Talon felt his balance shift almost imperceptibly with instinctive grace. His hand did not move, but it was set to flash to his knife. “That so?” he returned mildly. “Thought I was protecting us.”
Liatuad grinned in spite of himself. “From a farmer’s widow?”
“Even a farmer’s mate will bite.”
“Like a stickbeast,” the other man chuckled.
Talon smiled without humor, but said, “We don’t need the venges on our tail when we leave.”
Ki’s voice was soft. “Drovic had a solution to that.”
Talon glanced at the raider. “Perhaps I have a better one.”
Liatuad raised his eyebrows. “With the farm woman?” Both men chuckled. “Better dead than bedded, that one. She has a mouth; she’ll talk. I say give her the vertal to keep her quiet, and take her to sell in Bilocctar.”
“I say we leave her be.”
“Moonworms, Talon,” Liatuad retorted. “You’ve been far too long without a woman if you turned down Roc to court an eye-tired farmer’s mate. Of course,” he added slyly, “you have been looking pale lately. Maybe a bony, leftover woman is all you think you can handle.”
Talon kept his smile mild. “There are many ways of riding a woman. The pleasure isn’t always in the padding.”
Liatuad noted his ready stance with casual interest. “Aye, and it wouldn’t do for you to fall out of the saddle after a night with a scrawny whip. Might want to double your medicine so you can keep up with us today.”
Talon forced himself to grin. “Less might be better. Then I’d have to find a comfortable bed where I can sleep in as long as I wish, find a few women to cook for me, and laze in the sun for a ninan. Yes, that would be a tragedy. I don’t know how I would withstand it.”
Ki chuckled, but Liatuad gave Talon a sharp look. Talon’s slate-gray gaze belied the humor of his words, and the other raider rubbed at his mustache as he studied the taller man. Talon waited a moment more, then nodded mildly at Liatuad and returned to the house.
The raiders were rousing by the time he entered. Kilaltian nodded to Talon; ignored Ilandin, who reached for the handsome man’s arm; and gave Fit a deliberate grin. Fit’s expression was shuttered, and the smaller man set himself against the wall where he could repair a hole in one of the tents and watch the other raiders. If Talon had been Kilaltian, he would have backed off from taunting the shorter man. Fit was one of the best knifemen Talon had ever worked with, and the taller, handsome raider had stepped on Fit’s toes hard last night. Fit would be out to carve Kilaltian’s bones if Drovic would allow it. If Fit hadn’t respected Drovic so much, he would never have lasted this long. Someone would have killed him for his viciousness before he turned on them all.
Talon made his way to the kitchen, took the last china mug from the shelf before someone else nabbed it, and poured himself some hot rou. He stared into the whirlpool of warmth. “To rue the day before it had started”—it was a saying of the Ancients. With abandonment and plague staring at them out of the thousands of graves they had dug, the Ancients had had good reason to name this drink. He wondered briefly how many graves he himself had dug. “Worlag piss,” he cursed softly. He stalked out to the open area, waited for the rou to cool, and nodded to Drovic as his father sought him out with his gaze.
Drovic nodded in turn, but did not quite turn back to Ebi and Strapel, and Talon frowned almost imperceptibly. A thought came to him then, and as his father watched, he raised the mug, paused with his eyes still on Drovic, and then downed the rou with a grimace, as if it had been his tincture. His father nodded in satisfaction before turning away.
For a long moment, Talon stood without moving. Finally, he turned and absently tossed the empty mug toward Strapel, who lounged by the wall near the kitchen. A stream of drops trailed out like memories as it arced through the air. Strapel snagged the mug easily, tossing it on in an almost continuous motion at the startled farm woman at the sink. There was a cry, but the woman must have caught the cup; there was no sound of broken china.
Talon’s face was thoughtful as he moved to his crumpled bedroll. Beside him, Wakje had just finished his packing— the man did everything in efficient patterns—and only Talon’s gear was still on the floor. Talon wrinkled his nose at the sweat smell that was stronger with the wolves in his skull, ran his tongue over his sticky teeth, and packed quickly. Then he joined the raiders at the water barrel to perform his toiletries.
Mal barely nodded as Talon pulled his toothbrush from his pocket. The tall, dour man was rinsing the bandage for his forehead; the gash was an ugly wound with unhealed edges. Talon watched the way Mal leaned against the barrel to re-bandage his head and refrained from commenting. Ki must have already rebandaged his own wound; the brown-haired man merely nodded a greeting and went back to brushing his teeth. Beside him, Sojourn gave Talon a sour look around a mouthful of toothpaste, and an indistinct, “Last night, you snored like a sick worlag.”
Talon’s voice was mild. “How could you notice? You were near-drowned by all that whiskey.”
“A few drops,” the other man returned shortly.
Talon shook his head to himself. Sojourn drank like three raiders, yet never showed it the next day.
Ki grinned, spat, and started to wipe his mouth with the back of his left sleeve; he winced and switched to his other arm. “So, Talon,” he said, noting with a narrowed gaze that the taller man had seen his weakness. “You never told me about the cow teeth.”
Talon paused with his toothbrush halfway to his mouth. “What cow teeth?”
“Cow teeth. You know. Cows. Like livestock—chickens, sheep.”
“Sheep?” He raised his eyebrows as if confused. “Our sheep or oldEarth sheep?”
“OldEarth sheep?”
“Ah,” Talon answered around his brushing. “You know, they were the only creatures on oldEarth—outside of a rabbit that is—that could actually be scared to death.”
Mal, who had paused to hear the answer, raised one eyebrow; Sojourn’s lips twitched, but he kept silent. Ki gave him a skeptical look.
“It’s true. I swear to the seventh moon.” Talon’s expression was carefully bland as he spat out the used paste on the ground. “Rather like the goats.”
“What goats?” the man asked suspicously.
“Well, the Ancients had these fainting goats. You could walk out into a field, clap your hands, and watch them fall down like dolls.”
“Moonworms,” Ki cut him off. “What do I look like, a green-backed, gullible county maid?” Talon raised his eyebrows meaningfully. Ki stalked away, muttering, “Try to get one stupid answer and end up with a dozen. Last time I ask you anything, you tamrin-ridden piece of worlag dung.”
Sojourn grinned and followed the other raider. “I hear he knows a lot about women, too,” Talon heard Sojourn say as the man caught up to Ki.
Mal glanced after the other two, then back to Talon. “OldEarth goats, oldEarth sheep—you’re not going to tell him about the geese, are you? I don’t think he could take it.”
Talon shrugged. “What’s a man to do? If he is curious enough to ask . . .”
“Curious enough,” Mal agreed.
But there was something in Mal’s voice that gave Talon pause. He looked the question at the dour man.
“He has eyes, son of Drovic.”
“As do you.”
Mal did not answer. The saturnine man merely picked up his pack, steadied himself under its weight, and walked off toward the barn. Talon hid his frown. He tucked his toiletries into his pack, noted that his own hand was shaking, and quickly clenched and steadied it. He glanced after the dour man, then carefully closed the pack, slung it over his shoulder with the same forced ease, and made his way to the barn.
Within twenty minutes, the raiders were mounted. Talon led his dnu to where Drovic was saddling his beast. From the house, the farm folk watched from the living-room window. Earlier, the two children had remained in the attic loft, and Talon was glad; Fit had
been in a foul mood, and they might not have survived the morning.
Drovic caught his expression and grunted.
“Leave something.” Talon’s voice was low.
Drovic knew what he meant. The older man tightened the saddle cinch against the dnu’s belly and did not turn around. “I leave her the lives of her boy and girl and herself.”
With the pain in his temples, Talon’s response was hard. “It is not enough. If we were a venge—”
“But we are not,” snarled his father. “We know it; she knows it—”
“And that is not the point,” Talon cut back in. “We haven’t left a forkful of food in her pantry; not a pitchful of hay in the barn. We leave her children to starve—”
“It’s better than they would have had after a few hours with Fit or Brentak. Let her count her blessings.”
“Let her count the silver instead, so that she becomes one of us.”
Morley approached Drovic, and the older man turned such a face on the raider that Morley quickly retreated. Drovic’s voice to Talon was low and harsh. “Why is this so important to you? Has the fever left you soft, not just weak? Have you forgotten every goal?”
“I could hardly forget.” Talon’s voice was cold. “You slap your tactics in my face every time I turn around.” He gestured shortly. “There is value in building a tiny loyalty where we might need it later.” He rubbed savagely at his weakened wrist to relieve the tautness that was creeping back into his muscles. “A shelter, a jumping-off place—an out-of-the-way farm like this is gold set aside for the future.”
“We don’t need that kind of security.”
“You would throw away a chance at a caching place out of what—pride? Your anger is not against this woman, Drovic, but against the Lloroi and Ariyens, and we won’t reach them or the goals you have set unless we climb on the backs of others. Give the woman some silver, enough to replace what we took. If she values her home, she will never confess where it came from.”
It wasn’t pride or Talon’s logic that angered Drovic, but the questioning of his decision. Talon had challenged his father practically from the moment of birth, and by the moons, he never would let up. He was like a mudsucker, never taking his fangs out of the prey once he thought that he was right. Drovic eyed his son narrowly, then cursed himself under his breath as he recognized a note of pride in himself that, even knowing what his response was likely to be, his son refused to back down. Love was a strange emotion, the older man thought. Even now, Talon could still both infuriate him and cadge a deeper place in his heart. He opened his mouth, then cut himself off and cursed again under his breath, this time at his own weakness. Talon merely watched him and waited, and Drovic told himself that he had to remember that Talon was no longer a little boy, but a man with a man’s need to dominate. Drovic had better look to his own dnu, or he would find himself at the back of the line, riding drag, not leading. The thought brought steel to his blue-flecked eyes. He had to force himself to resist the urge to smack the sense back into his son.
Finally, he dug a small sack of coins from one of his saddlebags and stalked toward the porch. From the window, the woman had been watching, and now she went to the door.
Drovic schooled his face. “We are a rough lot,” he stated curtly, without preamble. “But we would not have you think ill of us when we shelter here again.” He held out the bag. “For your trouble.”
The woman hesitated. Her eyes flicked to the side, where her children watched the raiders with tight faces. Slowly, she held out her hand and accepted the bag of silver. Drovic nodded just as slowly, almost imperceptibly. The woman shivered as the older man strode away; then she retreated into the house. When they trotted their dnu from the courtyard, she was still watching from the window with her children: three small faces, white in the early gloom, alone and huddled within their home, like mice while the cats are circling.
Talon felt his stomach ease, and Drovic cast him a dark look as if he could sense what his son was feeling. “Satisfied?” The older man’s words were still clipped with anger.
“Aye,” Talon answered shortly.
Drovic cursed under his breath in return and spurred his dnu ahead. He was no longer sure if he cursed his son or himself.
The road in front of the farmhouse was narrow until they reached the turnoff for the Circle of Fifths. Drovic eyed the fork and studied his son. North or back south to the venges? Talon could almost hear his thoughts. “We need supplies,” Talon murmured.
Drovic frowned. “Western roads are still blocked.”
“If I were leading,” Talon said deliberately, “we would ride north and east and winter where they do not expect us.”
Drovic twisted to regard him coldly. “I have led men for nearly seventy years, while you—” The older man broke off, fury clipping his voice. “I had to carry you away from Sidisport like a corpse. I had to nurse you like a babe. You—my own son—let yourself be downed like a piece of garbage, and you ride now only because I forced the healers to help you. It’s not as if they were willing, not for raider spawn, not for the help you needed. And still, look at you. You ride beside me like a wounded dog. You can’t even hold your own sword. Yet you’ll tell me how to lead?”
Talon found his own jaw tight. He forced his words to be low. “You didn’t raise me to hide and skulk. Bilocctar is just one more way of putting off the future. You have a goal. Let us reach it.”
“You think you have enough strength to do that? You’ve been led through life on the goals of others. You’ve never stood on your own, boy. Never had to choose your own path, never had to rake in the consequences like black leaves. You know nothing of what you have and haven’t done. You have the arrogance of ignorance.” Drovic spat, and the spittle struck and killed a pocket of gnats on a leaf. Talon knew it had been deliberate.
His lips tightened. “Is there so little, Father, that was memorable about my life?” Drovic’s jaw jutted stubbornly, and Talon forced the words out. “Have you never been proud of me? Did I never make a difference?”
The older man’s jaw tightened until it was a white line against his weathered complexion. Drovic could not afford either pride or the approval Talon sought. The goal, Drovic told himself harshly. In the end, it was the goal, not the men, that counted. But before Talon’s icy gaze, Drovic suddenly felt old, as if the goal itself had worn thin.
Talon gritted his teeth at the older man’s silence. No pride in the weakling, he told himself. What had he expected? It struck him that surely there had been at least one healer willing to help a wounded man—healers had their own vows to save lives. So why had they been forced to heal him? Was it the side effects of the medicine? Was it more than a painkiller, more than a healing drug? Did Drovic hope it kept him subservient? Because the longer he had drunk that vile mix, the more he became impatient, enraged. It was only in the past few days, without the herbs, as the gray fog grew, that his thoughts had been more clear. Drovic’s goal, his own goal— by all the gods, he almost didn’t care which one he followed, as long as they moved, found some sense of success, not these endless backtrail circles. “The more we ride,” he said harshly, “the more I chafe at this path; the more I lose respect for your goal and the way we go about reaching it. There is no honor in this path, and you of all people should know that.”
Drovic kept his face expressionless. “Sometimes only dishonorable men can act to preserve their world.”
“So we raid and slaughter the innocents, and wait for some sort of perfect timing that only you will recognize? Why?” Talon snapped. “Why wait another year, or even another winter? We won’t be more effective from waiting. Our men will not be stronger. Hells, but this is a swarm year, and we’re still riding around instead of going to ground like any half-wit would do. We’ve lost two dozen men, with all their training and skills. And we won’t gain anything more by holding back till next spring, or next year, or dammit, even next decade. You’ve been so careful that no one even knows what we want, so
this terror, this fear we create, cannot possibly help us reach the stars.” He glared at his father. “You have waited too long for the goal. It’s become unreal, something to soothe your rage without making that rage constructive.”
“Watch your words, boy.”
“Or what?”
Drovic’s own blue-gray eyes went to ice. Liatuad trotted his dnu toward them to ask about their direction, caught a glimpse of their expressions, and reined back immediately.
“Dammit, Drovic,” Talon snarled. “I’m here; you’re here. Why cannot now be the time?”
Drovic spat. “Gods damn all sons to the seventh hell. It’s going to take one hell of a blessing from the second moon to get these riders to the border without losing any more men. We’ve still got wounded who will be worthless in a fight, no supplies past tomorrow, and as you pointed out, on top of all that, it’s a swarm year. But it’s now that you want to fight?”
Talon’s voice was cold. “Fighting is what we do.” He glared right back at his father. He no longer felt icy and calm. He felt angry and mean.
The older, heavier man’s lips twitched. Then he started to laugh.
“What?” Talon demanded sharply. He was in no mood to be mocked.
“I’ll be kissed into next ninan by a dozen worlags. Fighting—is that what this is about?” Drovic nodded as he watched his son. “East, you keep saying, go north and east, and I’m thinking that you’re still weak and want the comfort of your old home. But you’ve been wanting to blacken your steel. Ariye draws you, doesn’t it?” The older man’s voice dropped seductively. “It is in your blood, not just mine, and it beats like the drum of your heart. You say I never taught you patience. Well, you’re right as a Randonnen. I never thought it would be of use, and never realized the lack of it till now.” He reached across and slapped Talon’s shoulder so hard that Talon had to hide his wince. “I’ve waited decades for Ariye, but you want that land in three months. Patience, Son. Some goals require more time.”
Silver Moons, Black Steel Page 26
