Altai smiled at him. “Enough talking. Sleep,” she said firmly.
With a resigned shrug, Sittas kicked off his sandak and stretched out on the couch. Altai put her raincape over him, and walked softly out of the room. The lights went off as she closed the door.
Squatting outside the pelting rain, a Komani warrior eyed the town-hall-turned-hospital with the patient cunning of a stalking panther. The old man is in there, the warrior knew. Only the wounded, or Shinarian doctors and helpers, were allowed inside. Sooner or later the old man would come out. Then the warrior would kill him. Time did not matter. The reason behind the warrior’s orders „ did not matter. All the warrior knew was that Sittas must v die. There was no other purpose for the Komani’s existence but to cany out the order of death. Silently he sat ^ in the rain. his chin cupped in his massive hands, and waited.
Sittas was awakened by the sounds of three Shinarian ^ youths trying to place a wounded Komani on a makeshift ^ pallet of blankets and coats. The town hall was overflowing. The rain had stopped, and a late afternoon sun was slanting through the windows. Outside, Sittas could see that more wounded had been left on litters in the town square.
The old priest immediately went downstairs, into the ‘” welter of cots and pallets and doctors and weary, busy women and boys who were attending the injured men. Altai was among them.
“Here,” Sittas said to his niece, as she tried to wrap a $ bandage over a young Terran’s arm. “I’ll do that. You M find the town mayor and bring him here immediately.” ^