The Sword & Sorcery Anthology (44 page)

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 real?”

“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, hugging herself as if it were cold. She
pressed her cheek against his fingers.

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. “Not 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 smoldering 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 accusa
tion 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.

Tain gave them a wide berth. They weren’t aware of his passing.

They had guessed wrong in predicting that they would beat the
Caydarmen to Palikov’s.

Grimnir and four others had accompanied the Witch. Tain didn’t
see Torfin among them.

The raiders had their heads together. They had tried a torching
and had failed. A horse lay between house and nightriders, moaning,
with an arrow in its side. A muted Kosku kept cursing the Witch and
Caydarmen.

Tain left the roan. He moved downhill to a shadow near the
raiders. He squatted, waited.

This time he bore his weapons.

The Toad loomed behind the Palikov home. Its evil god aspect felt
believable. It seemed to chuckle over this petty human drama.

Tain touched the hilt of his longsword. He was tempted. Yet.... He
wanted no deaths. Not now. Not here. This confrontation had to be
neutralized, if only to keep Toma and Mikla from stumbling into a
situation they couldn’t handle.

Maybe he could stop it without bloodshed.

He took flint and steel from his travel pouch. He sealed his eyes,
let his chin fall to his chest. He whispered.

He didn’t understand the words. They weren’t in his childhood
tongue. They had been taught him when he was young, during his
Aspirant training.

His world shrank till he was alone in it. He no longer felt the
breeze, nor the earth beneath his toes. He heard nothing, nor did the
light of torches seep through the flesh of his eyelids. The smell of fetid
torch smoke faded from his consciousness.

He floated.

He reached out, locating his enemies, visualizing them from a
slight elevation. His lips continued to work.

He struck flint against steel, caught the spark with his mind.

Six pairs of eyes jerked his way.

A luminous something grew round the spark, which seemed
frozen in time, neither waxing nor dying. The luminosity spread
diaphanous wings, floated upward. Soon it looked like a gigantic,
glowing moth.

The Witch shrieked. Fear and rage drenched her voice.

Tain willed the moth.

Its wings fluttered like silk falling. The Witch flailed with her
hands, could touch nothing. The moth’s clawed feet pierced her
hood, seized her hair.

Flames sprang up.

The woman screamed.

The moth ascended lightly, fluttered toward Grimnir.

The Caydarman remained immobile, stunned, till his hair caught
fire. Then he squealed and ran for his horse.

The others broke a moment later. Tain burned one more, then
recalled the elemental.

It was a minor magick, hardly more than a trick, but effective
enough as a surprise. And no one died.

One Caydarman came close.

They were a horse short, and too interested in running to share
with the man who came up short.

Whooping, old man Kosku stormed from the house. He let an
arrow fly. It struck the Caydarman in the shoulder. Kosku would have
killed him had Tain not threatened him with the moth.

Tain recalled the spark again. This time it settled to the point it
had occupied when the moth had come to life. The elemental faded.
The spark fell, dying before it hit ground.

Tain withdrew from his trance. He returned flint and steel to his
pouch, rose. “Good,” he whispered. “It’s done.”

He was tired. He hadn’t the mental or emotional muscle to sustain
extended use of the Power. He wasn’t sure he could make it home.

But he had been a soldier of the Dread Empire. He did not yield
to weariness.

XII

The fire’s smoke hung motionless in the heavy air. Little more than
embers remained. The ashes beneath were deep. The little light
remaining stirred spooky shadows against the odd, conical rocks.

Kai Ling slept soundly. He had made his bed there for so long that
his body knew every sharp edge beneath it.

The hillmen sentinels watched without relaxing. They knew this
bane too well. They bothered him no more. All they wanted of him
was warning time, so their women and children could flee.

Kai Ling sat bolt upright. He listened. His gaze turned west. His
head thrust forward. His nose twitched like that of a hound on point.
A smile toyed with his lips. He donned his golden panther mask.

The sentinels ran to tell their people that the man-of-death was
moving.

XIII

Toma and Mikla slept half the day. Tain labored on the windmill,
then the house. He joined Rula for lunch. She followed him when he
returned to work.

“What happened to them?” he asked.

“It was almost sunup when they came home. They didn’t say
anything.”

“They weren’t hurt?”

“It was over before they got there.” The fear edged her voice again,
but now she had it under control.

I’m building a mountain of responsibility, Tain thought.

She watched him work a while, admiring the deft way he pegged
timbers into place.

He clambered up to check the work Toma had done on the
headers. Out of habit he scanned the horizon.

A hill away, a horseman watched the stead. Tain balanced on the
header. The rider waved. Tain responded.

Someone began cursing inside the sod house. Rula hurried that
way. Tain sighed. He wouldn’t have to explain a greeting to the enemy.

Minutes later Mikla came outside. He had a hangover. A jar of
beer hung from his left hand.

“Good afternoon,” Tain called.

“The hell it is.” Mikla came over, leaned against a stud. “Where
were you last night?”

“What? Asleep in the barn. Why?”

“Not sure. Toma!”

Toma came outside. He looked worse than his brother-in-law.
“What?”

“What’d old man Kosku say?”

“I don’t know. Old coot talked all night. I quit listening to him last
year.”

“About the prowler who ran the Caydarmen off.”

“Ah. I don’t remember. A black giant sorcerer? He’s been seeing
things for years. I don’t think he’s ever sober.”