"Here." She pushed a fist-sized strip of jerked venison into his hands. "We'd best be off if we're to reach town by midday."
"Town?" Rubbing his swollen eyes, Larson glanced toward Gaelinar, who was examining the sharpened edge of his katana with approval.
The Kensei pocketed the whetstone and sheathed his sword. "Forste-Mar. It's Silme's hometown." He pointed vaguely northward.
Larson followed the gesture mechanically as he mulled over all the incredible things that had happened to him recently. More accustomed to his new surroundings, now he began to consider details which earlier had been blurred by the necessity for self-preservation. He became aware of the language he spoke as fluently as his companions, a melodious singsong which he supposed was Old Norse. He could not guess why the cold slap of wind did not chill him after the suffocating jungle heat, nor why he remained clean-shaven after two days without a razor.
Larson idly chewed mouthfuls of meat as their journey through the evergreen forest resumed. The clustered trees restricted undergrowth yet remained sparse enough for clear vision and passage. Yearning for a new identity, he paid little attention to their trail. Al Larson died in Vietnam. Let him keep his memories of atrocity and evil. I am Allerum, an elf without a past on a quest sanctioned by gods.
Despite the veracity of the sentiment, Larson's conscience resisted. Ugly recollections fought for control, bloody scenes witnessed by the man he had just denounced; but in the sanctity of the forest, Larson held such thoughts in check. His eyes followed Silme, and he surrendered to a thrill of desire. She moved soundlessly, like a woodland being. For all the effort it cost her, the forest might have adapted to suit her rather than she to it.
Gaelinar pushed past Larson and caught the hand in which Silme held her sapphire-tipped staff. The gesture drew Larson from his struggle with self-identity. Until that moment, he'd never considered there might be more to his companions' relationship than mere friendship. The idea drove him to a sadness which flared to fury. He glared as Silme answered Gaelinar's whispered words with a laugh, and the Kensei took the lead of the party.
He must be twice her age, Larson reminded himself in a rage. Yet jealousy did not blind him to an important fact. He had no way to judge Silme's years. Surely a powerful sorceress could warp time's ravishings with illusion. His stomach lurched at the notion. Beauty by magic seemed deceitful. Yet, Larson thought as reason dispersed anger, why should Silme not take advantage of her craft? Recognition of his own shallowness made Larson flush. There was more to Silme than comeliness. She demonstrated poise, empathy, generosity, pride, and a confidence he sorely missed in himself.
Ruffled by his ponderings, Larson turned his attention back to their surroundings. The terrain grew more hilly, swarming with foxgrape and low, twisted bushes. Passage grew easier as brush gave way to discernible trails beaten to mud by feet, hooves, and wagon wheels. The woods broke suddenly to fields of wind-bowed grain, and the weed-grown path became an obvious road with branches and byways.
Larson hesitated, accustomed to the waist-high, leech-infested swamps of the rice paddies. Gaelinar and Silme continued down the roadway between wheat fields without any apparent worry. But as they turned simultaneously to urge Larson forward, he recognized a solemnity which had escaped him during the journey. He trotted to Silme's side, stared into her eyes, and demanded stridently, "What's the matter?"
She lowered her head until billows of golden hair obscured her face. Her knuckles whitened about her dragonstaff, and she spoke in a dry, quavering whisper. "After your dream I sought Vidarr's guidance. He didn't respond." She raised water-glazed eyes to Larson's curious stare.
A reply seemed necessary, but Larson could think of none. He tried to keep a patronizing tone from his question.
"Does he usually answer you?"
"With images at least." Silme threw back her locks to reveal a face drawn with concern. "I'm his favored attendant. Something terrible has happened."
Unfamiliar with the dealings between gods and men, Larson could offer no real reassurance. He reached for Silme, but Kensei Gaelinar caught his forearm with a tortured cry. "Look there!"
Larson followed the old man's stare. White smoke funneled toward the sky from beyond the next rise. Gaelinar broke into a run, and his companions followed. Larson stubbed a toe in his haste, and his soft, doeskin moccasins did little to dull the impact. Cursing and limping, he caught up with Gaelinar at the hilltop, and the scene below made him forget his pain. Flames danced around an overturned wagon. Beside it, two men pinned a struggling figure to the ground while a third swayed, locked to the wild lurches of the prisoner.
High-pitched, panicked screams drowned Larson's own attempts at breath and cut him to the heart.
Every man draws his limit at an atrocity no amount of coercion could force him to commit. Larson's was rape. More than once, he had turned away while peers in uniform shamed and killed daughters before their helpless fathers. Too moral to join in, at the same time he was unable to risk provoking men on whom his life depended. So he had remained silent, seared by the guilt of a tacit condemnation which might have been approval for all it served the victim or his own conscience. All these thoughts condensed to a boil of emotion.
"Wait!" screamed Silme.
But Gaelinar sprinted down the roadway, howling, "Allerum, charge!" And, hearing his cry, the bandits scrambled for weapons.
After nearly a year of staking his life on strangers' orders, Larson obeyed Gaelinar without thought. He ran within thirty yards of the conflict before he remembered he could not wield his sword. He stopped abruptly as Gaelinar leaped at one of the rapists. Steel chimed as the bandit's sword crashed against the Kensei's shoto. Gaelinar's katana cut a silver arc and cleaved the bandit's neck.
Before Larson could react with even a gasp, one of the bandits closed the gap between them, brandishing a knife in his left hand and a short scimitar in his right. Forced to defend himself, Larson grasped Valvitnir's hilt and pulled. The sword came free with surprising ease and blazed blue as Larson made an awkward lunge. His opponent retreated before the longer weapon.
Larson thrust repeatedly. The bandit redirected the wild strokes with deft flicks of his scimitar. Sweat trickled down Larson's face in a cold stream.
Patience and skill would win this match, and he fell short on both. He hoped Gaelinar would finish his own battle before Larson lost the advantage of distance. Then, he caught sight of the mud-caked figure on the road. The victim of the bandits' cruel assault was a young boy.
Anger broke Larson's timing. His opponent dodged under his guard. Steel lanced toward his throat. Sacrificing balance, Larson caught the bandit's left wrist in his hand. The scimitar jarred around his crossguard, and the close range rendered Valvitnir useless. With his right hand locked to his enemy's wrist, Larson scarcely had time to react to the scimitar which flashed for his chest. He dropped his sword. Steel tumbled, and the hilt struck his stubbed toe. Pain shot to his knee. His freed fingers fended off the bandit's other wrist. The scimitar quivered inches from his cheek.
A gasp broke from the bandit with the odor of rotting teeth. He yanked free with a strength which wrenched every tendon in Larson's forearm. The elf responded sluggishly. The scimitar would cut him down before he could regain his grip. Resigned to a second death, he dodged as best he could. Suddenly, steel flashed from the shadows. A hunting blade in the grip of the ravaged child severed the bandit's hamstring, and he reeled backward. Larson's foot lashed into his opponent's groin. The bandit dropped, limp as a rag.
Sweat stung Larson's eyes and splintered the scene to bluish points of light. He dropped to his knees beside the writhing bandit. His hand closed on the hilt of the abandoned scimitar, and he thrust for his enemy's heaving chest. The bandit cringed flat with a strangled whimper, eyes wild with fear. Realization battered Larson like a blow.
He pulled the strike a finger's breadth from the bandit's heart, and the scimitar flopped from his hand like a wounded quail. The man is helpless. Have I bec
ome so callous I kill without thought?
The bandit's lips set, puzzled. A shadow fell across his drawn face, and light flashed overhead. Larson sprang aside as Gaelinar's katana whisked past him and carved a line of blood across the bandit's throat. The body spasmed in death, its face locked in surprise permanent as a mask.
Larson heard himself scream. His mind tore free from his body, plunging him into an older, more familiar world. Comprehension darkened, than broke in a flash to memory of boot-scuffed dust flickering in the midday heat. It was noon, time for him and Brent Hamill to replace Gavin and Fisher as perimeter guard. Hamill was a newcomer to Aku Nanh, a one week "fucking new guy" who had not yet seen his first fire fight. Though Hamill's inexperience endangered them, Larson liked him and felt obligated to help him through his initiation into Vietnam.
The past few weeks had been unusually quiet which pleased Larson but made many of his companions bored and impatient. Hamill's eyes jumped excitedly as he eyed the wall of sand bags which enclosed the fire base. Larson spared an encouraging smile. As they neared their station, a single shot rang above the general din of conversations. Fisher's good-natured curse was nearly lost beneath Gavin's laughter.
Larson dodged around a grass hut, Hamill close behind. At the perimeter, Gavin hunched over his gun while Fisher baited him like a catcher on a baseball field. Hamill's eyes widened with inno-cent interest as Larson called to his companions. "What are you doing?"
Gavin glanced over his shoulder and gestured Larson forward. When Hamill and Larson reached the sand bags, Gavin pointed across the tank-cleared plain. A stooped figure waddled along a winding road, barely discernible as an elderly woman. "So?" asked Larson.
"Five bucks to the guy what hits her," explained Fisher with a fiendish smile. "Try your hand?"
Hamill made a pained noise. Larson looked quickly from newcomer to friend, then transformed the shocked movement into a negative toss of his head.
Gavin shrugged and returned to his task. The M-16 spoke once, the woman continued undaunted, and Gavin crawled aside. Fisher moved into position. He spat on his hands, wiped them on his overlarge pants, and hunched over the gun.
Larson avoided Hamill's frantic glances. He knew Gavin and Fisher were merely working off hostility. The woman walked well beyond reasonable, target range, and, apparently, she had taken no notice of their potshots.
Hamill grew more distressed. He caught Larson's forearm, and his grip tightened painfully as Gavin and Fisher passed the M-16 twice more between them. When Larson finally turned his attention to Hamill, the newcomer mouthed the words, "Make them stop."
Larson shook him off, not comfortable with the situation, yet unwilling to side with an FNG against friends. Hamill balled his hands together and paced wildly. Crazed beyond understanding, he stopped without warning, swung his M-16 from his shoulder, lined and fired. Soundlessly, the old woman fell to the ground.
Hamill's mouth wrenched open and his face puckered. Larson cringed from the inevitable scream, but Hamill stood silent, like a movie without sound. The gun slid from his hands and thumped to the ground. His dull brown eyes stared through Larson, and he staggered toward the huts as if drunk.
Larson turned to follow, but Fisher caught the back of his shirt. "Shit, Larson. Leave the poor FNG alone. You like some dude hoverin' over you after your first kill?"
Larson paused as Hamill disappeared around a grass hut. "You don't have to be the guy's mother," Gavin added. "Everyone goes through it. You went through it; I went through it. He'll feel like shit with you watching him puke or cry or both. And you ain't going to feel too great either. When…"
A pistol shot sounded in the compound, from the general direction of Larson's hut. Ohmygod! Larson sprinted toward his quarters with a single coherent thought. Let it be a rat. Oh, shit, let it be a goddamn rat! Although trained to his peak physical condition, Larson was out of breath by the time he rounded the corner and burst through the door to his hut. His heart hammered, loud and consistent as machine gun fire. His gaze played over the familiar disarray and settled on the body in his own bunk. Hamill lay still as if in sleep. The .45 automatic lay across his left thigh. His eyes remained open, as if staring at some horrifying sight. Blood spurted from his mangled chin.
"No!" Larson screamed to ears which could not hear. His first aid training surfaced with mechanical efficiency. For bleeding, apply direct pressure. Larson covered the ground between himself and Hamill in a single heroic bound. Need usurped thought. Larson locked his hands on the tatters of Hamill's face. Shards of bone and teeth gashed his palms, and his blood mingled freely with the scarlet spring ebbing from his patient.
"Al, stop! There's nothing you can do. He's dead…"
"There's nothing you can do. He's dead." The words were the same, but the voice was from another world. Larson focused on the blood which colored his fingers dull red. The chin cupped between his hands sported two days' growth of beard; the eyes were mercifully closed in death. Larson raised his gaze to the burning wagon. Before it, Gaelinar held the struggling boy. "Child, it's too late. Your uncle is dead."
Dazed, Larson recoiled from the corpse. He whirled to stare at the glowing blue sword, and its brilliance returned him to a reality found only in legend. Slowly, he reached for it. Another object caught his eye, a glass bottle with a hand-lettered label. He retrieved both, jammed the sword into its sheath, and examined the phial. A thick, honey-colored liquid sloshed behind the words: Crullian's Marvelous Cure.
Near the dying flames, the boy ceased his furious kicks and punches. He fell against Gaelinar's loose-fitting garb, sobbing. The swordmaster, who had just mercilessly killed three men, held the child in the folds of his robe, face drawn with genuine concern.
Silme strode from behind the wreckage, and her reprimand was singularly tactless. "You may be a sword saint, Kensei. But by Vidarr's shoe, someone's got to teach you to think."
Gaelinar returned her accusation with unbro-ken confidence. "I'm sorry we got in your way. We couldn't take a chance your spells might hit the boy. Besides," he smiled sheepishly. "I was mad."
The boy pulled away to face Silme. He was small; Larson guessed him to be about ten years old. Raven-hued hair covered his head in a tangle, and his skin was light olive. His quick, blue eyes seemed out of place, and they betrayed some Northern blood mixed with a darker, Eastern race. It was obvious he was some sort of half-breed. Larson followed the boy's gaze from a pair of severely burned legs protruding beneath the charred wagon to Silme. The child clamped hands to his face and announced shrilly, "You're Dragonrank!"
Silme nodded in reply.
The boy's words tumbled over one another, the murdered uncle momentarily forgotten in his excitement. "My great, great grandfather was Dragon-rank. And my uncle Crullian knew some magic, too. He's a healer…" He broke off suddenly, and his speech decreased in tempo and volume. "Was a healer."
Larson walked over to his companions and stood at Gaelinar's side as Silme quickly changed the subject. "What's your name, child?"
"Brendor," the child introduced himself. "And I'm a wizard, too. Watch!"
Silme made only a half-hearted attempt to stop him. Curious, Larson watched as the child pointed a finger at Gaelinar's face and screamed, "Shave!"
As if in direct defiance of Brendor's command, whiskers sprouted from the Kensei's chin. Gaelinar loosed a startled cry, and Silme hid an amused smile behind her hand. Brendor's face flushed scarlet, and he tried again. "Shave!"
Soft, black hair coated Gaelinar's right cheek. Despite the fact—Larson's tension had been heightened by the brutal slayings and flashbacks, he broke into uncontrollable laughter. Gaelinar's eyes narrowed in annoyance. Brendor seemed drained. Yet he drew a deep breath, stomped his sandaled foot in the dirt, and screamed his command in frustration. "SHAVE!"
Larson's face tingled strangely as hair grew in random patches. His chuckles died to an incoherent grumble, and he rubbed at the oddly-placed stubble. Winded and purple-faced, Brendor rel
inquished his spell and dropped -his arms. He glanced at his uncle's smoldering corpse beneath the wagon, and the sight wrenched a new volley of tears from his pale eyes.
Gaelinar made a subtle gesture. Silme nodded slightly, put an arm about the child's shoulders, and led him down the road toward the town of Forste-Mar. While Larson watched, woman and boy disappeared around a bend in the road among the wheat stalks. Once they passed beyond his view, Larson turned toward the wagon to find Gaelinar stoking the waning fire with twigs and branches. Without question, he joined in the effort, dragging debris from the forest to feed the flames that were devouring Crullian's body.
The fire flared to brilliance. Gaelinar knelt before it with bowed head and spoke the words of farewell. "Good-bye from Midgard to the healer Crullian. May he have died with dignity and the gods find him worthy of Valhalla or whatever haven in which he believed."
After Gaelinar's ruthless swordplay, Larson found the Kensei's compassionate prayer a surprise. Good and evil may be more well defined in this world, he mused. But they remain relative. Absorbed by this new abstraction, Larson failed to notice as Gaelinar hauled the three dead bandits within half a yard of the pyre. The smell of death, grain fields, and the roaring red flames against a background of forest formed a familiar knot in Larson's gut. Caught in the past, he stared until his eyes watered from pain.
Gaelinar's hand on his wrist rescued Larson from flashback. He started, acutely aware of every line on the Kensei's face, from the grim creases in his forehead to the sweep of his newly-grown beard. "If you're not going to help, at least hold this for the boy." Gaelinar tossed a tied linen pouch torn from a bandit's belt. The cloth muffled the clink of coins as Larson caught the offering.
"I'll also help." Larson smiled, pocketed the pouch, and added teasingly, "Since you're too weak to do it yourself." He hefted one of the bandits by the armpits. Gaelinar returned the grin and lifted the corpse by the ankles. In this manner, they tossed all the rapists' bodies on the pyre without benefit of epitaph.
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