One morning, Malek and Laila entered her father Marren’s old hut and did not reappear for some time. This did not seem too strange for long-separated lovers, but when they did emerge again their arms were full of unexpected treasures: pots of sweet oil, pressed fruit, barley flour in clay urns, cloth-wrapped cheeses and haunches of smoked game. Raika, asleep in the shade of a hut across the common, smelled the tang of cured venison and sat up, tossing aside the straw hat she’d been wearing to shade her face.
“Howland?” she called.
He was dozing too, sitting up as was his wont, his back against the daub wall of the hut. He cracked an eye when called.
“Eh?”
“Robien!”
The bounty hunter was already on his feet. “I see,” he said slowly.
Together the hired warriors converged on Marren’s house. They watched as Malek and Laila piled up stores outside the hut’s only door. Malek greeted them cheerfully, but none of them responded.
“Where did all this come from?” said Howland.
“Why, the storage pit under the floor,” Malek said, as if stating the obvious.
“Do all the huts have them?”
Laila shrugged. “Most do. It’s where we store our reserves for winter.”
Raika turned on one heel and marched to the next house. Nils, his wife Sai, and his son Larem were doing the very same thing as Malek and Laila, removing hidden goods from the hut. Raika snatched a pottery jug from Larem’s hands. She yanked out the plug and sniffed the spout.
Howland and Robien arrived. She held out the jug to them. “Rum!” she cried.
“We also have beer,” said Sai, a long-faced woman with frizzy red hair.
“Cold and parched as we’ve been these past days, and they have rum!” Raika threw back her head and took a long drink from the jug. After four swallows, she dashed the clay pot to the ground, shattering it.
Nils came out of his home. “What’s this, Raika?”
“Miserable cheats!” She seized the injured Nils by his baggy shirt. “We ate barley cake for twenty-two days when you had venison?” She shoved him against the hut and reached for her sword. “After we shed our blood for you! We faced an army of bandits and ogres-for you! And this is our payment? I ought to kill you! I ought to kill you all!”
Her sword never came out. All at once Ezu was there, his hand over hers, clutching the hilt. She tried to pull free of him but found she couldn’t.
“Don’t interfere, wizard!” she snarled. “I won’t be used this way!”
Ezu withdrew his hand, but Raika still couldn’t draw her blade. It felt as if it were welded into the scabbard.
“So they lied to you,” Ezu said blandly. “Are you surprised? A farmer has no one to rely on but himself. Their children learn at their parent’s knee that the world is a hard, unforgiving place, willing to take everything the farmer nurtures in a single fire, flood, or raid. They’re taught to hide everything valuable they have. This isn’t just food or drink to them, it’s life itself. Under the floors of each house you’ll find all kinds of secret supplies: victuals of every kind, tools, weapons, even gold. They hide their meager wealth underground to protect it from catastrophe, but most of all to keep it from the rapacious ones with swords.”
He stood aside. “Go ahead, demolish the house. Wreck the whole village until you get what you think is due you.” Ezu put on the most solemn expression anyone had ever seen him assume. “Do that, then tell me how you are any different from Rakell.”
A few steps behind Raika, Howland felt his outrage recede upon hearing Ezu’s words.
Frustrated at her inability to draw her sword, Raika tore the whole thing off her hip, belt, scabbard and all. Wrapped in brass and leather, her sword was still a dangerous bludgeon, and Nils and his family scattered as she swung it hard against the door post. It made a deep gouge in the wood and put a dent in the scabbard, but Raika’s rage dissipated with the blow.
“I’ve been here too long,” she said to Nils. “I’ve shed too much blood. I would have killed you for a slab of venison and a bottle of rum.”
She walked away, head hanging. Howland let her go.
Ezu said, “And you, Sir Howland? What will you do now?”
The soldier stooped to pick up a pot of pressed fruit Sai had dropped in her haste to avoid Raika’s wild swing. The beeswax seal had broken, and sticky syrup oozed from the opening. Howland dabbed at the glistening syrup. Sweet berries. He handed the cracked pot to Sai.
“We’ve all been here too long. It’s time to go.” He rubbed his sunburnt brow. “If Robien and Raika agree to accompany me, we’ll leave the village before sundown.”
“My home is in the forest,” the elf said, “but I will follow you one last time, Sir Howland.”
“Please, call me just Howland. I’ve had enough of titles. The worst men I’ve ever known all had titles, so leave me apart from them.”
The farmers had rounded a good number of bandit horses, and Howland was offered his pick of the herd. He took three for himself, Robien, and Raika, and a fourth to serve as a pack animal. He chose four stocky, sturdy beasts, each an indifferent color. They were not handsome, but they would walk all day with considerable burdens.
While the warriors packed their sparse gear, villagers prepared food and drink for their journey. By the time Howland, Raika, and Robien rode forth, their pack animal was well laden.
The surviving population of Nowhere gathered at the east end of the village. The setting sun was in their faces. Riding abreast with Howland in the center, the defenders stopped before the assembled villagers. Not a few of the farmers still clutched their spears, but most had abandoned warlike tools in favor of rakes, pitchforks, and spades.
Caeta raised her hand high. “We can never truly repay you for what you’ve done,” she said. “Our loved ones are free, and our homes preserved. How can we tell you what that means to us?”
“You can’t,” Raika said flatly.
Howland was more diplomatic. “For myself, you owe me nothing. I regained something vital here, somthing I thought I’d lost.” He considered his next words carefully. “Don’t forget how to fight,” he said. “Next time, when wolves are baying outside your door, take up swords and spears yourselves and defend what’s yours. It’s your right. Don’t forget that.”
He leaned down and clasped hands with Caeta, as did Raika and Robien after him. Malek and Laila, arms about each other’s waists, waved and smiled. Nils, bolstered by Sai and Larem, added a hearty good-bye.
As she rode by, Raika spotted Bakar, one of the few survivors from her spear company. She turned her horse around, rode up to him, and dismounted. The young farmer, bearing his wounds without complaint, sidled away as Raika approached.
“You,” she said roughly. “Come here.”
He stayed where he was. “You’re not going to hit me one last time, are you?”
“No, fool.” Stalking over, she unbuckled her sword belt and handed it to Bakar. “This is for you. It’s a good blade, if you can get it out of the scabbard. Think of it as a gift,” she added, smiling. She swung up on her horse and cantered away to catch up to Howland and Robien.
Some of Bakar’s neighbors surrounded him, curious about the Saifhumi woman’s gift.
Bakar wrapped his fingers around the sword handle and pulled. The oiled steel blade slid easily out of its sheath. Whatever spell Ezu had cast on it was gone.
Three men, led by Wilf, took it on themselves to repair the cracked Ancestor in the well wall. They pried apart the stones from the top down, slowly isolating the long block of red sandstone. With reverence, two villagers gently lifted the broken top of the Ancestor free of the wall. Setting it down, they turned to freeing the lower half. Caeta happened by, and as she passed the rounded upper portion of the ancient totem rolled on its side, exposing its interior face to the sky. Caeta looked at it and gasped.