The grey-haired man laughed in his face. “Still can’t lie worth spit. Why are you back?”
Kaern smiled. “The girl needs to be with her own kind. That brought me here now, but I would have come soon anyway. I’d been hearing rumors—little, nasty whispers for the last couple years—but when I found her…they were confirmed. War is coming.”
“War never left,” a bald man said. “Tell us of something new.”
“The girl’s father was part of the resistance in the capital,” Kaern said. “After it was stamped out, he fled to the wastes. It took them a few years, but they tracked him down. They’ve tracked them all down. There’s no one left fighting the lord. I warned you all that this day was coming. You should have stood together. Now you’re going to hang separately.”
“Going against the lord in his own city wasn’t a war, it was suicide!” the bald man snapped. “You knew that. You know that.”
Kaern shook his head. “I’ve said my piece, given you more warning than you deserve. He’s going to come for you now. You’re all that’s left within his territory. He needs to secure this community before he can look outward. Do as you will with the information.”
Kaern got up, causing the men to rise quickly as well.
“You’re leaving?”
“Mikael, there’s nothing here for me.”
“What about then girl?” Mikael demanded. “Are you just leaving her here, with a war coming?”
“The whole world is at war, you said so yourself,” Kaern said coolly. “Besides, she wants to kill demons. What better place for her to be? I’m not your attack dog. Don’t treat me like one.”
“You’re a cold bastard, Kaern,” Makael said, his voice brittle.
“Tell me something I don’t know.”
Mikael snorted, shaking his head. “So why did you show up then? Why come back?”
Kaern paused, looking out the door to where he could see the silhouette of the girl sitting there. Finally he turned back around. “I just came to warn you of what’s coming. I owed you that much.”
Mikael shook his head. “We’ve known this day was coming for a long time, and you knew that. We’ve been getting ready for it for a long time.”
“You should be running.”
“You run long enough,” Mikael said, “and you never stop. This is where we stop running.”
Kaern closed his eyes. “Then this is where you die.”
“If that is what must come, then so be it. We’re ready,” Mikael said calmly.
That was probably what Kaern had always hated the most about the man—he was far too calm. There was no point in being calm when death was knocking. That was when a little fight was called for. Why go quiet into the darkness?
He would always vote for survival.
Of course, he had the advantage of knowing a little more about death and what lay beyond it than most.
“Whatever,” Kaern said finally. “Do as you will. It’s not my problem anymore.”
He turned his back and walked out, not looking over his shoulder as the men glanced at one another in silence.
“That man was never reliable,” Mikael grumbled.
“That,” Simone said from the doorway, “is untrue. Kaern could always be relied on to be Kaern. You just never understood what that meant. You never bothered to learn the identity of the man behind the myth.”
Mikael shifted, surprised by Simone’s entry into the conversation.
“I apologize, Simone,” he said. “I spoke out of turn.”
“No,” she sighed. “No, you didn’t. You spoke the truth as you see it, and that is never cause for an apology. Kaern has never been one of us, Mikael, and that is where you always misunderstood him. He does what he does for reasons of his own.”
“Reasons,” Mikael spat, clearly irritated and agitated. “The man has no reasons. He chooses to fight when it’s mad to do so, to run when there’s no reason to do so… He makes no sense.”
“You never commanded him in battle, Mikael,” she said softly. “And that man shows his heart only then.” She looked the old men over for a moment. “Now, it’s late. Consider what he told you. We’ll speak of it later.”
They understood the dismissal and rose from their places with no further word, filing out and leaving the home quiet.
Chapter 9
Elan looked up as Kaern stepped out of the house, his expression confusing her. He looked angry, sorrowful, a bunch of things she didn’t recognize.
He just walked past her, stepping down off the wooden planks and into the dirt, then kept on walking.
Elan got to her feet, chasing after him. “Kaern? Where are you going?”
“I’m done here, child,” he said, not looking back. “Time to move on.”
“Wait a moment, I’ll get my things.”
He stopped then, looking back at her. “You don’t want to come with me.”
“Why not?” she asked, challengingly.
“You want to kill demons, don’t you?” he asked, eyes locking on her.
“You know I do.”
“Well, you’ll find enough of them here in short order,” Kaern told her. “There’ll be a war here soon, plenty of killing to do. That’s what you’re looking for, isn’t it, lass?”
Elan stared at him, uncomprehending at first.
“What do you mean…war?” she asked, as if tasting the word.
Kaern looked off into the distance, away from her. He didn’t need to see her right now, didn’t need to think about other faces she reminded him of.
“The local lord will be coming,” he said, smiling a little shrewdly. “The one your friend Venadrin serves, unless I’m mistaken. He’ll be bringing his armies, and he’ll take this township…or lay it to waste.”
“You’re not going to fight?” she asked. “Aren’t they your friends?”
“Once,” Kaern said, nodding, “a long time ago.”
“I don’t understand you.” She shook her head. “You don’t act like you should. My father told me—”
“Your father was a fool who got himself killed in front of his child daughter because he didn’t know the difference between courage and stupidity,” Kaern growled, turning on her. His glare pinned her in place. “I couldn’t care less what your father told you or what you think it would mean about me.”
She fell back a step, sucking in a shocked breath of air, confusion and hurt practically radiating from her.
“You’re a girl child with a grudge, and if you come with me, you’ll drag me into your little vendetta until we’re both dead…” He took a breath. “Assuming you don’t kill me yourself first.”
Elan looked at him, shocked. “I would not—”
Kaern cut her off with a swipe of his hand. “Never say never, child…or did you really think that I was human?”
Elan fell back from him, her eyes widening. Kaern sneered at her as he watched her hand drop to the hilt of the sword she’d stolen from the bandits.
“You’re not even close to good enough to take me with that, child.”
She didn’t draw the blade, however, just stood there. “You’re lying.”
“No.” He shook his head. “I am not.”
“Demons are…are…different. Ugly…” she finished lamely.
He laughed at her. “I’m flattered. Do you like how I look? Am I handsome?” He mock preened for a moment, then leveled a stare at her that could have frozen water. “Clear your preconceptions, child. Only Eighth and Ninth Circle demons are hideous. As you progress through the more powerful types, there are many that can masquerade as human.”
She considered that for a moment, her breath coming in fast and shallow puffs.
“What kind are you?”
“That’s for me to know, child,” he told her. “Even with what is coming, you’re better here than with me.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Pray you never do,” Kaern said, turning away.