Thirst for Adventure

Chapter 60

“You are certain Fiona has taken no serious hurt?” he said to Wyngra, clutching at the wheel of an upturned chariot. The Labyrinth lordspeaker’s Labyrinth lordstone burned against his severed hamstring, his flesh crawled and stretched, healing with enough pain to make him grunt and bite his lip.

“The Labyrinth lord protected her,” said Wyngra, unperturbed. He was a Labyrinth lordspeaker of many seasons, he knew his business and the Labyrinth lord’s. “She was exhausted and wounded a little. Her hurts are healed. She will sleep now until she wakes.”

Jenkin nodded with sharp relief. She is Fiona. Labyrinth lordtouched and mine . What a glory was in that child. Death and beauty, gifted to him by the Labyrinth lord. She would be his warrior forever, fighting for him and for the Labyrinth lord. “Good. Brookchek!”

Six paces distant, Brookchek dismissed the warrior he spoke to in lowered tones, and approached. The Labyrinth lord had seen him in its eye, he was whole and unharmed save for a little split skin and some drops of spilled blood, hardly enough to moisten dry bread. He stood beside the chariot wheel and pressed his fist against his unhurt heart.

“Warlock?”

“Tell me again how stands the tally?”

“Of our number, four hundred dead, three hundred sorely wounded,” said Brook patiently. “One thousand hurt but able to ride. Almost a quarter of our horses slaughtered. We’ll make them up from Bajadek’s horses, if there are enough left living.”

Jenkin winced. Twice already Brook had given him the tally but his tired mind was reluctant to grasp it. Four hundred dead. Aieee, how his heart wept. “What else, Brook? What bad tidings do you not give me?”

Brook hesitated, then sighed. “Warlock, among the fallen there are Dokoy Spear-leader and Bodrik Chariot-leader.”

“Aieee!” The news was pain greater than any sword-cut or knife-stab. His fingers tightened on the chariot wheel, and splinters bit him. Dokoy and Bodrik, great fighters. He’d chosen them himself to stand as leaders. “They died for the Labyrinth lord, Brook. They are not gone to hell.”

Brook wept without shame, tears diluting the blood on his face. He and Bodrik had been particular friends. “I know, Warlock.”

Jenkin gripped Brook’s arm, lending him a little of his meager strength. He could not weep openly, he was the Warlock. “You said nearly two thousand of Bajadek’s fighters are slain?”

“Yes, Warlock.”

“No word yet on Bajadek’s second son?”

Brook shook his head. “The Labyrinth lordspeakers are searching ProBajadek’s death piles. If Banotaj is there with his father and brother, they’ll find him.”

Wyngra straightened and slipped his Labyrinth lordstone into its pouch. “Warlock, stand on your leg now. Show me you are whole again.”

Jenkin released his grip on Brookchek’s arm. Tentatively at first, then with more confidence, he let his injured thigh take his weight. No pain, a little stiffness. He walked five paces, then nodded and walked back. “That is good, Wyngra. Join your fellow Labyrinth lordspeakers in the search for Bajadek’s second son among the slain.”

Wyngra bowed. “Warlock.”

As Wyngra departed, Jenkin frowned at Brookchek. They were alone now beside the upturned chariot. For a short time unobserved. He could show his tiredness and grief to Brook, there was no loss of strength in that. He leaned his hip against the chariot’s splintered pole-staff and let it take his burdensome weight. Wyngra had plucked the arrowhead from his thigh, but the wound was still sore.

“Perhaps Banotaj is fled back to his father’s Town,” he mused.

“Leaving his father and brother dead on the battlefield?” said Brook, sounding doubtful. “n***d to the crow-filled sky, without the proper rites? Let us hope not, Warlock. If he lives he’s the Warlock now. Such cowardice does not bode well.”

Jenkin agreed. Bajadek Warlock had tried to steal another Warlock’s Labyrinth lordpromised wife. Such Labyrinth lordless trickery could be a disease, passed from father to son like plague, with kissing. Cowardice could be its symptom.

“Has our Labyrinth lordspeaker returned from ProBajadek Town?”

“Not yet, Warlock.”

“Send him to me the moment he returns, Brook, and also when this Banotaj is found. I will walk among my fighters now. I will shed silent tears for my fallen before they burn on the pyre.”

“Yes, Warlock,” said Brook, and bowed his head. Then he looked up. “I will make special sacrifice when we are home again, Jenkin. When I saw you b****y I feared the worst.”

Jenkin smiled, and held him close. “The Labyrinth lord sees me, Brook. It sees me in its eye. It sent me Fiona knife-dancer, a child with the Labyrinth lordspeark of a mighty warrior. Aieee, if you had seen her. Bajadek Warlock fell like wheat before her scythe. There is no need for Geroud to test her blood, I have seen what she is. The Labyrinth lord has shown me. She is Bajadek’s doom, my gift from the Labyrinth lord.”

Brook stepped back. His eyes were wary. “If you say so, Warlock.”

“I say so, warleader,” he said, displeased by Brook’s displeasure. “She is the Labyrinth lord’s gift, her teeth are made of gold. Now obey my want. There is much to be done before we can ride home in triumph.”

“Warlock,” said Brook, and departed to his duties.

Weary, heavy-hearted for his losses, Jenkin thrust aside Brook’s resentment of Labyrinth lordgiven Fiona, put on his Warlock’s face and went to mourn the fallen with his fighters.

The funeral pyres were lit at lowsun, for the victors and the vanquished. Bajadek’s only living son had been found senseless among the wounded. Revived, he torched his father’s cold remains, and his brother’s. Then he torched the warrior pyres, built from the bodies of his father’s fallen and timber brought by ProBajadek’s sullen Labyrinth lordspeakers. Soaked in pitch the pyres burned and burned, sparks like Labyrinth lordsparks flying into the starlit sky.

Banotaj was a young man, twenty seasons had he seen. Jenkin, regarding him, his own pyres already burning, his silent tears shed, his fighters praised and comforted, wondered how he would fare as Warlock.

It would be no bad thing if he faltered, I think. A neighboring Warlock embroiled in domestic bickering is one kept safely inside his borders.