“Drink,” Duun ordered him, lifting his head, setting a cup to his lips. He turned his head away, not wanting to be twice victim. (Fool. Won’t you learn?) “Drink, damn you, Thorn.”
He blinked, all hazy. “Livhl-”
“Dammit, no. I’m telling you drink, this time.”
He drank. It was sweetened tea. It hit his stomach and lay there inert and he was glad to have his head down at level again before it should come up. “I lost,” he said. “You beat me, Duun.”
“Be still.” Duun’s maimed hand brushed at his hair. (Duun holding him, Duun playing games, Duun touching him that way long, long ago.) “Meds are on their way. I called them. Hear?”
“Don’t want meds.” (Ellud standing in the room. An old friend, Duun said. Be polite.) “Duun, tell them don’t.”
“Hush. Be still.” The touch came at his hair again. At his face. “Rest. Sleep. It’s all right. Hear?”
(Duun in the bedroom door at night. Go to sleep, little fish. There were no black threads in the doorway. No games. Go to sleep now, minnow.)
* * *
* * *
V
“They’ll pay for it,” Ellud said. Ellud had come with the meds. The house stank of disinfectants, of bandage and gel and blood. And Thorn’s distress. Duun folded his arms and gazed at the hearthstones. At dead ash. “They have to,” Ellud said. “Don’t they?”
There was criticism implied. Duun looked around at Ellud and stared. Ellud flinched as Ellud had done sixteen years ago. But it took longer. There was wrath in Ellud now. There was offended justice. “Anything,” Duun reminded him hoarsely. “But no. Don’t charge them.”
“You’ve left me with no choice. They fired on you.”
“Did they? I don’t remember that.”
“They called the magistrate. They confessed. They know what they did.”
“So.” Duun walked away toward the closed door. The medicinal smells offended his nostrils. His ears lay down. He limped. Every muscle he owned was strained. Ellud wore his city clothes, immaculate. Duun wore nothing but a small-kilt. And let the scars show. He might have worn the hatani cloak. He had left it hanging. “I’ll talk to them, Ellud. No charges.”
“They can’t do a thing like that and get away with it-”
“Because I’m sacrosanct?” Duun turned back to him, ears flat. “You promised me anything, Ellud. I’m asking you. No charges. Deed Sheon back to them.”
“They tried to kill you!”
“They damn near did. Good for them. They’re not bad, for farmers. Do I have to take this on my shoulders too?”
Ellud was silent a moment. His mouth drew down.
“So you get what ought to make you happy,” Duun said. “I’m coming in. I trust you’ll find a place.”
More long silence. “It’s about time. It’s about time, Duun. I’ll have a copter up here. Lift you out.”
“He’ll walk down,” Duun said. “Day after tomorrow. He’ll be fit.”
“Past them? Gods, hasn’t there been enough trouble?”
“He’s hatani, Ellud.” Duun met the darkness in Ellud’s stare and matched it. “Understand that. He’ll walk out on his own.”
Thorn gained his feet after the meds left. Duun thought he would. “Sit down,” Duun said, sitting himself, on one of the risers that rimmed the room. The floor sand was trampled, dotted with darkness. Thorn had bled on it, amply. Thorn hung now in the doorway with his arm slung in a cord about his neck; his skin had an ugly waxen color, excepting the arm, where blood-reddened gels plastered an incision. There would be a scar. A long one. It had missed a major nerve; so the meds said. The bone was chipped but not broken. “You’ve got a lot of plasm in you for blood, boy. Left most you owned down in that valley. Come sit down.”
Thorn came. Duun was polishing his weapons. Thorn sank down on the riser on his knees and sat down carefully, one leg off. There was sweat on his hairless brow. His hair clung to it.
“We’re going,” Duun said, “to the city. We’ll live there now.”
“Leave here-”
Duun looked up at him. Sheon was lost. Twice now. There was darkness in his stare; and Thorn stared back at him with alien, clouded eyes, with thoughts going on, and dread. (Why did they shoot, Duun? Is this revenge? Is this against me? Was I wrong, Duun? What did I do, down there?)