"She's my daughter. She needs me."
Sadly, Tain gathered his possessions and started for the ladder.
Torfin groaned.
Tain laid his things aside, knelt beside the youth. "Ah. She does have this stubborn ass, you know." He gathered his possessions again. This time he descended without pausing.
Soldiers of the Dread Empire seldom surrendered to their emotions.
He had a hand on Steban's shoulder, trying to think of some final word, when Rula came to him.
"Tain. I'll go."
He looked into her eyes. Yes, he thought. She would. Dared he?...
Sometimes a soldier did surrender. "Steban. Go find you and your mother some horses. Rula, get some things from the Tower. Food. Utensils. Clothes. Whatever you'll need. And hurry." He scanned the horizon.
Where was Kai Ling?
"Old friend, are you coming?" he whispered.
Not even the breeze responded. It giggled round the Tower as if the gathering of Death's daughters were a cosmic joke.
Their shadows scurried impatiently round the old stronghold.
They were a hundred yards along the road to nowhere.
"Tain!"
He whirled the gelding.
Torfin leaned on the battlements, right hand grasping his neck.
Then he raised the other. "Good luck, centurion."
Tain waved. He didn't reply. His ribs ached too much for shouting.
The day was dead. He set a night course for the last bit of sunlight. Rula rode to his left, Steban to his right. The mule plodded along behind, snapping at the tails of the newcomers.
He glanced back just once, to eye the destruction he had wrought. Death's daughters had descended to the feast. The corner of his mouth quirked downward.
His name was Tain, and he was still a man to beware.
XX
The wind of dark wings wakened Kai Ling. The daughters of Death circled close. One bold vulture had landed a few feet from his outstretched hand.
He moved.
The vulture took wing.
He rose slowly. Pain gnawed his nerve ends. He surveyed the stead, the smoking ruins, and understood. He had survived his mistake. He was a lucky man.
Slowly, slowly, he turned, feeling the twilight.
There. To the west. The centurion had called on the Power yet again.
"Tain, you always were more trouble than you're worth."
He remembered an incident with goldfish, when he had lied to a Tervola of the Council in order to keep Tain an eligible Aspirant. "More trouble than you're worth." Tain had resigned in favor of the legions two weeks after the prank.
Aching in every joint, the whole surface of his body stinging, Aspirant Kai Ling hiked toward the Tower.