Forging the Sword (The Farsala Trilogy) by Bell Hilari

Author:Bell, Hilari [Bell, Hilari]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Simon Pulse
Published: 2008-06-23T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWELVE

JIAAN

DURING THE DAY, with so many eyes upon the prisoner and the men guarding him, Jiaan had no fear that he would “disappear,” even if the guard were distracted for a moment. But in the darkness …

“There’s no help for it,” he told Hosah grimly. “He’ll have to sleep in my hutch. No one would dare try to get to him there.”

Jiaan had spent the rest of the day among the soldiers and squad leaders, mostly listening. He now knew that Fasal commanded the loyalty of less than a third of them, and even those men preferred that there be no power struggle between their two leaders. But they did see the army as having two leaders, not one commander and several subordinates, and that was dangerous. If they could distract the guards and get their hands on the prisoner, they would do so—more to uphold their chosen commander’s authority than out of any need for information. But in Jiaan’s own hutch the prisoner would be safe, for no one would go so far as to fight Jiaan for him. Not yet.

Less than four months, he thought. If I can hold this army to its purpose, keep some part of Farsala free of the Hrum for four months, then Fascal can do whatever he likes.

Yet his heart ached at the thought of abandoning his men, the army he had created. For all the stress and irritation that were daily parts of the job, he knew he was good at it—better than Fasal would be anyway!

Hosah, who seemed to have attached himself to Jiaan, promptly provided one of those irritants—subordinates who questioned his decisions. “Are you sure about that, sir? I thought you said that inside a hutch they’d be close enough to take a guard by surprise. And there’s not enough room in your hutch for you, a guard, and a prisoner.”

“The guard will stand outside,” said Jiaan patiently, “with orders to cut his way through the walls the instant he hears anything suspicious. If we shackle the prisoner’s right wrist and ankle to the posts and keep anything that could be used as a weapon out of his reach, what can he do to me, even in my sleep, with just one hand?”

Hosah thought it over, and his troubled frown lightened. “That’ll do, sir. I’ll get shackles from our stores and see that your hutch is prepared and the prisoner settled before you’re ready for bed. That way he won’t be disturbing you.”

“He’d better not,” said Jiaan. “Or I might change my mind.”

He had saved the man, but that didn’t mean that he liked him, and the thought of sleeping under the eyes of an enemy officer was … disturbing. But it seemed the only way to make sure that the man stayed safe—and that Jiaan’s army remained under his control.

HE HAD PREPARED HIMSELF, as he left the circle of men who gathered around the big cookfire shortly after the winter’s early sunset, but it still felt odd to enter his own hutch and find a man chained there.

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