Bandits came out of their tents and rose from where they had been playing at dice and sulla-sticks, pulling out blades and cudgels, axes and knives. Many loaded crossbows or nocked arrows on bowstrings. Cathan dropped his practice sword and went for his sling, delving into his pouch for the shards of his family’s sacred triangle. The hills had a way of throwing sound, and already he could hear the thud of approaching hooves. He ran on Tavarre’s heels to the camp’s edge, where an earthen game trail led out into the wild.
The approaching rider rounded a bend a few minutes later and reined in hard as half a dozen quarrels hit the ground before him. His horse reared, eyes rolling, and he tumbled from the saddle, the breath whoofing out of him as he hit the ground. Tavarre’s lieutenant, a massive, balding man-at-arms named Vedro, was on him in an instant, pointing a short-hafted spear at the man’s throat.
“Wait!” the rider cried. “I’m not armed!”
Cathan looked the man up and down. Sure enough, he held no weapon, nor was there any sheathed on his belt. He wore a tunic of rough, undyed wool, not a soldier’s armor or the robes of a priest, and he had an unruly mop of sandy hair. Cathan had been whirling his sling in a circle over his head. Now he let it slow and drop, the ceramic shard still in its pouch.
“Deledos?” he asked.
Several bandits looked at him, Tavarre among them. “You know him?” the baron asked.
Cathan nodded. Deledos was the son of the town chandler. His younger brother Ormand had been a childhood friend. The Longosai had taken father and brother alike. He was lame, his right leg twisted from a break in his youth, which had kept him from joining the bandits.
“It’s all right,” Cathan said. “He’s come from Luciel.”
Deledos nodded enthusiastically, staring at the spear’s gleaming tip. For a long, moment, no one moved… then Tavarre lowered his sword. “Vedro,” he said.
The man-at-arms pulled back, but his eyes stayed narrow and he offered no hand to help as Deledos struggled to his feet. Reboy had bitten his tongue in the fall and wiped blood from his lips.
“I’m s-sorry, milord,” he stammered, eyes downcast as he bowed to Tavarre.
The baron waved him off. “What’s this about, lad?” he demanded. “Why have you come?”
“To find him,” Deledos replied, pointing at Cathan.
“Me?” Cathan asked, surprised. “What for?”
Deledos met his gaze for a moment, his eyes dark, then looked away.
Cathan’s mouth dropped open as a cold, hard feeling settled in his stomach. “Oh, no,” he moaned.
A spear of light pierced the gloom as the door swung open. The small room was dark and close, the windows covered over. There was no sound, save for the soft rasp of troubled breathing. Bundles of herbs hung from the ceiling to mask the sour, sharp smell. They weren’t enough, however, and the odor brought a stab of pain to Cathan’s heart as he looked upon the cot, and the figure huddled beneath the blankets.
He stood in the doorway, paralyzed. He’d come straight from the camp, sharing Deledos’s horse. He swallowed as a woman came up beside him-an old, stooped crone, her gray hair cropped short in a widow’s cut. Her face was pale and mournful, and she looked far older than her sixty years. She said nothing, only laid a frail hand on Cathan’s arm.
“Fendrilla,” he said. “How long?”
“Two days,” she whispered. “It’s early yet, lad. There’s still plenty of time.”
He shook his head, a bitter taste in his mouth. “For what?”
“For praying,” Fendrilla replied, pointing.
Cathan’s lip curled as he saw the triangle, hanging by the bed: a plain, wooden one, its white paint worn and faded with age. With a snarl, he shook off the old woman’s grasp and strode across the room. Reaching the triangle, he pulled it down and turned toward the door. “What is this?” he demanded.
“Lad,” Fendrilla answered, shaking her head. “The god-”
Livid, he hawked and spat on the holy symbol, then flung it to the floor. “That for the god!”
Horrified, Fendrilla hurried forward to pick it up.
“No!” he snapped. “Paladine’s done enough harm already. I won’t have his mark-”
“Cathan?”
The thin, quavering voice came from the bed. Cathan stopped, his insides lurching, then turned and knelt beside it. With a shaking hand he pulled back the blankets. “Wentha?”
She had been a boyish girl, scabs on her knees and her freckled face seldom free of dirt, but she had begun to change since her thirteenth name-day. Slowly, she had started to grow beautiful, to draw stares from the village’s boys. She’d let her hair grow long, tumbling down over her shoulders in honey-colored waves, and the rest of her body had started to go from sharp angles to curves. Cathan had watched with pride, over the past year, as his sister changed into a woman.
Now she was changing into something else. It was early yet, the red blooms on her arms the only sign, but it wouldn’t be long before the Longosai turned her into something wretched, as it had the rest of his family.
“Oh, Blossom,” he began, then faltered, bowing his head. He would not cry.
“Where have you been?” she asked. She was pale, tired-looking, but not yet gaunt. That would come. “You stopped coming to visit, after… after Tancred…”
He shook his head. She didn’t know about the bandits. “I’ve been busy, lass, but I’m here now.”
She smiled, and his heart nearly broke. Though it was the same lovely smile she’d always had, he saw only a terrible rictus. He looked away, and when he found the strength to turn back her eyes had fluttered shut again. He set her hand down, then laid his head on her chest, listening. Her lifebeat sounded horribly weak to his ears.
Paladine, he prayed silently, If you are the great god of good the clerics claim, do this one thing and I’ll serve you the rest of my days. She’s just a girl. Heal her.
For a moment, the beating of Wentha’s heart seemed to strengthen, her breathing to lose its faint, whistling wheeze. Cathan pulled back, his eyes wide, wondering if Fendrilla had been right after all-had his prayer healed her?
When he looked closer, though, the rash was still there, angry red bumps running from wrist to elbow. The Longosai had her and would not let go so easily.
Slowly, he drew the blanket back over her and stood still, then, with a growl, he turned and walked away. Fendrilla moved to stop him but held back when she saw the wildness in his eyes. His thoughts roiling, he stormed out of the old woman’s cottage, into the half-light of sunset.
He walked for hours, first through Luciel’s cluster of thatched cottages-many of them dark now, emptied by the plague-then up the rutted road, climbing the ridge that marked the edge of the valley where he’d lived all his life. He didn’t look back but kept on, the shadows of pines and boulders lengthening around him. Somewhere he found a fallen branch, and swiped at imagined foes: Scatas, fat priests, Paladine himself. Always he made sure to hit them with the last four inches. That was what killed.
In time-he wasn’t sure how long, but it must have been hours-he stopped walking. The sun had set, and the red moon was rising, the hue of its light matching his mood. He’d gotten off the road sometime and had been wandering the wilds. Now, looking around, he saw things he recognized: a boulder shaped like a man’s face, a familiar stand of birches. Ahead, a narrow ravine cut through the crags. Without his mind to tell them where to go, his feet had brought him back to camp.
I’m coming home, he thought. Sighing, he cast aside his branch and walked on.
Cresting one last hill shoulder, he came to a halt again as he looked down at the gorge below. There was something different about the camp: cautious about lighting too many fires, the bandits tended to bed down early. Only the watchers remained awake for long after dusk. Now, though, the ravine was bustling, men calling out to one another as they hurried about. Some bent by the stream, filling skins with water. Others were saddling the horses, or pulling down tents. Amidst it all, Lord Tavarre stood on a grassy hummock, snapping orders and shouting curses.