It was a clean getaway. No pursuit, no likelihood of it.
Usually, he would have done his best to cover his tracks—no matter how slight the chance was that the beaten remainder of the lance should take up the trail later. This time he didn’t bother. A few miles out he stopped just long enough to unpack his gear from the coliye and set the animal loose. After that, he simply set Eclipse headed west, and tried to stay awake.
It was long, dragging hours. Since it had taken nearly thirty-six hours of riding, most of it at a canter or gallop, to get as far away as he had, it would take at least forty-eight to get back, considering Eclipse was already tired, and the group would have been moving farther away in his absence.
Forty-eight unending hours. His canteen and provisions had not been on the coliye, meaning he had no food, and could not carry water with him, instead only able to drink as much as possible when he came to a reliable source. That only happened once. Hunger gnawed at his stomach mercilessly. For most of the trip, his throat felt like a sun-baked desert. And of course, the unrelenting pain that covered his back and shoulders. With dehydration and hunger came fatigue, dizziness, blurred vision. At one point when he stopped Eclipse, he woke up collapsed on the ground, unsure how he had gotten there.
After that, he determined not to stop again. He couldn’t. He had to get back to the other Wardens and wards. Had to…In the periods of alertness, he tried to rationalize that he wanted to get there as quickly as possible, and that to delay was risky. During the stretches where his mind wandered, hazy and not quite fully conscious, all he knew was that he couldn’t die out here, alone. He had to get back. To Grrake, to Talea, to all of them. He had to get back.
When he snapped awake after hours of drifting in and out of nightmarish semi-consciousness to see the glow of a fire ahead of him, it seemed impossible. A dream. Too good to be true. Surely the eternity couldn’t have finally come to an end.
But it was true. A small fire, with three tents around it. A single person seated in the glow, on watch. Even from that distance, Yhkon felt sure it was Grrake.
And he was right. A strange tension crept into his aching muscles as they neared, Eclipse plodding along, nose nearly touching the grass in his exhaustion. Grrake was at his side the moment he stopped the wretched celith beside those of the other Wardens. Catching him when he weakly dismounted. Hand closing around one of his burned shoulders to steady him. Yhkon caught his breath on a groan without meaning to. Grrake retracted his hand instantly. “What is it? How are you hurt?”
Yhkon barely managed to rasp out a reply, and even then it wasn’t complete. “Burn. I just need…” He made a vague gesture to the log Grrake had been sitting on. Even if he’d been doing nothing but sitting in a saddle for the last few days, he didn’t think he could stand much longer. “To sit. And water.”
Grrake took him by the arm instead, helping him to the log. When Yhkon was seated, he fetched a canteen, which was empty in a few ravenous gulps. Once he was done, Grrake sat down in front of him. His eyes were an unnerving mixture of anxiety, despair, and anger. When Grrake was angry, things weren’t good. “What happened, and where are you hurt?”
His throat still felt dry even after the entire canteen, and he wasn’t sure if it was because he was still thirsty or because he didn’t want to have this conversation. “My back.”
It was only answer to one of the questions, but Grrake nodded and set to work, pulling Yhkon’s shirt off and moving behind him. Yhkon could practically feel his friend’s dismay and chagrin when he saw the burns. “What did you do?!”
“You think I did it?” the retort slipped out before he could stop it. He looked away. “They wanted information, I didn’t give it, they boiled some water. Simple as that.”
“Yhkon!” Grrake was in front of him again, giving him little choice except to make eye contact, and see just how upset the man was. “There’s nothing simple about this. Don’t try that on me.”
Yhkon bit his tongue against another sarcastic reply. Grrake left and returned with medical supplies, sitting down behind him to tend the burns. If it looked at all as bad as it felt, no doubt it wasn’t a pretty sight. The ointment Grrake was rubbing in only made it hurt worse, to the point where he had to wad up his shirt and squeeze the life out of it as distraction.
As if that wasn’t bad enough, Grrake apparently wasn’t ready to let the matter rest. “You can’t keep doing this. What were you thinking, leaving to deal with that lance by yourself? Getting captured and—”
“I was thinking about the safety of the wards,” he snapped. “If I hadn’t drawn off the lance, they would have caught up to us, and caused a lot more trouble than just some burns on my back.”
Grrake’s slathered fingers quit their task. Yhkon didn’t dare turn around. He didn’t want to see whatever expression his friend wore, whether livid, desperate, or otherwise. But he could hear it in his voice. “We both know that’s a lie. The safety of the wards was an afterthought. If that was all you cared about, you would have come back to get at least one or two others of us Wardens, and together we would have dealt with the lance. So stop hiding behind that lie and admit that you did it because you’re reckless!”
Whenever possible, Yhkon avoided swearing around Grrake. He knew the man didn’t approve, and he didn’t take any particular pleasure in disappointing him. But in that moment he didn’t care. In fact, he relished the vehement delivery of a curse just to spite him, before replying. “Tarol is reckless. Resh is reckless. Hell, Gustor and Haeric are reckless sometimes. But only I get this blasted lecture!”
“Yhkon…” Grrake’s voice was losing its heat. When he moved forward again to face him as he spoke, his eyes had lost it too. They were only sad now. Sad, weary, forlorn. And that was worse than anger. “You know what the difference is. They’re reckless just because they are, the normal bravado and daring of young men. But you…” He looked away, face contorted as if he were in pain. With a gesture to Yhkon’s blistered back, he swallowed and continued, as if it took all the energy he had just to speak the words. “But you’re reckless because you don’t care. You don’t care if they hurt you, or kill you.”
Yhkon flinched.
“Please…” In the firelight, Grrake’s eyes appeared to be glistening. “You have things to live for. I know that since, since Tessa—”
He balled his fists, squeezing until his knuckles were white. “Stop.”
Grrake didn’t stop, even if his voice quivered. “That since you lost her, you’ve felt like there’s nothing left for you. I know that—”
“Leave me alone!” If he’d been any less exhausted, he would have stormed off. As it was, he felt unable to do anything but swear and snap and glare. They’d probably already woken up most of the other Wardens and the wards, why not finish the job. Let the lot of them hear the wretched business, let Grrake tell the world things he had no business speaking about. “Mention her again, and you’ll lose all the confidence that you already take advantage of.”
“Yhkon, you can’t just keep—”
“I bloody well can!”