Prisoner of the Iron Tower by Sarah Ash

Author:Sarah Ash [Ash, Sarah]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, pdf
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 20

Gavril felt warm sunlight on his closed eyelids. He opened his eyes and saw a cloudless sky above him. He lay on grass, coarse and springy; as he turned his head, he saw little tufts of white clover and daisies in the grass, and smelled their faint honeyed scent.

“Where am I?”

“Near your home. But you need human nourishment to sustain you.” He heard the Drakhaoul’s voice resonating within his mind like a dark breath of fiery wind. He had never imagined he would feel so glad to hear that voice again.

“How long have I been here?” It was an effort just to form the words. He was so tired he just wanted to lie back in the sun and drift back into unconsciousness.

“Long enough for me to heal the injuries to your brain. But you are still weak from loss of blood.”

Gulls circled high overhead, white against the brilliant blue of the sky.

“Why did you come back?” he asked drowsily.

“Your need was too great.”

Sleep washed over Gavril. When he awoke again, the sun had moved across the sky toward the west. It was late afternoon.

He sat up and began to take stock of his bearings. “Near your home,” the Drakhaoul had said. Was he on the cliffs above Vermeille Bay? He tried to get to his feet but his legs were so weak that he crumpled back to his knees in the grass.

“What’s he doing here?”

“Looks like he’s been injured. Could be one of the rebels from the citadel.”

Voices sounded close to Gavril. Prison warders? He threw up his arms to protect his head.

“It’s all right, son. We’re not going to hurt you.”

Slowly he realized that they were speaking Smarnan. He opened his eyes and saw two men—vineyard workers, from the look of them—bending over him in the golden light.

“You’ve taken a nasty cut to the head there, boy. Have you been in the fighting?”

“Fighting?” Gavril repeated, confused.

“Fighting the Tielens.”

“Tielens.” Gavril’s fists clenched at the hated name.

“Can you walk, son?” The older of the two nodded to the other, and between them they hoisted Gavril to his feet. “Where are you making for?”

“Vermeille.”

The two workers glanced at each other.

“I wouldn’t go back there right now. Not in your condition. Vermeille is swarming with Tielen soldiers.”

“He can come back with us tonight, Jarji, can’t he? He can sleep in the barn.”

They hoisted Gavril up onto their ox-drawn cart and jogged back through the warm dusk to the vineyard.

The vineyard women made a fuss of him, tutting in horror over his wounds and insisting on feeding him soup fortified with their own rich red wine to “build up his strength.”

It was so good just to sit in the kitchen, feeling the warmth from the fire on the range and to smell the hot peppery steam rising from the spicy meat soup. Good to hear the chatter around him in his native language. Good, above all other things, to know he was free.

“How’s things in the citadel?” Jarji asked him suddenly.

Gavril blinked, at a loss to know what to say.

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