Soldier Of An Empire Unacquainted With Defeat Read online

  Rula visited Tain's makeshift forge the third afternoon. Bringing a jar of chill spring water was her excuse. "You've been hammering for hours, Tain. You'd better drink something."

  He smiled as he laid his hammer aside. "Thank you." He accepted the jar, though he wasn't yet thirsty. He was accustomed to enduring long, baking hours in his armor. He sipped while he waited.

  She had something on her mind.

  "I want to thank you."

  "Oh?"

  "For what you're doing. For what you've done for Toma. And me."

  "I haven't done much."

  "You've shown Toma that a man can be proud without being pig-headed. When he's wrong. But maybe you don't see it. Tain. I've lived with that man for eighteen years. I know him too well."

  "I see." He touched her hand lightly, recognizing a long and emotionally difficult speech from a woman accustomed to keeping her own counsel.

  He didn't know how to help her, though. An unmarried soldier's life hadn't prepared him. Not for a woman who moved him more than should be, for reasons he couldn't comprehend. A part of him said that women were people too, and should respond the same as men, but another part saw them as aliens, mysterious, perhaps even creatures of dread. "If I have done good, I have brought honor to the house."

  He chuckled at his own ineptitude. Iwa Skolovdan just didn't have the necessary range of tonal nuance.

  "You've given me hope for the first time since Shirl...." she blurted. "I mean, I can see where we're getting somewhere now. I can see Toma seeing it.

  "Tain, I never wanted to come to the Zemstvi. I hate it. I hated it before we left home. Maybe I hated it so much that I made it impossible for Toma to succeed. I drove Shirl away...."

  "Yes. I could see it. But don't hate yourself for being what you are."

  "His dreams were dying, Tain. And I wouldn't give him anything to replace them. And I have to hate myself for that. But now he's coming alive again. He doesn't have to go on being stubborn, just to show me."

  "Don't hate anybody, Rula. It's contagious. You end up hating everything, and everybody hates you."

  "I can't ever like the Zemstvi. But I love Toma. And with you here, like a rock, he's becoming more like the boy I married. He's started to find his courage again. And his hope. That gives me hope. And that's why I wanted to thank you."

  "A rock?"

  "Yes. You're there. You don't criticize, you don't argue, you don't judge, you don't fear. You know. You make things possible.... Oh, I don't know how to say what I want. I think the fear is the biggest thing. It doesn't control us anymore."

  "I don't think it's all my fault. Rula. You've done your part." He was growing unsettled. Even embarrassed.

  She touched his arm. "You're strong, Tain. So strong and sure. My brother Mikla.... He was sure, but not always strong. He fought with Toma all the time."

  Tain glanced south across the green hills. Toma had gone to the village in hopes of obtaining metal that could be used in the windmill Tain was going to build. He had been gone for hours.

  A tiny silhouette topped a distant rise. Tain sighed in a mixture of disappointment and relief. He was saved having to face the feelings Rula was stirring.

  Toma loved the windmill. He wanted to let the house ride till it was finished. Tain had suggested that they might, with a little ingenuity, provide running water. Rula would like that. It was a luxury only lords and merchant princes enjoyed.

  Rula followed his gaze. Embarrassment overtook her. Tain yielded the jar and watched her flee.

  Soon Toma called, "I got it, Tain! Bryon had an old wagon. He sold me enough to do the whole thing." He rushed to the forge, unburdened himself of a pack filled with rusty iron.

  Tain examined the haul. "Good. More than enough for the bushings. You keep them greased, the windmill will last a lifetime."

  Toma's boyish grin faded.

  "What happened? You were gone a long time."

  "Come on in the house. Share a jar of beer with me."

  Tain put his tools away and followed Toma. Glancing eastward, he saw the white stain of Steban's flock dribbling down a distant slope, heading home. Beyond Steban, a little south, stood the grotesque rock formation locals called the Toad. The Sharans believed it the home of a malignant god.

  Toma passed the beer. "The Caydarmen visited Kosku again. He wouldn't give them the animals."

  Tain still didn't understand. He said nothing.

  "They won't stand for it," Rula said. "There'll be trouble."

  Toma shrugged. "There'll always be trouble. Comes of being alive." He pretended a philosophical nonchalance. Tain read the fear he was hiding. "They'll probably come tonight...."

  "You've been drinking," Rula snapped. "You're not going to...."

  "Rula, it's got to stop. Somebody has to show them the limits. We've reached ours. Kosku has taken up the mantle. The rest of us can't...."

  "Tain, talk to him."

  Tain studied them, sensed them. Their fear made the house stink. He said nothing. After meeting her eyes briefly, he handed Toma the beer and ignored her appeal. He returned to his forge, dissipated his energies pumping the bellows and hammering cherry iron. He didn't dare insinuate himself into their argument. It had to remain theirs alone.

  Yet he couldn't stop thinking, couldn't stop feeling. He hammered harder, driven by a taint of anger.

  His very presence had altered Toma. Rula had said as much The man wouldn't have considered supporting this Kosku otherwise. Simply by having entered the man's life he was forcing Toma to prove something. To himself? Or to Rula?

  Tain hammered till the hills rang. Neutral as he had tried to remain, he had become heir to a responsibility. Toma had to be shielded from the consequences of artificial bravado.

  "Tain?"

  The hammer's thunder stammered. "Steban? Home so early?"

  "It's almost dark."

  "Oh. I lost track of time." He glanced at his handiwork. He had come near finishing while roaming his own mind. "What is it?"

  "Will you teach me to be a soldier?"

  Tain drove the tongs into the coals as if their mound contained the heart of an enemy. "I don't think so. Your mother...."

  "She won't care. She's always telling me to learn something."

  "Soldiering isn't what she has in mind. She means your father's lessons."

  "Tain, writing and ciphers are boring. And what good did they do my Dad? Anyway, he's only teaching me because Mother makes him."

  What kind of world did Rula live in, there behind the mask of her face? Tain wondered.

  It couldn't be a happy world. It had suffered the deaths of too many hopes. Time had beaten her down. She had become an automaton getting through each day with the least fuss possible.

  "Boring, but important. What good a soldier who can't read or write? All he can do is carry a spear."

  "Can you read?"

  "Six languages. Every soldier in my army learns at least two. To become a soldier in my country is like becoming a priest in yours, Steban."

  Rula, he thought. Why do I find you unique when you're just one of a million identical sisters scattered through the feudal west? The entire sub-continent lay prostrate beneath the heel of a grinding despair, a ponderous changelessness. It was a tinder-dry philosophical forest. The weakest spark flung off by a hope-bearing messiah would send it up.

  "A soldier's training isn't just learning to use a sword, Steban. It's learning a way of life. I could teach you to fence, but you'd never become a master. Not till you learned the discipline, the way of thinking and living you need to...."

  "Boy, you going to jabber all night? Get those sheep in the pens."

  Toma leaned against the doorframe of the house. A jar of beer hung from his hand. Tain sensed the random anger rushing around inside him. It would be as unpredictable as summer lightning.

  "Take care of the sheep, Steban. I'll help water them later."

  He cleaned up his forge, then himself, then carried water till Rula
called them to supper.

  Anger hung over the meal like a cloying fog rolling in off a noisome marsh. Tain was its focus.

  Rula wanted him to control Toma. Toma wanted his support. And Steban wanted a magical access to the heroic world his uncle had created from the bloodies most ineptly fought, and most pointless war of recent memory Tain ate in silence.

  Afterward, he said, "I've nearly finished the bushings and shaft bearings. We can start the tower tomorrow."

  Toma grunted.

  Tain shrugged. The man's mood would have to take care of itself.

  He glanced at Rula. The appeal remained in her eyes. He rose, obtained a jar of beer, broke the seal, sipped. "A toast to the windmill." He passed it to Toma.

  "Steban, let's get the rest of that water."

  A breeze had come up during supper. Cool and moist, it promised rain. Swift clouds were racing toward the mountains, obscuring the stars. Maybe, Tain thought, the weather would give Rula what he could not.

  "Mom and Dad are mad at each other, aren't they?"

  "I think so."

  "Because of the Koskus?"

  "Yes." The walk from the spring seemed to grow longer.

  "Dad's afraid. Of the Caydarmen." Steban sounded disappointed.

  "With good reason, I imagine." Tain hadn't met any of the Baron's mercenaries. He hadn't met any of the neighbors, either. None had come calling He hadn't done any visiting during his reconnaisances.

  "Soldiers aren't ever afraid."

  Tain chuckled. "Wrong, Steban. Soldiers are always afraid. We just learn to handle fear. Your Dad didn't have to learn when you lived in the city. He's trying to catch up now."

  "I'd show those Caydarmen. Like I showed that wolf."

  "There was only one wolf, Steban. There're a lot of Caydarmen."

  "Only seven. And the Witch."

  "Seven? And a witch?"

  "Sure. Torfin. Bodel. Grimnir. Olag. I don't remember the others."

  "What about this witch? Who's she?"

  Steban wouldn't answer for a while. Then, "She tells them what to do. Dad says the Baron was all right till she went to the Tower."

  "Ah." So. Another fragment of puzzle. Who would have thought this quiet green land, so sparsely settled, could be so taut and mysterious?

  Tain tried pumping Steban, but the boy clammed up about the Baron.

  "Do you think Pa's a coward, Tain?"

  "No. He came to the Zemstvi. It takes courage for a man to leave everything just on the chance he might make a better life someplace else."

  Steban stopped and stared at him. There had been a lot of emotion in his voice. "Like you did?"

  "Yes. Like I did. I thought about it a lone time."

  "Oh."

  "This ought to be enough water. Let's go back to the house."

  He glanced at the sky.

  "Going to rain," he said as they went inside.

  "Uhm," Toma grunted. He finished one jar and started another. Tain smiled thinly. Kleckla wouldn't be going out tonight. He turned his smile on Rula.

  She smiled back. "Maybe you'd better sleep here. The barn leaks."

  "I'll be all right. I patched it some yesterday morning."

  "Don't you ever sleep?"

  "Old habits die hard. Well, the sheep are watered. I'm going to turn in."

  "Tain?"

  He paused at the door.

  "Thanks."

  He ducked into the night. Misty raindrops kissed his cheeks. A rising wind quarreled with itself in the grove.

  He performed the Soldier's Ritual, then lay back on the straw pallet he had fashioned. But sleep wouldn't come.

  VIII

  The roan quivered between his knees as they descended the hill. It wasn't because of the wind and cold rain. The animal sensed the excitement and uncertainty of its rider.

  Tain guided the roan into a brushy gully, dismounted, told the horse to wait. He moved fifty yards downslope, sat down against a boulder. So still did he remain that he seemed to become one with the stone.

  The Kosku stead looked peaceful to an untrained eye. Just a quiet rural place passing a sleepy night.

  But Tain felt the wakefulness there. Someone was watching the night. He could taste their fear and determination.

  The Caydarmen came an hour later. There were three of them bearing torches. They didn't care who saw them. They came down the hill from behind Tain and passed within fifty yards of him None noticed him.

  Two were big men. The one with the horn helm, on the paint. Tain recognized as the Torfin he had seen before. The second was much larger than the first. The third, riding between them, was a slight, small figure in black.

  The Witch. Tain knew that before she entered his vision. He had sensed her raw, untrained strength minutes earlier. Now he could feel the dread of her companions.

  The wild adept needed to be feared. She was like an untrained elephant, ignorant of her own strength. And in her potential for misuse of the Power she was more dangerous to herself than to anyone she threatened.

  Tain didn't doubt that fear was her primary control over the Baron and his men. She would cajole, pout, and hurt, like a spoiled child....

  She was very young. Tain could sense no maturity in her at all.

  The man with the horns dismounted and pounded the Kosku door with the butt of a dagger. "Kosku.

  Open in the name of Baron Caydar."

  "Go to Hell."

  Tain almost laughed.

  The reply, spoken almost gently, came from the mouth of a man beyond fear. The Caydarmen sensed it too, and seemed bewildered. That was what amused Tain so.

  "Kosku, you've been fined three sheep, three goats, and five geese for talking sedition. We've come to collect."

  "The thieves bargain now? You were demanding five, five, and ten the other day."

  "Five sheep, five goats, and ten geese, then," Torfin replied, chagrined.

  "Get the hell off my land." "Kosku...."

  Assessing the voice, Tain identified Torfin as a decent man trapped by circumstance. Torfin didn't want trouble.

  "Produce the animals, Kosku," said the second man. "Or I'll come after them."

  This one wasn't a decent sort. His tone shrieked bully and sadist. This one wanted Kosku to resist.

  "Come ahead, Grimnir. Come ahead." The cabin door flung open. An older man appeared. He leaned on a long, heavy quarterstaff. "Come to me, you Trolledyngjan dog puke. You sniffer at the skirts of whores."

  Kosku, Tain decided, was no ex-clerk. He was old, but the hardness of a man of action glimmered through the grey. His muscles were taut and strong. He would know how to handle his staff.

  Grimnir wasn't inclined to test him immediately. The witch urged her mount forward.

  "You don't frighten me, little slut. I know you. I won't appease your greed."

  Her hands rose before her, black-gloved fingers writhing like snakes. Sudden emerald sparks leapt from tip to tip. Kosku laughed.

  His staff darted too swiftly for the eye to follow. Its iron-shod tip struck the Witch's horse between the nostrils.

  It shrieked, reared. The woman tumbled into the mud. Green sparks zig-zagged over her dark clothing. She spewed curses like a broken oath-sack.

  Torfin swung his torch at the old man.

  The staff's tip caught him squarely in the forehead. He sagged.

  "Kosku, you shouldn't have done that," Grimnir snarled. He dismounted, drew his sword. The old man fled, slammed his door. Grimnir recovered Torfin's torch, tossed it onto the thatch of Kosku's home. He helped the Witch and Torfin mount, then tossed his own torch.

  Tain was inclined to aid the old man, but didn't move. He had left his weapons behind in case he encountered this urge.

  He didn't need weapons to fight and kill, but he suspected, considering Kosku's reaction, that Grimnir was good with a sword. It didn't seem likely that an unarmed man could take him.

  And there was the Witch, whose self-taught skill he couldn't estimate.

 
; She had had enough. Despite Grimnir's protests, she started back the way they had come.

  Tain watched them pass. The Witch's eyes jerked his way, as if she were startled, but she saw nothing. She relaxed. Tain listened them over the ridge before moving.

  The wet thatch didn't burn well, but it burned. Tain strode down, filled a bucket from a sheep trough, tossed water onto the blaze. A half dozen throws finished it.

  The rainfall was picking up. Tain returned to the roan conscious that eyes were watching him go.

  He swung onto the gelding, whispered. The horse began stalking the Caydarmen.

  They weren't hurrying. It was two hours before Tain discerned the deeper darkness of the Tower through the rain. His quarry passed inside without his having learned anything. He circled the structure once.

  The squat, square tower was only slightly taller than it was wide. It was very old, antedating Iwa Skolovda. Tain assumed that it had been erected by Imperial engineers when llkazar had ruled Shara. A watchtower to support patrols in the borderlands.

  Shara had always been a frontier.

  Similar structures dotted the west. Ilkazar's advance could be chronicled by their architectural styles.

  IX

  Toma was in a foul mood next morning. Tain avoided him, concentrating on the windmill while Kleckla worked on the house.

  Toma was suffering from more than a hangover. Come midmorning he abandoned his tools, donned a jacket and collected is staff. He strode off toward the village.

  He had hardly vanished when Rula joined Tain. "Thanks for last night," she said.

  Tain spread his hands in a "it was nothing" gesture. "I don't think you had to worry."

  "What?"

  "Nothing." He averted his gaze shyly.

  "He's gone to find out what happened."

  "I know. He feels responsible."

  "He's not responsible for Kosku's sins."

  "We're all responsible to one another, Rula. His feelings are genuine. My opinion is, he wants to do the right thing for the wrong reasons."

  "What reasons?"

  "I think he wants to prove something. I'm not sure why. Or to whom. Maybe to himself."

  "Just because they blame him. ..." Her gaze snapped up and away, toward the spring. Tain turned slowly.