Such thoughts fled as Krispos saw his father coming up with right hand clutched to left shoulder. Blood trickled between
Phostis' fingers and splashed his tunic. 'Father!' Krispos exclaimed . 'Are you—'
Phostis cut him off. 'I'll live, boy. I've done worse to myself with a sickle more than once. I've said often enough that I'm not cut out for this soldiering business.'
'You're alive. That's what counts,' Idalkos said. 'And while you may not want to soldier, Phostis, your boy here has the knack for it, I'd say. He sees what needs doing and he does it—and if it's giving an order, men listen to him. That's Phos' own gift, nothing else—I've seen officers without it. If ever he wanted to head to Videssos the city, the army'd be glad to have him.'
'The city? Me?' Krispos had never even imagined traveling to the great imperial capital. Now he tasted the idea. After a moment, he shook his head. 'I'd sooner farm. It's what I know. Besides, I don't fancy killing any more than my father does.'
'Neither do I,' Idalkos said. 'That doesn't mean it isn't needful sometimes. And, like I told you, I think you'd make a good soldier.'
'No, thanks. All I really want to make is a good crop of beans this year, so we don't go hungry when winter comes.' Krispos spoke as firmly as he could, both to let Idalkos know he meant what he said and to reinforce that certainty in his own mind.
The veteran shrugged. 'Have it your way. If you want to go on being a farmer, though, we'd best make sure these were the only Kubratoi operating around here. The first thing we'll do is strip the bodies.' Some of the villagers had already started taking care of that. Idalkos went on, 'The cuirasses and the bows are better than what we already have. The swords are more for fighting from horseback like the Kubratoi do than afoot, but we'll still be able to use 'em.'
'Aye, but what about the wild men now?' Krispos demanded. 'We were both worried they'd have a scout close to the village. If he got away and warned another, bigger band—'
'Then the swords and arrows we're gathering won't matter, because we don't have enough men to hold off a big, determined band. So if there is a scout, he'd best not get away.' Idalkos cocked his head. 'Well, brave captain Krispos, how would you go about making sure he doesn't?'
In a tone of voice only slightly different, the veteran's question would have been mockery. As it was, though, he seemed rather to be setting Krispos a problem, the way Varades sometimes had when he gave the youth a long, hard word to spell out. Krispos thought hard. 'If most of us march down the road toward the village,' he said at last, 'anybody would be sure to notice us. A rider could get away easy enough by going wide around us, but he'd come back to the road after he did, to find out what had happened to his friends. So maybe we ought to set some archers in ambush just up ahead there, before the bugger could round that bend and see what we've done to the rest of the wild men.'
'Maybe we should.' Grinning, Idalkos gave Krispos a Videssian military salute, clenched fist over heart. He turned to Phostis. 'Skotos take you, man, why couldn't you have raised a son who was discontented with following in his father's footsteps?'
'Because I raised one with sense instead,' Krispos' father said. 'Better to be turning up the ground than to have it tossed on top of you on account of you've been killed too young.'
Krispos nodded vigorously. Idalkos sighed. 'All right, all right. It's a good scheme, anyhow; I think it'll work.' He started yelling to the villagers. A couple of them cut branches and vines to make travois on which to drag back their dead and the three or four men hurt too badly to walk. They left the horses of the Kubratoi for the ambush party to fetch back, and the wild men's corpses for ravens' meat.
When Krispos watched his plan unfold, he felt the same awe that seeing the seeds he had planted grow to maturity always gave him. Just as he'd guessed, a lone Kubrati was sitting on his horse a couple of miles closer to the village than his comrades had rested. The rider started violently at the sight of spear-waving Videssians bearing down on him. He kicked his horse to a trot, then to a gallop. The villagers gave chase, but could not catch him.
As Krispos had expected, the Kubrati rode back to the road. The youth and Idalkos grinned at each other as they watched the column of dust the wild man's horse kicked up fade in the distance. 'That should do for him,' Krispos said happily. 'Now we can head for home.'
They arrived not long after sunset—a little before the raiders would have hit the village if they still lived. In the fading light, Krispos saw women and children waiting anxiously outside their homes, wondering whether husbands, fathers, sons, and lovers would come back again.
As one, the returning men shouted, 'Phos!' Not only was it a cry no Kubratoi would make, their loved ones recognized their voices. Shouting themselves, they rushed toward the victorious farmers. Some of their glad cries turned to wails as they saw not all the men had come home safe. For most of them, though, it was a time of joy.
Embracing his mother, Krispos noticed how far he had to stoop to kiss her. Stranger still was the kiss he got from Evdokia. In the passage from one day to the next, he'd paid scant heed to the way his sister had grown, but suddenly she felt like a woman in his arms. He needed a moment to realize she was as old now as Zoranne had been on that Midwinter's Day.
As if the thought of Zoranne were enough to conjure her up, he found himself kissing her next. Their embrace was awkward; he had to lean over her belly, now big with child, to reach her lips.
Close by the two of them, a woman shouted, 'Where's my Hermon?'
'It's all right, Ormisda,' Krispos told her. 'He's one of the archers we left behind to trap the wild man we couldn't catch. Anyone you don't see here is waiting in that ambush.'
'Oh, Phos be praised!' Ormisda said. She kissed Krispos, too, though she was close to three times his age. More people kissed him—and one another—over the next hour than he'd seen during half a dozen Midwinter's Day's rolled into one.
Then, in the middle of the celebration, the archers returned to the village. Though everyone fell on them with happy shouts—Ormisda almost smothered Hermon against her ample bosom—they hung back from fully joining the rest of the villagers. Krispos knew what that had to mean. 'He got away,' he said.
He knew it sounded like an accusation. So did the archers. They hung their heads. 'We must have shot twenty
