired of him, after a while.

After Steelhill's ultimatum, the Eldanians had put Leramis in an empty tent and let him think, then returned to ask him questions about Death's Head. He'd fed them false answers. You could choose how you wanted to be remembered, as Steelhill had said. You could try anything you might to live, only to fail in the end, or you could accept that no one lived forever and go to the grave with your sense of who you were intact.

But Steelhill's one-day deadline had come and gone, and Leramis hadn't been turned over to the Temple or killed. There'd been no more pokers in the coals, either. Someone from the Temple waited outside the tent, always, and someone else from the Eldanian army sat on a stool inside it. They never spoke to him, and after a while they'd stopped even looking at him.

But they fed him and gave him water.

Someone was keeping him alive, and he wondered why.

The drums were followed by loud curses.

"Half-mad!"

Muffled squabbling from outside the tent.

"Hentworth! Dammit, I want him to see!"

A canvas flap whipped open, and bright light framed a tall shadow in the door. Leramis squinted. Behind the silhouette the clouds looked high and thin with the light of morning.

The shadow stepped inside the tent. Leramis's eyes adjusted.

Charles Steelhill stood before him, half-clad in gleaming plate armor. Two gray-faced soldiers at his back hurried to finish placing and tightening his protection. His eyes blazed. His face was flushed. His teeth gnashed.

"They're marching, Half-mad," he growled, and he strode forward, forcing one of his assistants along with him. Leramis saw the slap coming but could only flinch away from it. Steelhill's open hand struck his ear and set it ringing. "They're marching to their deaths, and you could have saved them!"

Leramis was hauled up by his collar and shoved into the arms of one of Steelhill's attendants. His bindings were removed. It took a moment for feeling to return to his wrists, and he stood barefoot in the mud, rubbing his arms and his hands.

"Even if I'd known anything, Charles—"

"Spare me," spat Steelhill. "You remember how to ride?"

Leramis nodded. He remembered, though his legs felt wobbly and he wondered whether he'd be able to.

"Then ride with me."

Leramis did. Water was brought to him, and porridge, and boots. With the first two in his stomach and the third on his feet, he felt stronger. He followed Steelhill from the stinking, muddy tent into a cold dawn of bright mist and shouts and the thunder of hooves.

Steelhill didn't so much as look at him. He seemed preoccupied. And whenever he wasn't glaring at Leramis, the anger bled out of him.

As if he was only acting.

People came up to him, on horses or on foot, asking questions and carrying orders off. Twelve households, Steelhill had said he commanded. Probably ten to twenty soldiers in each. Conscriptees, or, since Steel Hall was a wealthy place, people paid to take their places.