I was freed from the gag and ropes, cloths pressed with force into both sides of my left shoulder. I still felt nothing I would call pain, just the pump of blood trying to escape the wound. I was still focused, still clear in my mind as Yukimura and Shingen both turned and strode back to me.
A sharp knot finished the compression bandage as they both knelt next to me, the smell of battle clinging to them, the smell of my own blood acrid in my nose.
"Lady Tamara!" Yukimura's eyes were shining, Lord Shingen however better read the expression I was wearing – damaged. He simply met my gaze, searched my eyes for a moment and noticed the absence of the pendant around my neck.
"Are you unhurt?" I asked, and his eyes shifted.
"You can understand me?" He tilted his head.
"That would be obvious yes?" He genuinely smiled, a flash of teeth as he remembered our first encounter. He offered to help me up, but I flinched away from his touch.
"I'm alright by myself." I said flatly, flexing my numb hands. I almost wobbled getting up and Yukimura reached out immediately,
"Don't. Touch. Me."
My eyes alone made him back off.
I stood, breathing a little hard, but with steel in my eyes. Yukimura went to say something, but Shingen put his hand on his arm. Confusion filled his big blue eyes, but Lord Shingen just stared steadily at me, whilst Yukimura looked back and forth between us.
"Whatever has brought you back to us ... however you have come back to us..." Lord Shingen paused; (I was beginning to notice standing upright was in fact more of a challenge than my willpower alone first thought). "Welcome back to the Takeda Clan." He finished.
Three horses were led over – I was concentrating so hard I didn't really register anything of them other than their form. I brushed aside any help to mount, only sagging for a moment as my head spun when I landed in the saddle.
"Milord." I heard Yukimura's voice behind me, "What has happened to her? It's like some part of her is missing."
"Give her time Yukimura, just be glad Tamara is here and still alive."
"How is she still conscious from that injury?"
"By her will alone Yukimura, come, let's get back to Kai."
I knew they both thought themselves out of range of my understanding, but their words had no effect on me. My heart was still dead in my chest; no emotion ran through me, there was simply moment-to-moment existence as we rode back to Kai.
Around me the men were loud, already stories were starting and there were cheers and chanting and bets about drinking later were laid. None of it reached me. Lord Yukimura rode the lines of his men, absorbed with the mood.
I rode just out of Lord Shingen's eye line near the rump of his horse, in silence. No swirling thoughts, just as blank on the inside as I must have looked on the outside. Gradually the landscape began to look more familiar, dim memories tried to get into my mind and I firmly pushed them back out.
The road straightened and widened and there in front of me the Castle gates came closer. The vision of it hit me with such a slap in the face I pulled up sharply. Shingen raised his arm and everyone behind was pulled out of their joviality as they scrambled to halt as well.
Shingen turned in the saddle to face me.
So many things were now trying to crash into my mind I felt my will was buckling.
I realised it wasn't my will or my mind at all as I fell forwards; it was my body that was buckling.
I blacked out before I felt the ground.