Rilan scrunched up his face in confusion, but before he could even work out the logic behind the insane question, Tomas had pressed the flat tip of the red-hot dagger onto the open wound.
It hissed like a snake, and Rilan jolted, shrieking in pain. It was over in an instant.
“Tomas, you complete arse!” Rilan cursed out loud. “Creator be damned!”
Tomas opened the bottle of honey and poured it over the cauterised wound. “Careful now, Rilan. Don’t want no spirits hearing what dribbles out of your foul mouth.”
“What the fuck, Tomas? A fucking troll?!”
Tomas smirked. He knew making up something crazy would distract Rilan long enough to use the hot dagger.
Rilan brought his hand up to his face, eyeing the sticky honey over the blackened wound. “Why honey?” he asked, licking one of the drops of the sweet liquid that had run too far down the side of his hand.
“I remember mother teaching me about it before she died. I would have only been four or five at the time. She used it to help heal an infected bite from a cryptspider that had snuck under my blanket one night,” Tomas explained.
“Well, no matter, it’s a nice, tasty way to end my moment of suffering,” Rilan said, exhausted. He laid back down beside the warmth of the fire, wrapping a bandage around his hand. “Thanks for that, Tommy.”
Tomas sat down against the fallen log, taking a spoonful of his soup and swallowing it whole to avoid the pungent taste on his tongue.
※
The bitter western winds began to pick up as the night grew darker. Tomas made sure that he and Rilan’s tent was appropriately pegged into the soil so it wouldn’t blow away.
Tomas boiled some stream water over the fire in an old pot he had found lying around, something warm for them to drink for the cold night ahead.
Tomas heard some commotion nearby as he sat with the bubbling pot. He looked through the sea of grey tents and noticed Captain Gharland. With him was a bunch of other men in well-made armour and expensive clothing. One of the higher-ranking officers was the field lieutenant, Britus.
Following the group were a couple of Anai squires of half stature lugging scrolls, documents, and saddlebags, scuffling like shadows in their masters’ wake. Tomas could make out the slave tattoos on their arms even from a distance.
“…we lost eight-hundred men on the field today,” Tomas overheard one of the lords say. He had thick eyebrows like bushes, a bulging stomach and wore a nobleman’s cloak. The lord was struggling to catch his breath as they walked. “Not a commendable number, but admirable nonetheless considering the alternate possibility. Watching the battle from afar was quite the spectacle. Were it not for your quick thinking with the cavalry-”
“Lord Jonys,” Gharland interrupted, turning to face the sizeable nobleman, “shouldn’t you be returning to Shadowshore? I’m sure the king could make use of your skills there.”
The stout Lord Jonys smiled, obviously not picking up on the sarcasm in Gharland’s voice. Lieutenant Britus pretended to rub his face when he was actually sneering.
“Captain, you flatter me!” Lord Jonys tittered. “But I was sent at the request of his majesty King Ulmer himself as a representative of the royal family in these trying times, to be the eyes, ears and voice of the king for the Barrowtown garrison.”
“Well,” Gharland hissed, “if King Ulmer wants a taste of war, then maybe he should be here on the battlefield instead of you, or instead of I.” Tomas swore he saw the Captain’s moustache twitching.
Lord Jonys appeared even more perplexed, as if he had never been talked down to before in his life. “Th-the king cannot be everywhere at once, Captain Gharland,” he stuttered. “We have reports of Imperial landings across the entire northern coast of the kingdom.”
Tomas realised that Lord Jonys had an image to uphold. The other commanders, officers and soldiers were watching and listening intently. The king’s representative on the field of war could not be talked down to in such a way, but it seemed like Captain Gharland cared little for the illusion of public image.
Tomas was transfixed and couldn’t keep his eyes away. “His majesty, King Ulmer, has many pressing issues to attend to,” Lord Jonys continued, a frown spreading over his face. “D-daily courts to hold, feasts and gatherings with the court. And now, with these poxy invaders from the west on our shores, he has a kingdom to defend as well.”
“And yet here I am, in the mud and the blood and the sweat and the tears of this ‘poxy invasion’,” Gharland spat, pointing his finger to the ground before pointing south with an angry swing of his arm, “and back home our king sits, safely on his throne of stone, in his walled-up city, up in his high keep.
“All the while you insist on being a thorn in my arse as I try and defend this shithole. I’m sure you see where my frustrations lie, Jonys.”
Lord Jonys stood with his mouth agape.
“Ser!” a soldier in chainmail shouted from nearby, running up to his commanding officer. Behind him came a rabble of conscripts, cursing and shouting. Tomas could see trouble brewing. He looked over to Rilan, but he had been sound asleep for a while.
“What is it?” Gharland requested.
“Ser, we have a situation. These men are threatening to-”
One of the conscripts hurled a fist-sized rock in the direction of the group of high-ranking personnel. It hit Lord Jonys straight in the jaw. A trail of blood ran down his neck and he stumbled from the impact.
“Cunts!” one of the conscripts spluttered.
“You selfish bastards!” another shouted.
One brandished a dagger.
Before they could cause any more damage, the guards were on
