“Haren fought them,” Leara told him in a monotone. “Said we couldn’t let them take the cattle this time. Said we wouldn’t be able to pay our taxes if they took the cattle.” She took the ladle of water he offered her and sipped it mechanically, as if it was an effort to swallow, before she continued. “He met them at the gate. Told them to go away, to leave us alone. Told them he’d fight them. He cut one of them with his sickle. They laughed at him. Then they killed him.”
Tarja urged another sip of water on her, wishing he had something stronger to offer the woman. He called Ritac over, leaving Leara by the well staring numbly into the distance.
“See if you can find Haren’s body. We’ll burn it before we leave.” Ritac nodded without a word and went off to carry out his orders. Tarja returned to Leara and squatted down in front of her. “Why, Leara? You know we never tax those who’ve been raided. Why not let them take the cattle?”
“Last patrol that came through told us it weren’t the law. Told us we’d have to pay, no matter what. Said things would change, now that there was new officers here.”
“Who said that?” Tarja asked curiously. The practice of not taxing victims of Hythrun raids was one that predated Tarja’s posting to the border, and he had never thought to question it. Strictly speaking, the victims were not exempt from levies due to hardship. It was just that the Defenders chose not to enforce that particular law. These people suffered enough from the Hythrun, without making it harder for them by taking what little they had left for the Sisterhood.
Leara looked up and pointed at Gawn, who still sat on his horse in the middle of the yard, holding his wounded arm gingerly. “It were him.”
“Ritac!” Leara jumped at Tarja’s sudden shout.
The corporal hurried over to them. “Sir?”
“Go with Mistress Steader and see if anything can be salvaged before we leave.” Ritac’s eyes widened at the anger in Tarja’s voice. He helped the woman to her feet and led her toward the house. Tarja crossed the yard in five angry steps. He grabbed Gawn by his red coat and jerked him out of the saddle.
“What the Founders—” Gawn cried as he hit the ground with a thud, jarring his already wounded shoulder.
“You stupid, miserable, son of a bitch,” Tarja growled, reaching down to pull Gawn to his feet. The captain cried out as his shoulder wound began bleeding afresh. “Verkin sent you out to familiarize yourself with the border farms.” He slammed his fist into Gawn’s abdomen. The younger man stumbled backward with a cry, doubling over with the pain.
“How many more, Gawn?” Tarja punctuated his words with another blow, this one to Gawn’s jaw. The punch lifted the captain off his feet and he landed heavily on his back. Sobbing with pain and outrage, he scuttled backward along the ground to escape Tarja’s wrath, crying out with every movement of his wounded shoulder. “How many more farmsteaders will die because you decided things were going to change, now that you’ve arrived on the border?” Tarja bent down and hauled Gawn to his feet. “What gives you the right—”
“The right?” Gawn sputtered, stumbling backward out of Tarja’s reach. “It’s the law! What gives you the right to flout it? You’re the one who lets these people off paying their taxes! You’re the one who lets heathens go unpunished! You’re the one—”
Tarja did not wait to find out what else he was guilty of. He smashed his clenched fist into the young captain’s face with all the force he could muster. With an intensely satisfying, bone-crunching thump, Gawn dropped unconscious at his feet. Shaking his hand to ease the sting, Tarja turned back to his men, who had all suddenly found something else to do. Ritac hurried to him and glanced at the unconscious captain, before looking at Tarja.
“Did you find Haren?”
Ritac shook his head. “Mistress Leara says they threw him into the house before they set it on fire. He’s had his Burning at least.”
Tarja frowned. It was a measure of the Warlord’s anger that they had burned Haren’s corpse. Hythrun considered the Medalonian practice of cremation a barbaric and sacrilegious custom. Wolfblade must have been in a rage, if he ordered a body burned.
“Let’s get out of here then,” Tarja announced, flexing his still-aching fist as he walked back toward the house.
“Er... what about Captain Gawn, sir?” Ritac called after him. “He appears to be unwell.”
He glanced over his shoulder at the corporal. “That arrow wound must be worse than it looks,” Tarja replied calmly. “Tie him to his saddle.”
Ritac didn’t even blink. “Aye. Nasty things, those Hythrun arrows.”
It was another four days before Tarja and his men arrived back in Bordertown. They had taken a detour to deliver Leara to her sister’s farmstead, before heading home.
Gawn regained consciousness and had barely spoken a word to anyone, although he was obviously in pain. He now had a broken nose and two rather impressive black eyes to accompany his arrow wound.
Bordertown was the southernmost town in Medalon, located near the point where the borders of Fardohnya, Hythria, and Medalon met. Their detour meant entering the town by the North Road, past the busy docks on the outskirts of the town.
Harsh shouts, muttered curses, and the sharp smell of fish permeated the docks as they rode by. Sailors and traders, riverboat captains, and red-coated Defenders swarmed over the wharves that were lapped by the broad silver expanse of the Glass River.
To Tarja, the docks were about the worst thing he had ever smelled in his life, and every time he rode past them, he wondered at those who found so much romance on the river.
They rode toward the center of the town past wagons and polished carriages clattering and clanking along the cobbled street lined by taverns and shops. The buildings were almost all double-storied, with red-tiled roofs and balconies that overlooked the street below, festooned with washing hung out to dry. Rickety temporary stalls with tattered awning covers were set up in the gaps between the shops which sold a variety of food, copper pots, and even exotic Fardohnyan silk scarves. There were beggars too – old, scabby men and pitifully thin young boys, missing an arm, a leg, or an eye. Occasionally, he caught sight of a Fardohnyan merchant with his entourage of slaves and his gloriously exotic
Tarja forgot how much he disliked Bordertown every time he left it, and was surprised that after four years, he had still not grown accustomed to it. He preferred the open plains – even the dangerous game he played with the Hythrun Warlord.
Tarja led his men to the center of the town where the market was in full swing. There were stalls everywhere selling just about anything Tarja could name and quite a few things he could not. The smells and sounds of the wharf were replaced with more familiar animal things. Raucous chickens stacked in cages, bleating sheep, evil-eyed goats, and squealing piglets all vied with each other to attract the most attention. A stand selling exotic colorful birds drew Tarja’s eye, where a large black bird with a tall red crest yelled obscenities at the passersby. Tarja could feel the undercurrent of the town’s heartbeat, like a distant thrumming against his senses.
The town square was dominated by a tall fountain in the shape of a large and highly improbable sculpted marble fish which spewed forth a stream of water into a shallow circular pool. A crowd had gathered to watch as a small man dressed in ragged clothes stood on the rim of the pool. He was yelling in a high-pitched, animated voice.
Tarja glanced at the man with a shake of his head, then turned to Basel. “I thought old Keela was sent to the Grimfield?”
The sergeant shrugged. “They can’t keep locking him up forever, sir. He’s crazy, not a criminal.”
“The gods seek the demon child!” Keela was yelling fervently. “The gods will strike Medalon asunder for turning from them!”
Tarja grimaced at the lunatic’s words. “He’ll be wishing he was back in the Grimfield if he keeps that nonsense up for much longer.” He turned his horse toward the fountain, and the crowd parted eagerly for him, expecting a confrontation.
