He selected a heavy stick from her woodpile.
Tarn's captor passed him to one of his cohorts, drew his blade. Indigo-purple oil seemed to run its length. It swayed like a cobra about to strike.
"Tran, no. You can't stop them. Save yourself."
Tran moved toward the giant.
"Tran, please. Look at their badges. They're from the Imperial Standard. The Dragon sent them."
Sense gradually penetrated Tran's brain. He stood no chance against the least of Shinsan's soldiers. No one alive had much chance against men of the Imperial Standard Legion. That was no legion brag. These men had trained since their third birthdays. Fighting was their way of life, their religion. They had been chosen from Shinsan's healthiest, stoutest children. They were smart, and utterly without fear. Their confidence in their invincibility was absolute.
Tran could only get himself killed.
"Please, Tran. It's over. There's nothing you can do. I'm dead."
The hunter reflected. His thoughts were shaped by forest life. He decided.
Some might have called him coward. But Tran's people were realists. He would be useless to anyone hanging from a spike which had been driven into the base of his skull, while hisentrails hung out and his hands and feet lay on the ground before him.
He grabbed Lang and ran.
No one pursued him.
He stopped running once he reached cover.
He watched.
The soldiers shed their armor.
They had to be following orders. They didn't rape and plunder like foreign barbarians. They did what they were told, and only what they were told, and their service was reward enough.
The woman's screams ripped the afternoon air.
They didn't kill Tam, just made him watch.
In all things there are imponderables, intangibles, and unpredicatables. The most careful plan cannot account for every minuscule factor. The greatest necromancer cannot divine precisely enough to define the future till it becomes predestined. In every human enterprise the planners and seers deal with and interpret only the things they know. Then they usually interpret incorrectly.