He was Tervola Candidate Kai Ling. He was pursuing an assignment which could hasten his elevation to Select. He had been fighting for the promotion for decades, never swerving in his determination to seize what seemed forever beyond his grasp.
His body jerked, then settled into a tense lean. Little temblors stirred his extremities.
"West," he murmured. "Far, far to the west." The part of him that listened extended itself, analyzed, fixed a location.
An hour passed.
Finally, Kai Ling rose. He donned a black cape which hung beside the nearly invisible door. He smiled thinly behind his mask. Poor Chong. Chong wouldn't know which of them had won till he arrived for his turn on watch.
III
Tain rested, observing.
It seemed a calm and peaceful hamlet in a calm and peaceful land. A dozen rude houses crowded an earthen track which meandered on across green swales toward a distant watchtower. The squat stronghold could be discerned only from the highest hilltops Solitary shepherds' steads lay sprinkled across the countryside, their numbers proclaiming the base for the regional economy.
The mountains Tain had crossed sheltered the land from the east. The ivory teeth of another range glimmered above the haze to the north. Tain grazed his animals and wondered if this might be the land he sought.
He sat on a hillside studying it. He was in no hurry to penetrate it. Masterless now, with no fixed destination, he felt no need to rush. Too, he was reluctant. Human contact meant finalization of the decision he had reached months ago, in Shinsan.
Intellectually he knew that it was too late, but his heart kept saying that he could still change his mind. It would take the imminent encounter to sever his heartlines home.
It was ...scary... this being on his own.
As a soldier he had often operated alone. But then he had been ordered to go, to do, and always he had had his legion or the Guard waiting. His legion had been home and family. Though the centurion was the keystone of the army, his father-Tervola chose his companions, and made most of his decisions and did most of his thinking for him.