Toma and Mikla came running. "Steban saw smoke," Toma gasped. "Toward Kosku's place. We're going over there." They ran on to the house.
Tain walked after them.
He arrived to find Toma brandishing his quarterstaff. Mikla was scraping clots of earth off a sword he had dug out of the floor.
X
Sorrow invaded Tain's soul. He couldn't repulse it. It persisted while he helped Steban water the sheep, and worsened while he sat with Rula, waiting for the men to return. Hours passed before he identified its root cause. Homesickness.
"I'm exhausted," he muttered. "Better turn in."
Rula sped him a look of mute appeal. He ignored it. He didn't dare wait with her. Not anymore. Not with these unsoldierly feelings threatening to betray all honor.
The Soldier's Rituals did no good. They only reminded him of the life he had abandoned. He was a soldier no more. He had chosen a different path, a different life.
A part of life lay inside the sod house, perhaps his for the asking.
"I'm a man of honor," he mumbled. Desperation choked his voice.
And again his heart leaned to his motherland.
Sighing, he broke into his mule packs. He found his armorer's kit, began oiling his weapons.
But his mind kept flitting, taunting him like a black butterfly. Home. Rula. Home. Rula again.
Piece by piece, with exaggerated care, he oiled his armor. It was overdue. Lacquerwork needed constant, loving care. He had let it slide so he wouldn't risk giving himself away.
He worked with the unhappy devotion of a recruit forewarned of a surprise inspection. It required concentration. The distractions slid into the recesses of his mind.
He was cleaning the eyepieces of his mask when he heard the startled gasp.
He looked up. Rula had come to the barn.
He hadn't heard her light tread.
She stared at the mask. Fascination and horror alternated on her face. Her lips worked. No sound came forth.
Tain didn't move.
This is the end, he thought. She knows what the mask means....
"I... . Steban fell asleep. ... I thought...." She couldn't tear her gaze away from that hideous metal visage.
She yielded to the impulse to flee, took several steps. Then something drew her back.
Fatalistically. Tain polished the thin traceries of inlaid gold.
"Are you? ... Is that real9"
"Yes, Rula." He reattached the mask to his helmet. "I was a leading centurion of the Demon Guard.
The Demon Prince's personal bodyguard." He returned mask and helmet to his mule packs, started collecting the rest of his armor.
He had to go.
"How?… How can that be? You're not?…"
"We're just men, Rula. Not devils." He guided the mule to the packs, threw a pad across her back.
"We have our weaknesses and fears too." He threw the first pack on and adjusted it.
"What are you doing?"
"I can't stay now. You know what I was. That changes everything."
"Oh."
She watched till he finished. But when he called the roan, and began saddling him, she whispered.
"Tain?" He turned.
She wasn't two feet away.
"Tain. It doesn't matter. I won't tell anyone. Stay." One of his former master's familiar spirits reached into his guts and, with bloody talons, slowly twisted his intestines. It took no experience to read the offer in her eyes. "Please stay. I... We need you here." One treacherous hand overcame his will. He caressed her cheek. She shivered under his touch, hugged herself as if she were cold. She pressed her cheek against his fingers. "Stay?" Her voice was a mouse's whisper.
He tried to harden his eyes. "Oh, no. Not now. More than ever."
"Tain. Don't. You can't." Her gaze fell to the straw. Savage quaking conquered her.
She moved toward him. Her arms enveloped his neck. She buried her face in his chest. He felt the warm moistness of tears through his clothing.
He couldn't push her away. "No," he said, and she understood that he meant he wouldn't go.
He separated himself gently and began unloading the mule. He avoided Rula's eyes, and she his whenever he succumbed.
He turned to the roan. Then Mikla's voice, cursing, came from toward Kosku's.
"Better go inside. I'll be there in a minute." Disappointment, pain, anger, fear, played tag across Rula's face. "Yes. All right."
Slowly, going to the Rituals briefly, Tain finished. Maybe later. During the night, when she wouldn't be here to block his path... .
Liar, he thought. It's too late now. He went to the house.
Toma and Mikla had arrived. They were opening jars of beer. "It was Kosku's place," Toma said.
Hate and anger had him shaking. He was ready to do something foolish.
"He got away," Mikla added. "They're hunting him now. Like an animal. They'll murder him."
"He'll go to Palikov's," Toma said. Mikla nodded. "They're old friends. Palikov is as stubborn as he is."
"They can figure the same as us. The Witch. ..." Mikla glanced at Tain. "She'll tell them." He finished his beer, seized another jar. Toma matched his consumption.
"We could get there first," Toma guessed.
"It's a long way. Six miles." Mikla downed his jar, grabbed another. Tain glanced into the wall pantry. The beer supply was dwindling fast. And it was a strong drink, brewed by the nomads from grain and honey. They traded it for sheepskins and mutton.
"Palikov," said Tain. "He's the one that lives out by the Toad?"
"That's him." Mikla didn't pay Tain much heed. Toma gave him a look that asked why he wanted to know.
"We can't let them get away with it," Kleckla growled. "No! with murder. Enough is enough. This morning they beat the Arimkov girl half to death."
"Oh!" Rula gasped. "She always was jealous of Lari. Over that boy Lief."
"Rula."
"I'm sorry, Toma."
Tain considered the men. They were angry and scared. They had decided to do a deed, didn't know if they could, and felt they had talked too much to back down.
A lot more beer would go down before they marched.
Tain stepped backward into the night, leaving.
XI
He spent fifteen minutes probing the smouldering remnants of Kosku's home and barn. He found something Toma and Mikla had overlooked.
The child's body was so badly burned he couldn't tell its sex.
He had seen worse. He had been a soldier of the Dread Empire. The gruesome corpse moved him less than did the horror of the sheep pens.
The animals had been used for target practice. The raiders hadn't bothered finishing the injured.
Tain did what had to be done. He understood Toma and Mikla better after cutting the throats of lambs and kids.
There was no excuse for wanton destruction. Though the accusation sometimes flew, the legions never killed or destroyed for pleasure.
A beast had left its mark here.
He swung onto the roan and headed toward the Toad.
A wall collapsed behind him. The fire returned to life, splashing the slope with dull red light.
Tain's shadow reached ahead, flickering like an uncertain black ghost.
Distance fled. About a mile east of the Kleckla house he detected other night travelers.
Toma and Mikla were walking slowly, steering a wobbly course, pausing frequently to relieve their bladders. They had brought beer with them.