Soldier Of An Empire Unacquainted With Defeat

by Glen Cook

  A Caydarman on a painted horse was descending the slope. Torfin?" Today he wore no helmet.

  "Oh!" Rula gasped. "Toma must have said something yesterday."

  Tain could sense the unreasoning fear in her. It refused to let he Caydarman be anything but evil.

  "You go inside. I'll handle him."

  She ran.

  Tain set his tools aside, wiped his hands, ambled toward the spring. The Caydarman had entered the grove. He was watering his mount.

  "Good morning."

  The Caydarman looked up. "Good morning."

  He's young. Tain thought. Nineteen or twenty. But he has scars.

  The youth took in Tain's size and catlike movements.

  Tain noted the Caydarman's pale blue eyes and long blond hair, and the strength pent in his rather average-appearing body. He was tall, but not massive like Grimnir.

  "Torfin Hakesson," the youth offered. "The Baron's man."

  "Tain. My father's name I don't know."

  A slight smile crossed Torfin's lips. "You're new here."

  "Just passing through. Kleckla needed help with his house. I have the skills. He asked me to stay on for a while."

  Torfin nodded. "You're the man with the big roan? I saw you the other day."

  Tain smiled. "And I you. Several times. Why're you so far from home?"

  "My father chose a losing cause. I drifted. The Baron offered me work. I came to the Zemstvi."

  "I've heard that Trolledyngjans are terse. Never have I heard a life so simply sketched."

  "And you?"

  "Much the same. Leaving unhappiness behind, pursuing something that probably doesn't exist."

  "The Baron might take you on."

  "No. Our thinking diverges on too many things."

  "I thought so myself, once. I still do, in a way. But you don't have many choices when your only talent is swordwork."

  "A sad truth. Did you want something in particular?"

  "No. Just patrolling. Watering the horse. Them." He jerked his head toward the house. "They're well?"

  "Yes."

  "Good." The youth eyed the stead. "Looks like you've gotten things moving."

  "Some. Toma needed help."

  "Yes. He hasn't made much headway since Mikla left. Well, good-day, Tain. Till we meet again."

  "Good-day, Torfin. And may the grace of heaven guide you."

  Torfin regarded him with one raised eyebrow as he mounted. "You have an odd way of putting things," he replied. He wheeled and angled off across the hillside. Tain watched till the youth crossed the low ridge.

  He found Rula hunkered by the cookfire, losing herself in making their noonday meal.

  "What did he want?" she demanded.

  "To water his horse."

  "That's all?"

  "That and to look at me, I suppose. Why?"

  "He's the dangerous one. Grimnir is big and loud and mean. The others are bullies too. But Torfin.

  ... He's quiet and quick. He once killed three of Stojan's warriors when they tried to steal horses from the Tower corrals."

  "Has he given you any trouble?"

  She hesitated. Tain knew she would hide something.

  "No. To hardly anybody. But he's always around. Around and watching. Listening. Then the others come with their fines that aren't anything but excuses to rob people."

  So much fear in her. He wanted to hold her, to tell her everything would be all right. "I have to get to work. I should finish the framework today. If Toma remembers to look for lumber, we might start the tank tomorrow." He ducked out before he did anything foolish.

  He didn't understand. He was Tain, a leading centurion of the Demon Guard. He was a thirty-year veteran. He should be past juvenile temptations. Especially involving a woman of Rula's age and wear....

  He worked hard, but it did no good. The feelings, the urges, remained. He kept his eyes averted during lunch.

  "Tain. ..." she started once.

  "Yes?"

  "Nothing."

  He glanced up. She had turned toward the Tower, her gaze faraway.

  Afterward, he saddled the roan and led out the mule and took them on a short patrol. Once he spied Torfin in the distance, on a hilltop, watching something beyond. Tain turned and rode a few miles westward, till the Tower loomed ahead. He turned again, for home, following a looping course past the Kosku stead. Someone was repairing the thatch.

  Rula was waiting, and highly nervous. "Where have you been?" she demanded.

  "Exercising the animals. What happened?"

  "Nothing. Oh, nothing. I just hate it when I have to be alone."

  "I'm sorry. That was thoughtless."

  "No. Not really. What claim do I have to your time?" She settled down. "I'm just a worrier."

  “Til wait till Toma's home next time." He unsaddled the roan and began rubbing him down. The mule wandered away, grazing. Rula watched without speaking.

  He was acutely conscious of her gaze. After ten minutes she asked, "Where did you come from. Tain?

  Who are you?"

  "I came from nowhere and I'm going nowhere, Rula. I'm just an ex-soldier wandering because I don't know anything else."

  "Nothing else? You seem to know something about everything."

  "I've had a lot of years to learn."

  "Tell me about the places you've been. I've never been anywhere but home and the Zemstvi."

  Tain smiled a thin, sad smile. There was that same awe and hunger that he heard from Steban.

  "I saw Escalon once, before it was destroyed. It was a beautiful country." He described that beauty without revealing his part in its destruction. He worked on the windmill while he reminisced.

  "Ah. I'd better start supper," Rula said later. "Toma's coming. He's got somebody with him."

  Tain watched her walk away and again chastised himself for unworthy thoughts.

  She had been beautiful once, and would be still but for the meanness of her life.

  Toma arrived wearing an odd look. Tain feared the man had divined his thoughts. But, "The Caydarmen went after Kosku last night. The old coot actually chased them off."

  "Heh?" Tain snorted. "Good for him. You going to be busy?" He glanced at the second man. "Or can you help me mount these bearings?"

  "Sure. In a couple minutes. Tain, this's my brother-in-law."

  "Mikla?" Tain extended his hand. "Good to meet you. I've heard a lot about you."

  "None of it good, I'm sure." Laughter wrinkled the corners of Mikla's eyes. He was a lean, leathery man, accustomed to facing hard weather.

  "More good than bad. Steban will be glad to see you."

  Rula stuck her head out the door. Then she came flying, skirts aswirl. "Mikla!" She threw her arms around her brother. "Where have you been? I've been worried sick."

  "Consorting with the enemy. Staying with Stojan and trying to convince him that we're not all Caydarmen."

  "Even Caydarmen don't all seem to be Caydarmen," Tain remarked as he hoisted a timber into position.

  Mikla watched the ease with which he lifted. "Maybe not. But when the arrows are flying, who wonders about the spirit in which they're sped?"

  "Ah. That's right. Steban said you were a veteran."

  A whisper of defensiveness passed through Mikla's stance. "Steban exaggerates what I've already exaggerated silly."

  "An honest man. Rare these days. Toma. You said Kosku chased the Caydarmen away? Will that make more trouble?"

  "Damned right it will," Mikla growled. "That's why I came back. When the word gets around, everybody in the Zemstvi will have his back up. And those folks at the Tower are going to do their damnedest to stop it.

  "Kind of leaves me with mixed feelings. I've been saying we ought to do something ever since the Witch turned the Baron's head. But now I wonder if it'll be worth the trouble. It'll cause more than beatings and judicial robberies. Somebody'll get killed.

  Probably Kosku."

  "I really didn't think it would go this far," Toma murmure
d. Tain couldn't fathom the pain in Kleckla. "I thought she'd see where she was heading...."

  "Enough of this raven-cawing," Mikla shouted. He swept Rula into a savage embrace. "What's for supper, little sister?"

  "Same as every night. Mutton stew. What did you expect?"

  "That's a good-looking mule over there. She wouldn't miss a flank steak or two."

  Rula startled them with a pert, "You'll get your head kicked in for just thinking about it. That's the orneriest animal I ever saw. She could give mean lessons to Grimnir. But maybe you could talk Tain into fixing supper. He did the other day. It was great."

  Tain thought he saw a glimmer of the girl who had married Toma, of the potential hiding behind the weary mask.

  "He cooks, too? Mercy. Toma, maybe you should marry him." Tain watched for visual cues. How much of Mikla's banter had an ulterior motive? But the man was hard to read.

  Rula bounced off to the house with a parting shot about having to poison the stew.

  "That story of Kosku's is spreading like the pox," Toma observed. He reassumed the odd look he had worn on arriving.

  So. Tain thought. Kosku is talking about the mystery man who doused the fire in his thatch. Was that what had brought Torfin?

  "A Caydarman stopped by," he told Kleckla. "Torfin. He watered his horse. We talked."

  "What'd he want?"

  "Nothing, far as I could tell. Unless he was checking on me. Seemed a pleasant lad."

  "He's the one to watch," Mikla declared. "Quiet and deadly. Like a viper."

  "Rula told me about Stojan's men."

  "Them? They got what they asked for. Stojan didn't like it, but what could he do? Torfin cut them down inside the Baron's corral. He let a couple get away just so they could carry the warning."

  "With only seven men in his way I wouldn't think Stojan would care how things looked."

  "Neither Stojan's nor Hywel's clans amount to much. They had smallpox bad the year before we came out. Stojan can't get twenty warriors together."

  "Steban must have heard the news," Tain observed. "He's coming home early."

  The boy outdistanced his flock. Toma hurried to meet him. Tain and Mikla strolled along behind.

  "What army were you in?" the latter asked.

  Tain had faced the question since arriving. But no one had phrased it quite this directly. He had to tell the truth, or lie. A vague reply would be suspicious. "Necremnen." He hoped Mikla was unfamiliar with the nations of the Roe basin.

  "Ah." Mikla kept asking pointed questions. Several tight minutes passed before Tain realized that he wasn't fishing for something. The man just had the curiosities. "Your sister. She's not happy here."

  "I know." Mikla shrugged. "I do what I can for her. But she's Toma's wife."

  And that, thought Tain, told a whole tale about the west. Not that the women of his own nation had life much easier. But their subjugation was cosmeticized and sweetened.

  Toma reached Steban. He flung his arms around wildly. Mikla started trotting.

  Tain kept walking. He wanted to study Mikla when the man wasn't conscious of being observed.

  He was a masculine edition of Rula. Same lean bone structure, same dark brown hair, same angular head. Mikla would be several years older. Say thirty-six. Rula couldn't be more than thirty-three, despite having been married so long.

  The world takes us hard and fast. Tain thought. Suddenly he felt old.

  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.