Exile's Honor

'Take a seat,' the old man said. Alberich gingerly chose a chair facing his new mentor.

'Now, before we start out, I want everything straight between us,' said Dethor forthrightly. 'I don't particularly like Karsites.' He sucked in his lower lip. 'Mind, it's the ones in charge I've got a bone to pick with. Your Sunpriests. Just the Karsite ones, mind; we've got a little sect of your lot on this side of the Border, and I've no quarrel with them.'

Alberich nodded, cautiously.

'Now, you're a soldier. Reckon that mostly what you did was take orders. Question I've got for you is—just how much did you think about them orders when you got 'em?' Dethor gave him a sharp look.

'Much,' Alberich replied immediately, without even thinking about it very long. 'Look you—my duty—to what it was? My God, and my people.' He decided that he would leave his duty to Vkandis between himself and the God. 'My people to protect. Not to the Fires to feed them. Not to bandits to leave them.'

'And if them priests had told you to attack us, you'd have done it?' Dethor persisted.

Alberich could only shrug. 'Then? You, Demon-Riders, lovers of demons, with witch-powers and witch-ways? Yes. A threat, I saw you.'

'Hmph. Honest, at least. Now?' Dethor asked.

'Now—there, I am not. Here, I am.' He shrugged. What was the point in asking such a question? Already he was an entirely different person from Captain Alberich of the Suns-guard. Tomorrow he might be a different person from today.

Dethor sighed, with some exaggeration. 'All I'm asking is, are you going to knife me in my sleep because I killed a baker's dozen of your folk and a couple of your Priests a while back?'

Alberich gave Dethor the same answer he had given Alberich. 'You, a soldier are. And your duty? To your King, and your people. This, I understand.'

And if he asked me about questioning orders, I would suspect he thought about his before he obeyed them....

'Farmers, killed you?' he persisted. 'Craftsmen?' He hunted for the word. Kantor helped.

:Civilians.:

'Civilians?'

'Never,' Dethor replied, with such matter-of-factness that Alberich couldn't doubt him. 'Unless you count the priests.'

Alberich dismissed the Sunpriests out of hand. 'Then, no quarrel have I with you.'

'Reckon you're ready to help me beat some skill into a pack of puppies that never saw blood?' Dethor asked, the wrinkles around his eyes relaxing, and a hint of ease creeping into his voice.

Some of whom may grow up to slay more Karsites.... 'A question,' he asked, and picked his words with care. 'The answer, on your honor, swear. Do you of Valdemar— do you make war, and unleash demons, my people upon?'

'No!' Dethor said with such force that Alberich started back in his chair, his hand reaching automatically for a knife that wasn't there.

'No,' the Weaponsmaster repeated, without the heat. 'I swear to you, on my honor, on my gods, on my life, we do nothing of the sort. We'll defend ourselves—and there's bandits along the Border that prey on both sides of it, as I assume you know well enough—but never once in my time have we even pursued an invading army past the Border once we reached it. You already know that what you call 'White Demons' are nothing but our Companions. If there are demons Preying on your people by night—' and a knowing glance told Alberich that this man knew that there were, '—then I say, look to your own priests. We don't have anything or anyone that calls up the likes of demons, and even if we did, we'd not set them on ordinary folk who just have the misfortune to live in the wrong place.'

Dethor's suggestion that Alberich look to the Sunpriests for those who let demons prowl the night was not unexpected—and it was true. This was a thought that had already passed through Alberich's mind, more than once. He nodded.

And he thought of those fresh-faced youngsters at the archery field, how unless someone taught them all of the thousands of ways in which they could die and how to counter their opponents and save themselves—then they would die. For no more crime than serving their people, as he had. This man would not