The Tainted Cup by Robert Jackson Bennett

Author:Robert Jackson Bennett [Bennett, Robert Jackson]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Published: 2024-02-06T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 21

| | |

THE LEGION PATROL CAME to deal with the deserters, and I left the scene in the stables and wandered into the mill, the smell of rot all about me. It was a cavernous, dark place, with bundles of fernpaper drooping in great clumps along the posts. Weak starlight dribbled through a high window, and the skeletons of machinery crouched in the corners. It felt like I was in a tomb, but I was so stunned I didn’t care. I slumped into a chair in the dark and just sat, listening to the mutterings and calls of the soldiers outside.

My eyes fluttered, shook. I remembered the spray of blood on my face, the saline taste in my mouth. The way that one man’s mouth had worked stupidly in the lamplight, his eyes so confused and hurt. Every part of my body was sticky and crackling with drying blood. It was best to not move at all.

Strovi returned, his mai-lantern held high. He glanced about the room and set the lantern on the table, his sweat-gleamed face a smear of light in the dark.

“Did you see a way down, Kol?” he asked.

“A way down?” I said weakly.

“Down into the basement. You haven’t looked about?”

I shook my head.

He stared off into the darkness. “I talked to them. They said there was something there, when they broke in,” he said. “The deserters thought this place abandoned and broke in through a window. But then they went to the basement, and…” He swallowed. “I’ve sent word to the Iudex. The whole investigation team should be here soon—Uhad and all. For now…” He wiped his face with a trembling hand. “I think you should engrave the room. Look at it like your immunis might want you to. Yes?”

I stared ahead. I could hear his words but could not comprehend them.

“Din?” he said. “Din!”

“What?” I said quietly.

“You need to get up and look!” he snapped. “This is a death scene! Get up and…Oh, damn it all…”

He grabbed me by the front of my shirt and hauled me to my feet. Then he looked into my face, his gaze compassionate yet desperate, and pulled a handkerchief from his pocket.

“That was your first fight, wasn’t it?” he said.

I said nothing. Answering such questions seemed pointless.

“By hell, you’re a mess.” He gently wiped my face of blood, using the cloth to swab my eyes, my nose, my mouth. Then he sighed and said, “Your sword.”

“My what?”

“The sword. You need to clean it. It won’t do to sheathe it bloody. It’s dishonorable.”

I looked down and saw the sword still clutched in my bloodied hand. I’d had no idea I still held the thing. I watched as he gingerly took me by the wrist, pulled the sword free from my hand, and wiped down the blade with his bloody handkerchief.

“There,” he said. “Not perfect, but…It’ll do.”

I stuck it in my sheath, yet it did not fit: the sheath was too short, leaving at least four smallspan of blade exposed.

“Is…is that not your sword, Din?” he asked.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.