[Camulod 3] The Eagles' Brood by Jack Whyte

Author:Jack Whyte
Language: eng
Format: azw
Tags: Fiction, Fantasy, Fairy Tales, Legends & Mythology, Historical, Folk Tales
ISBN: 9781466822078
Publisher: Tom Doherty Associates
Published: 2002-11-16T00:00:00+00:00

XXII

“DID YOU KNOW you had this, Commander?”

I looked tiredly at the arrow one of the men was holding out to me. “No, where was it?”

“Lodged in your armour, sir, at the shoulder.”

“In the back?”

“Yes, Commander, between the joints.”

I shook my head. “Didn’t feel it. Careful, it might be poisoned.”

The trooper held it up to the light and then his face registered amazement. “By the gods, Commander, I think it is! There’s a coating of some kind on the iron.”

I felt the goose-flesh of horror stirring on my neck again. “Let me see that. Give it here.” I held it up to the light as he had done and saw what looked like a residue of silvery-green crystals on the iron tip. They resembled nothing I had ever seen before. I shuddered in loathing and threw the thing from me. “It might well be. The very thought of it sickens me. Be careful of it!”

The trooper who had handed it to me had moved to retrieve it. He picked it up, holding it very carefully, and peered again at the discoloured tip. “Well,” he said, almost to himself, “we’ll soon find out.”

“And how will you do that, Trooper? Do you intend to try it out?” My voice sounded slurred to my own ears, so tired was I.

“Yes, Commander. On one of those whoresons over there.” He nodded to a huddle of prisoners I had not noticed.

“You will do no such thing!”

“Why not, Commander?” His look was one of hurt innocence. “I will simply scratch one of them. If it’s not poisoned, then there’s no harm done. If it is, then we will know who used them last time.”

I blinked at him, remembering the harmless arrow that had nicked my wrist, and remembering that this arrow, the one he held so cautiously, had lodged within a fraction of a finger’s breadth from my neck. I nodded. “Go ahead, then.”

He crossed directly to the group of prisoners, seized one of them by the arm, pulled him out of the group and scratched him deeply with the arrowhead. The prisoner gazed at the wound, dull-eyed, for several moments and then raised his eyes to me, his injured arm held stiffly, so that the small, bleeding wound inside his elbow joint was plain to see. His face was empty of any expression.

I turned away to the centurion beside me. “Water. I need to wash some of this mess off.”

“I have already ordered it, Commander.”

I saw two soldiers approaching, bearing jugs of water, and then I heard a strangled moan from behind me and whipped my head around to look. The prisoner’s face was no longer vacuous; it was a rictus of pain and terror as he held his injured arm out stiffty in front of him. Even as my mind accepted what we had done to him, his moan changed to a high, gurgling scream and he threw himself to the ground, writhing in agony, tearing at his arm and jerking it as though trying to wrench it from his body.

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