I reined my horse between the farmer and the scythe. "Talion, let us leave. They elude us."
Ring rode forward, deaf to my words.
"Talion, thou dost slay his blood."
Ring snapped his head around at the combined High Tal and Call. Pure fury flowed through his eyes. His stare should have wilted me, but my hatred for him and my fear for the farmer's family shielded me from his rage. I held his stare for long enough to convince him I was not afraid of him, then turned to the farmer.
"What is your name?"
"Ben."
"Don't mind my partner, Ben. He's ra Temur and has never taken a good look at a real stone house. Get him into a city, a real city, and he wanders around in a trance." I dismounted and scooped up the bucket. "Do you mind if I water my horse? We've a long way yet to ride today."
I draped an arm across Ben's shoulders and steered him
toward the well, and away from the scythe. "I grew up on a farm myself, Ben. We raised grain like you do."
Ben gave no sign he heard me. He tied the bucket back onto the rope and lowered it into the well.
He drew it back up again and I directed Wolfs muzzle to it. I smiled at the farmer and scratched Wolf between the eyes. It was time to gamble and I hoped Ben would relax enough to see what I was doing, then play along.
"I can remember the good things and, boy, can I remember the bad. You ever have trouble with glutton flies?" I saw something flash through his eyes, and I hoped he'd stay with me long enough to save his family. Glutton flies are a staple of farm folklore. They are a mythical insect that's blamed for eating everything whenever there is a poor harvest or supplies run out too fast.
I reached across Wolfs muzzle and laid a friendly hand on Ben's shoulder. "Yes, I remember those glutton flies. Had a farm in Sinjaria, my family did, and the glutton flies we got there were the nasty ones, all green with four wings. You know the type I mean." I smiled confidently.
Ben's eyes narrowed and he nodded as if he were in a trance.
I continued. "Bad as they are in the field, have you ever had them in the house? I can remember once we had three swarms in the house. Have you ever had that? What's the most you've had in the house?"
Ben closed his eyes and his lips moved silently, undoubtedly in prayer. "Two."
I smiled, let loose a cautious sigh, and squeezed his shoulder. "Then you've never had it bad. Two swarms is no problem. Have you ever had them in the barn? They go there at night sometimes."
"No, only the house." His voice still was nervous, but the answers came easier as he realized what I was asking. "Horseflies in the barn, though."
"The glutton flies we had only had small stingers." I dropped a hand to my dagger. "How about you?"
"One swarm is mixed, long and short stingers. The other only short."
I laughed. "I wouldn't worry about them. I've heard they often pass without causing any real harm, especially at this time of year."
Ben nodded, a weak smile returning to his face. "That's what I've heard, once the weather changes and everything is clear."
"Oh, good. Then you'll have no problem." I pulled Wolfs head from the bucket and swung up into the saddle. "We'll be going. Good luck, Ben. Thanks for the water."
I reined Wolf around and virtually forced Ring to leave the farmhouse. We rode further east, then cut back down into a gully that ran north for a bit, then headed west. We got a mile from the house before Ring spoke.
"Talion I am wont to slay thee."
I reined Wolf to a stop and turned in my saddle to face Ring. "And after me you'll go back, get Ben's family killed, then take our friends?"
Ring stiffened at my tone and words. "Beware, novice, you do not have Lord Hansur or the Master to make sure you win where you should have lost out here!"
Rage flashed through me like lightning and I vaulted from Wolfs saddle with liquid ease. "Now, Ring, right now. You've hated me since the beginning, and I never knew why. Now I've figured it out. Get down and I'll show you I've earned everything I've gotten."
Ring's face softened with astonishment. "You've only now realized why I loathe you? I'd not have you wondering about such an important thing. Let me explain it to you carefully, novice. Since the first day you came to Talianna you've been Hansur's darling and the Master's pet. Without their bending the rules you'd never have gotten even this far."
Words raced through my mind and caught in my throat. I'd struggled for everything I'd gotten—the Master said so himself at our first meeting—yet Ring so easily stripped it all away from me through an acerbic slander tossed off with casual recklessness. Am I a fraud? shot through my mind like a hawk stooping on insecurities still hidden deep inside me.
Ring pressed his attack before I had any chance to marshal a defense. "I've known of you from the beginning. Nolan, the boy who walked a thousand leagues. Nolan, the boy who defied Lancers and who always tried harder than anyone else. Nolan, the boy who believed he could become a Justice."
Ring spat at me. "There you were wrong, as you have been so many times this year. No one can become a Justice, it is a job one is born to."
I shook my head and scattered all my doubts. "No, becoming a Justice is not a birthright, it's an honor to be earned."
"You are wrong, novice!" Ring's nostrils flared and his eyes grew wide. He jabbed his own chest with the thumb of his right hand. "My father was a Justice. He died when I was five. He was killed in the line of duty, but I grew up with a tradition. I know what it means to be a Justice. It was bred into me. I was destined to become a Justice."
"Oh, and that breeding makes you a better Justice than I am. I don't think so." I pointed back toward the farmhouse. "What were you trying to accomplish back there?"
"Justice." Ring's eyes glazed for a second. "Ahnj and Dabir could hear us. They were scared. They knew the terror their victims did. That is just a small dose of the justice they deserve."
I shook my head violently. "No, Ring, that's torture. You tortured them, and in doing so you tortured Ben and his family. Ahnj and Dabir were waiting in there with his wife and children, ready to hold them hostage if you entered the house."
"But I never planned to enter the house."
"You knew that, they did not. I didn't know it."
Ring's haughty grin came back to his face. "So you, a novice, decide to step in and help me. You Called me, shamed me, there, in front of the farmer."
"Ben, his name is Ben." I slammed my right fist into my left palm in frustration.
"What does it matter? We are not concerned with him."
I shook my head slowly. I was tired of the fighting and sad there was any reason for it to take place. "Yes we are. Ben is the reason we are here. He is the reason we do what we do. Ben and those like him are all that matters."
Ring chuckled lightly and silently. His shoulders rose and fell gently as he shook his head at me. He decided to humor me. "And talking with him about farm pests helped him?"
"No." I pleaded for his understanding. "He was dying inside with each of your questions. I had to try something, so I gambled, and that gamble helped him. And it helped us."
"How did it do that, novice?" His voice took on the same patronizing and questioning tone as a teacher's voice does when he braces for an improbable and fanciful explanation from a student.
I sighed and turned back toward Wolf. "One of the murderers is armed with sword and dagger, but the other only has a dagger. They told him they would move on without harming anyone once we were gone and they have horses in the barn. I imagine they will head back to the valley and try to lose themselves in Tuzi or Zist."
"How?" He narrowed his eyes and regarded me suspiciously. "How do you know this?"
I hauled myself up into Wolfs saddle. "There are no such things as glutton flies. He realized I was asking about Ahnj and Dabir." Ring's face still was a mask of puzzled disbelief. "Ben was more afraid for his family than he was afraid of you. He felt trapped and I gave him a way out." I started Wolf off down the gully. "I'll wait
for them among the Guardians."
Ring said nothing. He sat there and stared off into the distance. His body sagged a bit as if the doctrines he'd used to support himself all these years had crumbled just ever so slightly. Then, before I could ride out of sight, he straightened, caught up, and led the way to the valley.
* * *
Ahnj was the one with both sword and dagger. Both men rode into the valley easily, as if they didn't have a care in the world on a path that would bring them right through the Guardians on the way to Tuzi.
Ring rode from behind a black Lancer Guardian onto the road before them and stopped. He raised his right hand and showed them the Skull. "You are criminals and outlaws. I demand you surrender or I will kill you." His words were precise and clipped off; they begged for either man to do something stupid.
Dabir jerked the reins of his gray mare and cut off the road to skirt the Guardians on his way to Tuzi. I let fly with a sling-stone and it smashed him in the spine. He arched his back in pain and rolled from the saddle. He hit the ground, tumbled, and groggily rose to his hands and knees.
Ahnj watched Ring summon his tsincaat and turned his horse toward Zist. Ring directed me to follow Ahnj while he leaped from the saddle and stalked toward Dabir. The Insalian had struggled to his feet and, despite the fall he'd taken, crouched in anticipation. He dwarfed Ring but the tsincaat dwarfed Dabir's dagger.
I spurred Wolf and he shot forward like an arrow from a longbow after Ahnj. I rode a zigzag course through the Guardians—with blurred glimpses of Ahnj flashing between them—but Wolf ran like the wind and actually gained on the outlaw. I put another stone in my sling, whirled it, and, when I broke from the statues, slung it at him.
I missed Ahnj, but hit his horse behind the right ear. The horse ducked its head and dug its front hooves into the earth. Ahnj vaulted high out of the saddle and crashed to the ground in a tangle of thornbushes, but he rolled up ready for me.
I leaped from the saddle and drew my sword. "Surrender, Ahnj."
Ahnj scowled. His thick black beard soaked up the blood from a dozen crisscross thorn scratches raked across his face. His clothes were full of little holes, and pieces of bush still hung from his clothing. "You are a child. I would never surrender to a mere child."
I swallowed hard. "I don't want to kill you."
He shrugged. "Then I will kill you." His words were spoken as if casual conversation, but they shot icy fingers through my stomach. He stood no taller than me, but he outweighed me by at least thirty pounds. His arms were certainly thicker than mine, but in the tattered robe he wore I could not really tell how much of his size was fat versus muscle. Then he moved, and I realized he carried little fat on his body.
I hung back, which was uncharacteristic of me, because this was the first fight I'd ever had where my foe wanted to kill me. All the other fights during my training were practice. I might be ruled dead because of a good blow, but armor protected me and I got up after the match. Here there was no appeal to a judge, and no penalty for a foul blow struck.
Ahnj attacked savagely and tried, quickly, to finish me so he could escape. He windmilled sweeping cuts at me and had my training not taken over immediately, he would have killed me in short order. I sidestepped the first blows, blocked a few more, and parried the last.
Ahnj's movement fell into a pattern, two high blows and one lower, and that pattern marked him as a poor fighter. I sensed he was unconscious of the repetition and already my mind ran through a number of moves I could make that would use this weakness against him. I could not count on his continuing it, but I knew I could use it to kill him if it appeared again.
His next cut came high. I kept my blade in a low guard and stepped to my left to avoid it. Ahnj raised his sword again and rained it down toward my right shoulder. I blocked the cut high to my right, stepped forward, and slipped my right leg behind his right leg. I hit him with my right shoulder and toppled him over. He fell, sprawled out on his back, and my sword stood poised above my head, to chop through his chest.
My eyes met his and I read the terror there. I hesitated, for just a heartbeat, then struck, but Ahnj had rolled from beneath the blow.
"Well played boy, but the sword's got to stick if the blow is to kill." He tried to make the words light, but his fear betrayed him. He dropped into a defensive posture and waved me on with his open left hand.
I moved forward and tried to consciously recall all the varied sequences of cut, parry, and riposte I'd been drilled in for the last six years, but nothing came to mind. Still my body remembered the training and attacked. I released my thoughts and just flowed into my body's rhythms.
The fight ended sooner than I imagined it ever could. Ahnj parried a feint and riposted while my blade hung up in one of his flowing sleeves. His sword passed between my sword arm and body, then started up to slit the artery in my armpit. I spun back and away from him, raising my arm just quickly enough to avoid his attack, then launched forward and continued the spin.
I'd moved past his flank so, as I spun and he whirled back into sight, my sword bit into his back and tore through his chest. My sweeping slash carried the blade free and sprayed blood all over the white Empress. Ahnj reeled away from the blow and fell heavily to the ground.
I continued the spin, dropped to my knees next to the dying bandit, and vomited.
* * *
Ring dealt with the guardsmen from Tuzi and, mercifully, kept them away from me. I could not hear whatever explanation he might have given for me, and I did not care. I felt as if one of the Guardians had reached out and crushed my insides in punishment for defiling the valley.
As a game, novices often spun wild tales about what it would be like to actually kill someone. All the stories were heroic tales about a titanic battle where the novice was all that stood between an evil murderer and a virtuous princess, or was the last hope to defeat an abomination set on destroying the world. In those stories killing was good and right. The odds were always against the novice, but virtue, training, and a valiant heart always won out in the end.
Never did I imagine I'd kill a poorly trained bandit amid a field of wildflowers. The scent of wild roses drifted up to me where I sat on a black Elite's base. I wondered how long it would be before I could smell a rose and not think of Ahnj's death.
Ring rode up and brought Wolf with him. He jerked his head toward the receding guardsmen and their grisly burdens. He wore a self-satisfied smirk on his face. "I told them you had been ill for days. It would not do for them to think a Talion weak."
My dry lips tasted bitter. I licked them with a thick tongue. "They should never think a Talion human."
Ring nodded. "Now you begin to see. Perhaps I judged you too harshly before. Now you're a man, a Talion in everything but formal declaration. This kill should have opened your eyes."
I snorted. "It did."
Ring misread my words and smiled broadly. "Now you see that you have to be as death itself. You have to inspire fear, for without it no one will obey you. They will refuse to aid you." Ring's face lit up and his lust for terror twisted his features into a mask of warped ecstasy. "We can forget what happened earlier."
I shook my head slowly despite the waves of nausea the motion produced. "No. I'll never forget anything about today."
Ring looked beyond me, toward where he'd disarmed Dabir with a quick parry and sucked the soul out of a screaming man. "Perhaps you are right. If you forget the past you might slip back into it."
I laughed gently. The laugh had a note of insanity in it, and that caught Ring like a gig spearing a frog. "You don't understand it, do you?"
Ring stiffened and stared at me.
"That kill changed me, just like this afternoon. I don't like killing, and I don't like terrifying people." I searched for comprehension in Ring's face, but it had less life in it than any of the Guardians. "I don't want everyone to fear me."
"Then you'll never be a Justice." Ring pronounced the words with the same finality he'd used w
hen passing sentence on Dabir.
I pushed myself off the Elite's base and dropped to the ground. "If killing and scaring others is all there is to being a Justice, I guess you're right. But I don't think you are, and I'm going to be a different type of Justice."
Ring stabbed a finger at me. "There is no other way."
I balled my fists and snarled at him. "Yes, there is." I pointed east toward Ben's farm. "I showed you that today. I know his name, I understand his fears, and I don't have to be something he is afraid of. I want people like Ben to know I'll be there when they need someone to get rid of Ahnj or Dabir."
Ring started to reply but I waved his words away and continued. "I've seen it, I've seen what you do to people. I've seen the lightning bolts of fear jolting through those we meet. People turn away when they see us, even the lawful who should have nothing to fear! Everyone stops and asks 'Are they here for me?' whether they have cause for it or not. You may enjoy that. Their fear may sustain you, feed you, make you feel important, but it revolts me. We are here to protect those people. They should not be afraid of us."
I looked up at his silhouette against the pink and purple twilight sky. "Perhaps you want to keep everyone back because you're scared. Your father was killed by someone or something he met out here. I'm sorry about that, and I know how much that hurts, but it's over. Perhaps you feel if his killer had been properly terrified he wouldn't have attacked your father. I don't know." I held both hands up, then crossed my arms and hugged them around my chest. "But maybe, just maybe your father pushed his killer too far, drove him like you drove Ahnj and Dabir, then his killer struck back and overwhelmed your father because of his panic."
I swung up into Wolf's saddle and started east.
Ring's nostrils flared. "You cannot leave. Your Journey is not over."
I shook my head and stopped trying to explain myself to Ring. "No, my Journey is not over, but the portion of it I'm spending with you is. There is nothing more you can teach me."
"You'll never be a Justice!" Ring's shout sounded distant and small as if he was lost and screaming from deep inside himself.