An Empire Unacquainted With Defeat

by Glen Cook

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 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 man. 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 accusation 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."

  "He was sober last night. And he told the same story the first time they tried burning him out."

  Toma shrugged. "Believe what you want. He's just crazy." But Toma considered Tain speculatively.

  "Someone coming," Tain said. The runner was coming from the direction of the Kosku stead. Soon Toma and Mikla could see him too.

  "That's Wes. Kosku's youngest," Toma said. "What's happened now?"

  When the boy reached the men, he gasped, "It's Dad. He's gone after Olag."

  "Calm down," Mikla told him. "Catch your breath first."

  The boy didn't wait long. "We went back to the house. To see if we could save anything. We found Mari. We thought she ran to Jeski's . . . . She was all burned. Then Ivon Pilsuski came by. He said Olag was in town. He was bragging about teaching Dad a lesson. So Dad went to town. To kill him."

  Tain sighed. It seemed unstoppable now. There was blood in it.

  Toma looked at Mikla. Mikla stared back. "Well?" said Toma.

  "It's probably too late."

  "Are you going?"

  Mikla rubbed his forehead, pushed his hair out of his eyes. "Yes. All right." He went to the house. Toma followed.

  The two came back. Mikla had his sword. Toma had his staff. They walked round the corner of the house, toward the village, without speaking.

  Rula flew outside. "Tain! Stop them! They'll get killed."

  He seized her shoulders, held her at arm's length. "I can't."

  "Yes, you can. You're . . . . You mean you won't." Something had broken within her. Her fear had returned. The raid had affected her the way the Caydarmen wanted it to affect the entire Zemstvi.

  "I mean I can't. I've done what I could. There's blood in it now. It'll take blood to finish it."

  "Then go with them. Don't let anything happen to them."

  Tain shook his head sadly. He had gotten himself cornered here.

  He had to go. To protect a man who claimed the woman he wanted. If he didn't, and Toma were killed, he would forever be asking himself if he had willed it to happen.

  He sealed his eyes briefly, then avoided Rula's by glancing at the sky. Cloudless and blue, it recalled the day when last he had killed a man. There, away toward Kosku's, Death's daughters planed the air, omening more dying.

  "All right." He went to the Kosku boy, who sat by the new house, head between his knees.

  "Wes. We're going to town. Will you stay with Mrs. Kleckla?"

  "Okay." The boy didn't raise his head.

  Tain walked toward the barn. "Take care of him, Rula. He needs mothering now."

  Toma and Mikla traveled fast. Tain didn't overtake them till they were near the village. He stayed out of sight, riding into town after them. He left the roan near the first house.

  There were two horses in the village. Both belonged to Caydarmen. He ignored them.

  Kosku and a Caydarman stood in the road, arguing viciously. The whole village watched. Kosku waved a skinning knife.

  Tain spotted the other Caydarman. Grimnir leaned against a wall between two houses, grinning. The big man wore a hat to conceal his hairless pate.

  Tain strolled his way as Mikla and Toma bore down on Olag.

  Olag said something. Kosku hurled himself at the Caydarman. Blades flashed. Kosku fell. Olag kicked him, laughed. The old man moaned.

  Mikla and Toma charged.

  The Caydarman drew his sword.

  Grimnir, still grinning, started to join him.

  Tain seized his left bicep. "No."

  Grimnir tried to yank away. He failed. He tried punching himself loose. Tain blocked the blow, backhanded Grimnir across the face. "I said no."

  Grimnir paused. His eyes grew huge.

  "Don't move. Or I'll kill you."

  Grimnir tried for his sword.

  Tain tightened his grip.

  Grimnir almost whimpered.

  And in the road Tain's oracle became fact.

  Mikla had been a soldier once, but now he was as rusty as his blade. Olag battered his sword aside, nicked him. Toma thrust his staff at the Caydarman's head. Olag b
rushed it away.

  Tain sighed sadly. "Grimnir, walk down the road. Get on your horse. Go back to the Tower. Do it now, or don't expect to see the sun set." He released the man's arm. His hand settled to the pommel of his longsword.

  Grimnir believed him. He hurried to his horse, one hand holding his hat.

  Olag glanced his way, grinned, shouted, "Hey, join the game, big man." He seemed puzzled when Grimnir galloped away.

  Tain started toward Olag. Toma went down with a shoulder wound. Mikla had suffered a dozen cuts. Olag was playing with him. The fear was in him now. His pride had neared its snapping point. In a moment he would run.

  "Stop it," Tain ordered.

  Olag stepped back, considered him from a red tangle of hair and beard. He licked his lips and smiled. "Another one?"

  He buried his blade in Mikla's guts.

  Tain's swords sang as they cleared their scabbards. The evening sun played purple and indigo upon their blades.

  Olag stopped grinning.

  He was good. But the Caydarman had never faced a man doubly armed.

  He fell within twenty seconds.

  The villagers stared, awed. The whispers started, speculating about Kosku's mystery giant. Tain ignored them.

  He dropped to one knee.

  It was too late for Mikla. Toma, though, would mend. But his shoulder would bother him for the rest of his life.

  Tain tended Kleckla's wound, then whistled for the roan. He set Toma in the saddle and laid Mikla behind him. He cleaned his blades on the dead Caydarman.

  He started home.

  Toma, in shock, stared at the horizon and spoke not a word.

  XIV

  Rula ran to meet them. How she knew, Tain couldn't fathom.

  Darkness had fallen.

  Steban was a step behind her, face taut and pallid. He looked at his father and uncle and retreated into an inner realm nothing could assail.

  "I'm sorry, Rula. I wasn't quick enough. The man who did it is dead, if that helps." Honest grief moved him. He slid his arm around her waist.

  Steban slipped under his other arm. They walked down to the sod house. The roan followed, his nose an inch behind Tain's right shoulder. The old soldier took comfort from the animal's concern.

  They placed Mikla on a pallet, and Toma in his own bed. "How bad is he?" Rula asked, moving and talking like one of the living dead.