Cold sweat ran down the mercenary's forehead. This was not the atmosphere of a simple exchange of fists.
Unlike the people watching from a distance, the mercenary facing Hans was in agony. If he did not put strength into both legs he felt he would sit straight down where he stood.
The mercenary captain, catching on to the situation, belatedly came forward.
"Mount, finish it and come here. And you, that's enough."
But Hans did not let his pressure slacken.
"No. I'll be having an apology. A sincere one."
Hans's arrogant reply brought the atmosphere to the edge of ignition.
Certain now that he himself had been slighted, the mercenary captain came at Hans with his face drawn tight. Face lost as captain had to be recovered. There was only one way to do it.
Standing beside his man, he raised his own pressure and spoke.
"You......."
Hans turned his head.
In that instant the mercenary captain felt the hair rise on his scalp. A savage force stabbed into his eyes and bound his body. It was the feeling of needles pricking at his skin, and cold sweat ran down his spine.
'Killing intent. Battlefield killing intent. Vicious.'
It felt like being stripped naked and thrown down in front of a wild beast.
He had rolled through a decade in the rough world of mercenaries, and even for him it had been a long time since he had met killing intent like this. No — it might have been the first time.
His hand went to the blade at his waist by reflex, but instinct refused to let him do anything beyond that.
'The moment I draw, I die.'
This fierce will to kill a man, quite apart from whatever skill stood behind it, convinced the mercenary captain who stood at the rear.
The gravity of it kept the onlookers quiet as they watched.
The mercenary captain barely managed to open his mouth.
"Mount. Apologize."
"......."
"Now."
Judging that a swift end to the situation was in his own interest, the seasoned captain pressed his subordinate quietly.
"I'm sorry."
"......."
Hans's expression did not ease.
"Politely."
"I apologize, sir."
As Hans turned his back and walked away, the mercenary captain's hand went to his waist without his meaning it to. And in that same instant the needling sting came again, and his hand stopped. The mercenaries who had watched it all sank into a sense of helplessness.
Hans took the boy and settled into a corner of a tent. It could not have been much of an injury; the red swelling on his cheek had already gone down.
The boy spoke curtly.
"Am I supposed to thank you for helping?"
"I was the one who got help."
He looked down at the boy for a moment, then said in a low voice.
"You saved me the first day we met."
"......?"
"You reminded a man with a beast's heart of his own childhood. I bought you because I wanted to set you free."
"Set me free?"
The boy looked up at him.
"I can't empty everything I own to erase the slave brand on your forehead, but either way, to me you are not a slave."
A First Circle brand can be erased with Third Circle magic, which is fourfold its power. But in a dark age of magic, a Third Circle mage is both hard to find and expensive. The cost would likely be more than a hundred times the price of the branding.
"Kh kh khk."
The boy let out a grotesque laugh and lay down, and Hans lay beside him and courted sleep.
Back in his own tent, meanwhile, the mercenary captain sank into thought.
'I have never met killing intent like that. So this is what a returning soldier means.'
Deciding he would never lay a hand on a discharged soldier again, he went to sleep.
That night, the two of them kept jerking awake out of their sleep and going into convulsions, which caused enough disturbance that the mercenaries sharing the tent moved to another one.
The next day, wherever Hans moved, the people along his path drew back from him. At that rate his own work was beyond him.
With the caravan master's understanding, there was nothing for it but to void the contract. At the village they reached that afternoon Hans stayed behind, and the caravan went on.
Hans was not at fault. The mercenary had picked the fight, and it had ended without a clash. But the mercenaries' morale had dropped, and the order of precedence — caravan, then mercenaries, then laborers — was shaken. Discarding one for the sake of the whole is a truth of running any group.
And Hans, who had served three years at the very summit of collective living, knew that solution better than anyone.
The caravan master wore a bitter expression.
"I know what happened yesterday. You are not at fault."
"I'm sorry it came to this."
Hans answered without much feeling in it.
—Nod, nod.
"I pay my respects to your cold reason."
There was no chance the caravan master did not know the whole of it. In the course of a caravan's journey every piece of information flows through the members and up to the master. But the question of right and wrong is a separate matter from the caravan's business. From the caravan's position there was no choice but to take the efficient thing over the right one.
Hans understood that as well, and for that the caravan master thought highly of him. And on the other hand, the view that 'there is nothing to be gained from building up debts or grudges with a discharged man' played its part too.
The caravan paid out about a tenth of the contracted wage by way of consolation. And then it left as though something were chasing it.
Hans and the boy decided to stay a while at the house of the village chief.
"Think of it as your own house and stay as long as you like."
For all that the board and lodging cost less than the food was worth, the chief and his wife treated Hans with particular care.
The couple had sent a son to the war and had a hard time of it themselves, they said. Happily the war had ended, their son had survived, and he had sent a letter saying he would settle in a frontier city as a professional soldier. Their worry eased, they had been feeling both relieved and wistful, and then they had seen Hans and his companion and thought of their far-off son.
"Such a sweet child, from a good house by the look of him, and this."
—Flinch.
When the old woman took the boy's hand and stroked the back of it, he startled and pulled it away.
She saw the slave brand on his forehead and her eyes reddened. An old woman's wisdom, in proportion to the life she had lived, ran straight through the boy's life and understood it.
From the round cheeks and the well-bred look of that face, from the soft hands, and from the way Hans treated the boy as though he were a younger brother, the old couple read the respect the two of them had for each other.
"You have far more days ahead of you than behind. Take heart, please."
At the warmth of the comfort, even the boy, whose feelings had run dry all that while, seemed to be overcome, and his eyes reddened.
Hans stayed two days, helping easily with the farm work. He replaced the post of the pigsty where the base had rotted through, and hauled stones up the slope behind the house to build a retaining wall. The boy dug earth and carried stones too, and earned his keep.
Two days on, judging that a decent distance had opened between them and the caravan, Hans said his goodbyes to the old couple.
The chief and his wife came out with them as far as the main road at the edge of the village. And the old woman set a broad felt hat on the boy's head to hide the brand on his forehead.
"The weather's turned cold, mornings and evenings."
"Thank you."
At the old woman's warm consideration the boy put out his voice, for the first time, to someone other than Hans. Watching him do it the old woman's eyes reddened, and the chief wore a kindly smile.
"Go on now, and go carefully."
—Bow.
The old couple watched the backs of Hans and the boy for a long, long while.
***
The captain of the Second Detachment of the Redstone Mercenary Company paced restlessly back and forth inside his tent. His nerves had him biting his nails, an old habit of his.
'Surely...... no. It couldn't be. It absolutely could not be.'
"Captain. It's Zack."
"Yeah. Come in."
As the mercenary came into the tent the captain pressed him at once.
"Well? Did you find them?"
"They took weapons and dry rations and vanished. I'd say they planned it and went deliberately from the start."
"Damn it all."
—CRACK.
The mercenary captain struck the tent pole with his fist. All that had come of it was a perfectly good tent pole cracked and ruined, the mercenary thought.
"That man is not something two B-rank mercenaries can handle."
"Well, if they went for a night ambush, maybe......."
"That man is on active footing and has not even scrubbed the battlefield's killing intent off himself. Do you think some clumsy sneak attack is going to put him down?"
The mercenary shrugged. The captain, unlike him, was burning up inside. If he was held responsible for failing to manage his own men, the comfortable retirement he had in mind ended right here.
Then another mercenary came to the tent.
"Captain, the caravan master is asking for you urgently."
"Damn it all."
Going to the master's tent, the captain began with an apology.
"I apologize for failing to prevent this unfortunate business."
"Can it be cleaned up?"
Looking to efficiency first was the merchant's instinct, as ever. A man would do well not to be fooled by that genial face.
"They're already out of my hands, so I can't say. But I will take responsibility for seeing that no harm comes to the caravan."
Having heard what he wanted to hear, the caravan master consoled him.
"This must weigh on you. I hope it resolves well."
The instant he heard the words 'take responsibility,' the master was speaking of it like someone else's business, and the mercenary captain's heart grew heavy. A battlefield is not only a place where swords and spears fly. Every hour and every place where human beings rub against one another was a battlefield of life. And it seemed he would have to fall in action here.
***
Alone really was easier. The boy walking at his side made no presence at all. Fitting himself back into society had been put off a little, but what of it, he thought. Once he let his mind ease, the tension went out of him too.
A day's walking brought them to a low hill and they looked for a place to rest. The forest on the far side looked as though it would take half a day at the least to get through. In that case they would need to find company.
"We'll have to stay the night here."
"......."
Without a word one way or the other, the boy helped set up the camp. They pitched the tent in a corner of the hill country, under a rock.
And then they came.
Toward dawn, in pitch darkness, there were two shadows treading on the white ash of the burned-out fire.
What responded, in place of Hans, who had let his guard down and fallen dead asleep, was — astonishingly — the boy.
He caught the dagger that came in through the tent flap calmly, rolling a blanket around it and snatching it aside, and when his opponent faltered he drove his forehead into the man's face and put him down.
By the time Hans woke and burst out of the tent, one of them was already clutching his face and groaning, while the boy fought the other with a strip of blanket wound about his arm.
—SNAP.
"Kraagh!"
Hans stamped on the ankle of the one writhing on the ground and broke it. Then he tackled the other, who was faltering.
They rolled as one mass, and Hans came up first, took hold of the man's arm and dislocated the shoulder, rose, and stamped on his ankle.
—SNAP, SNAP.
"Agh!"
"Grraaagh!"
"Hhhk, huff, huff. P-please, spare......."
—CRACK!
"Hoo-ff, hoo-ff."
Hans steadied his breathing. He rolled his shoulders around, swung his waist back and forth to loosen up, and then kicked the kneeling mercenary in the face.
—THUMP.
—SLUMP.
With one of them unconscious, Hans's gaze went to the one who remained.
"I-I'll tell you everything. Kill me cleanly."
The mercenary pleaded with the hope of life wiped off his face, but Hans spoke without any expression at all.
"There is no clean death in this world."
Hans crouched down and brought his eyes level with the mercenary's.
"That's a face I know from somewhere, isn't it?"
Hans's hand closed around the mercenary's head.
"Now. Tell me the things I'd be curious about......."
The boy watched the whole performance with interest, arms folded, leaning against the rock.
***
The journey along the road went on. When the two of them walked into a village in their shabby state, the little ones surrounded them.
"Beggars! Damn beggars!"
"......."
The two paid no attention and went into the eating house at the village entrance.
"Beggars, beggars!"
"You lot, clear off. Welcome, sirs."
A server chased away the children who had followed them as far as the door.
"What will you be ordering?"
At the question, put with a server's professional smile, Hans and the boy fell briefly into the agony of choosing from a menu.
For two who had made do with dry rations for days, a warm meal after so long was deeply satisfying. Having had a comfortable bed, Hans bought a generous stock of food the next day for the nights they would spend outdoors.
The children who had trailed after them yesterday only stared, marveling at how a day's rest had tidied the pair up, and stopped pestering them.
"Are you two headed for Belborn, by any chance?"
—Nod, nod.
"Good. Let's go together. We're going the same way."
Five men in peddler's clothes attached themselves. They showed their true colors soon enough. When the party had eaten and lain down to sleep, the silhouettes of the men, thrown by the fire, ringed the tent.
Hans came out through the tent flap holding his iron rod, with the look of a man thoroughly sick of this. Perhaps he had simply been spared it while traveling with large parties; the truth is that a threat to life like this is an everyday thing for travelers.
"What is it?"
"Heh heh heh. What do you think?"
"I see."
"That's how it is."