Read Online Standard of Honor by Jack Whyte - Free Book Online

light of the moon. The only sounds he could hear were his own footfalls on the hard-packed, windblown sandand the steady hiss of the pole ends gouging parallel tracks behind him.
    He had lost track of time and distance by the time he heard Sinclair grunt deeply and move suddenly, disturbing the plodding rhythm of his walk and almost throwing him off balance. He was glad to stop and shrug out of the harness, twisting around as he tried to lower his end gently without jarring the injured man.
    â€œWhere in God’s name are we?”
    Moray noted that Sinclair’s voice, while still weak, was noticeably stronger. He stood up on his toes and stretched hugely, swinging his arms for a time to loosen his shoulder joints before he made any attempt to answer.
    â€œAnd why can’t I move? What am I tied to?”
    Moray ruffled his friend’s hair. “Well, God bless you, too, Alec. I’m well, thank you, merely having hauled the solid weight of your large and miserable arse halfway across this desert. But it is a relief to listen to your complaining and know therefore that you are well, too.” His voice altered from one word to the next, dropping its tone of raillery and becoming serious. “You can’t move because you’re trussed up like a pig’s carcass, and you’re trussed up because it was the only way I could stop you from flailing your arm about. It’s badly broken and you were growing sick because of the pain, tossing about and raving. I used crossbow bolts for splints. And you are lashed to the only means I have of moving you in the hope of reaching safety. Saracens are swarming all about us. As for where we are, I have noidea. We’re in the desert somewhere, heading southwest towards Nazareth because I can’t think of anywhere else to go. I overheard two Saracen patrols exchanging information—Saladin has taken La Safouri, so there’s no refuge there. I borrowed this thing that you are lying on from a corpse that was left behind. I’ve been dragging you across Outremer ever since.”
    He fell silent and watched his friend absorb everything he had said, noticing as he did so that Sinclair’s face appeared to be less haggard than it had been earlier that day, although that might have been the effect of the moonlight, for the moon was now riding high overhead.
    Sinclair frowned. “You are dragging me? How?”
    â€œWith ropes. A leather harness.”
    â€œYou mean, like a horse?”
    Moray grinned as he untied the bindings of the water skin. “Aye, the same thought had occurred to me. Like a horse. A workhorse. See what you’ve made of me?”
    â€œYou said there are Saracens everywhere. Why is that?”
    â€œI don’t know. They’re probably looking for fugitives like us, people who escaped from Hattin. You look better than you did earlier, thanks be to God. Here, have some of this.”
    He knelt and held the water skin to Sinclair’s mouth, and when he had finished drinking, the injured man looked around at the moonlit waste surrounding them.
    â€œYou have no idea where we are?”
    â€œSouth and west of Hattin and Tiberias, perhaps four leagues, or five. I must have come five miles at least,pulling you, and we walked all night last night. Do you remember that?”
    Sinclair looked almost hurt. “Of course I do.” He hesitated. “But I don’t recall much else.”
    â€œI dosed you with some medication I had in my scrip and you’ve been asleep for hours. How much pain are you in?”
    Sinclair made a movement that might have been a shrug. “Some, not much. There’s pain, but it’s … distant, somehow.”
    â€œAye, that will be the drug. I’ll give you more of it later.”
    â€œBe damned if you will. I need no drugs.”
    Moray shrugged. “Not now, it’s plain. But later, if you start raving again, I’ll be the one to make that