“You can talk to me,” he said, frowning. “You don’t need to go to Stoffel.”
“Well, then, tell me the truth. Why are you unhappy with my armor?”
The words seemed to make him shrink back into himself, his hands shook on his staff before he tightened his grip into a white knuckled one.
“I’m not.”
“Does this have anything to do with what happened to the armor I made for you? What happened to it?”
Luka shook his head, dragging his foot behind him as he moved to a nearby bale of hay and collapsed onto it. The movement reminded Maya again of the state of his body armor which had been returned from the frontlines. She’d seen the armor back in Rurik Castle when she’d still had her lab there, the chainmail melted together.
The breastplate had taken a few knocks, as had the backplate, but most of it had come back in one piece. She’d taken an inventory after the body armor had been returned, and most of the pieces had been returned, a little worse for the wear, to be sure, but still structurally intact. She’d even felt a little proud that her invention had stood up so well to its first outing into the field.
The only thing she hadn’t been able to find had been onesabaton, or the armored shoe to be worn by knights, which was missing.
Slowly, the thought came to her. Onesabatonwas missing. Luka was hurt on one of his feet. Was there a connection?
“How did you hurt your foot?”
“What?”
Luka stared at her as he massaged the hand on his walking stick with the other. His hair had started to grow out of its military cut, and it hung in his eyes as he bent down, as if he didn’t want to meet her eyes.
“How did you hurt your foot?” she repeated, drawing closer to him. The thought came to her, rising up like bitter bile. “Was it—was it because of my armor?”
“No,” Luka said quickly, meeting her eyes for just a moment, before looking away again. “No, I was injured through my own stupidity.”
“But yoursabaton, it’s missing, and your foot—”
“I was on the wrong end of a Tellurian ambush,” Luka said shortly.
“What happened?” When Luka seemed content to sit in silence, Maya took a step closer to him. “Luka,please.”
“It was just a small force, lying hidden in wait for us.” Luka shook his head with a laugh. “We were riding into a town that we had cleared, and spirits were high, because we were the ‘conquering heroes’, we’d driven off the Tellurians from their own towns, and we were advancing every day. We were jubilant, and we let our guard down.” He shook his head. “Ilet my guard down.”
At her silent look, Luka went on. “They left a trap for us in the middle of the road, and like a fool, I fell for it.”
“What was it?” Maya asked fearfully. She imagined any manner of fearful magical creatures—chimeras, firedrakes—
“It was a child.”
“What?”
“They left what looked like a small child, lying in the middle of the road. I ordered my Sergeant, Mikel to help her, so he got down from his horse and walked over to her…” Luka broke off and shook his head. “I realized it was a trap—too late, it turned out—I tried to stop him, but it all happened so fast…”
“I don’t understand.”
“It wasn’t a child at all. It was one of their chimeras, a failed experiment that they’d dressed up as a child and left in the middle of the road for us to find. They knew we would come along, and they knew that the young fool at the head of the Stonehearts would insist onhelpinga child, even an enemy child—” He cut himself off with a growl. “The chimera’s body had been stuffed with enough explosive spells to take down half of our regiment. None of us escaped the blast.”
“And that was when they teleported in behind us.”
Maya gasped, but Luka went on as if he hadn’t heard her.
“I was caught off guard by the blast, of course, and before I could draw my sword, they charged at me with their weapons. I managed to deflect the first blow, but the second one hit me hard on my shoulder, dislocating it from its socket. I couldn’t keep my seat on Darkbolt, and I fell, getting tangled up in the stirrups.” He shook his head. “The mages advanced on us; they didn’t give us time to regroup. One of their spells caught me. And…”
He trailed off, and Maya’s heart dropped. “And your foot?”
“Was caught in the armor. The body armor had caught a stray spell and began to malfunction. It wasn’t warded against spell damage, you see,” he said ruefully. “It grew tighter and tighter, and Stoffel and I tried to get it all off, and all that was left was thesabaton, but that was when the firedrake struck.”
