The soldiers were riding in single file, their wary eyes fixed on the sharp and deadly weapon and on the crossbow held by the homesteader's wife. No longer pointed at them, it was true, but able to be brought back into aim in a moment if she sensed anything was wrong. The soldiers were wearing tough slennhide breastplates which would probably stop a crossbow bolt, but there was always a chance that a lucky shot would find a major artery in an arm or a leg. They glanced at a man in the centre of the column, therefore, as if expecting him to defend them, and that drew the attention of Tak's father to the man.

     He wasn't a soldier. He was wide about the waist and dressed in gaudy robes and a tall hat. He had no visible weapon, but he carried himself with arrogance and authority as if he was a king out among his subjects. Another homesteader, one who'd never been anything other than a farmer, might have thought him to be a nobleman, travelling abroad for some reason, but Tak's father had seen such men before, from his days in military service, and he felt his guts tighten with fear. Wizard! What was one of them doing way out here?

     The wizard spared him only a disinterested glance, though, as the seven riders drew up in a line in front of him and dismounted. Most of his attention was directed on the house, where two pairs of bright blue eyes were peering at him over the bottom edge of the window.

     "Welcome, sirs," said Tak's father, allowing a measured, calculating gaze to pass from one of the visiting soldiers to another. "Always a pleasure to meet fellow servicemen. It's growing late. Will you accept our hospitality for this night? A warm meal and a dry bed. It would give me great pleasure to hear what's happened in the world since I discharged myself to marry."

     The soldiers' expressions didn't change. If they were impressed by the revelation that this was a fighting man, or even cared, they didn't show it.

     "We accept your hospitality with gratitude," said one of the soldiers. A decurion by his rank insignia. "We have ridden far and have far still to go."

     He signaled to his men to dismount and Tak ran from the house to take the horses to the barn where they had a store of hay to see their own horses through the winter. The soldiers then followed Tak's father back to the cabin, but the wizard paused for a while, staring thoughtfully at the boy's departing back. His face was almost hidden beneath a great bushy grey beard, and the wide, drooping rim of his hat was pulled low over his eyes, but someone standing close to him might have seen an expression of surprise and sudden interest pass across his features. He stared until the boy passed out of sight into the barn, then followed the soldiers to the cabin.

     Tak's mother had hidden the crossbow out of sight and was now trying to pretend it had never existed as she welcomed her guests. She glanced at her husband, then glanced hurriedly away before he could see the fear in her eyes. If the soldiers did decide to help themselves to her and her daughter, there would be nothing Tak's father could do about it. Any attempt at resistance against so many men would be futile, and if he injured or, Gods forbid, killed one of the visiting soldiers, the whole family would be put to the sword in retribution.

     Tak's mother told her daughter to stay out of sight as much as possible, therefore, and to keep her long, golden hair, her most beautiful feature, tucked away under a small, cotton cap she gave her to wear. Either the ploy worked or the soldiers weren't in the mood for that sort of thing because neither female was molested, either by the soldiers or the wizard.

     Tak was sent back out into the fields for another half hour of hoeing, and it was full dark before he plodded wearily back to the cabin. The soldiers had already eaten, having hungrily devoured enough to keep the homesteading family going for a week, but it was worth it as they were now relaxing lazily on the hard packed earth floor, their backs against the log walls, and would soon be asleep.

     "Your wife cooks a meal good enough for the Gods Themselves," said the decurion with a satisfied belch, loosening his belt a couple of notches. "Having a good cook to live with you is the best part of being married, I always say. Second best," he corrected himself with a lewd smile.

     "Are you married yourself?" asked Tak's father, pleased with the progress of the evening.

     "Certainly am," confirmed the soldier. "Sweet little Karla. Best cook and best pussy this side of the Garla, but I only see her a few days a month. Out on patrol the rest of the time, you see. Still, plenty of pretty farmers daughters out here in the Borderlands, eh?"

     He nudged Tak's father playfully in the ribs, and Tak's father immediately began recounting tales of his own time in the army, pointedly emphasising his acquaintance with men he knew were now in positions of authority. Maybe even this man's superiors. Tak's mother, meanwhile, beckoned the boy into the kitchen where she'd set a wedge of cheese and a bowl of stew aside for him. He devoured it hungrily.

     He was weak with fatigue by then, as he was every day, and all he wanted to do was lay his head down and go to sleep, but he had one more task to perform first. The livestock had to be fed and watered for the night, and as he trudged out to the barn by the light of three moons and two comets he wondered where the grey bearded man had gone. He hadn't been in the cabin with the soldiers, but he'd been too tired to notice it at first.

     Maybe he's gone to bed already, he thought as he shoveled oats and bran into the feeding trough. Maybe he's too rich and important to stay with the rest of us. Tak had only the vaguest idea what the words rich and important meant, but he had occasionally heard his father using them when talking to one or another of their neighbours. Rich and important meant you could sleep in a room all by yourself and everyone had to do what you said. You could get someone else to hoe the fields for you instead of having to do it for yourself, for instance.

     He wished he were rich and important. Maybe when I'm grown up, he thought. That was one of his mother's favourite sayings. When you're all grown up you'll go to the big city and make your fortune, she said sometimes while dressing the blisters on his palms. When you're grown up you'll live in a great mansion and have servants to do everything for you. When you're grown up you'll have a beautiful wife and lots and lots of children. She never elaborated on how all this was to be accomplished, but in the end she turned out to be right on all three counts.

     It took him half an hour to feed all the animals, and by the time he was finished he was almost asleep on his feet. He heaved the heavy lids back onto the feed bins to keep out the vermin and was about to leave when he heard a faint sound behind him. Thoughts of shologs on a sneak raid leapt into his head. Shologs intent on carrying him off as they had the daughter of a neighbouring homesteading family. Such raids were thankfully rare, and their own farm had never been bothered in this way, but Tak's father had drilled into him time and again that he was to scream at the top of his lungs the moment he found anything wrong or out of the ordinary. He acted instinctively, therefore, filling his lungs for a great shout, but before he could do so a rough hand clamped itself over his mouth and he was gently but irresistibly turned around to look into the heavy lidded eyes of the grey bearded man.

     Tak was terrified and would have run, certain that something terrible was about to happen to him. Even without his physical size and strength and his intimidating appearance, there was something about the man. Something that would have scared the boy even if he'd been a cripple in a wheelchair. An aura of power, of abilities beyond those of ordinary men. No ordinary child would have sensed this, but Tak was no ordinary child, as the grey man had sensed the first moment he'd set eyes on him.

     Wizards can sense the presence of other wizards, and the most powerful can even pick them from the cradle. It was the wizard's magical field that Tak could sense, although he had no way of knowing that. All he knew was that there was something different about this man. Something scarily unfamiliar. He wanted to run back to the cabin, to the protection of his parents, but something held him there even after the man had released him. He couldn't tear his eyes away from those of his captor. Only in later years did it occur to him that he might have been hypnotised, as casually and effortlessly as a chicken having its head tucked under its wing.

     The grey man crouched down before him and inspected him carefully, paying particular attention to his bright blue eyes. Tak's heart pounded madly in his chest and his skin crawled as hard, bony fingers prodded him and squeezed his muscles. He wanted to push the man's hands away, but his own hands refused every command he gave them and hung limply by his sides. The wizard took one of the boy's hands in his own and manipulated the fingers experimentally, testing the looseness of his joints. He noted with approval the length and dexterity of his fingers and the narrowness of his wrists, but scowled with disapproval at the hard callouses of his palms.

     "Could be good spellcasting hands once you put all this manual labour behind you," he muttered, stroking his beard thoughtfully. "What about your voice, though? Say the words 'bugs black blood' three times quickly."

     Tak did so, pronouncing the tongue twister perfectly. The wizard's bushy eyebrows rose in surprise, and he gave the boy two more tongue twisters of increasing difficulty. Tak pronounced them perfectly as well, although the last one took him two attempts.

     "Very good," the grey man said with approval. "No lisping or stammering. Now, what about your memory?"

     He knelt to scratch a dozen shapes in the dusty floor with a stick. A square, a triangle, a line crossed by two others and so on. "Memorise those shapes," he said.

     Helpless to resist, Tak did so.
     The wizard stood and scuffed out them with his boot. "Now tell me what the shapes were."

     Tak did so, now completely confused. What was this all about?

     "Now backwards," commanded the wizard, and Tak recited them in reverse order.

     "Now in order of size."

     Again Tak obeyed, listing the shapes flawlessly and effortlessly.

     "Yes, you've got potential," said the grey man at last, visibly pleased. "More than any other I've ever seen, and as for your other qualifications..."

     He told the boy to take off his shirt and Tak did so. He then circled Tak to view the boy from every side.

     "Nasty scar," he said, fingering the old injury just above the boy's navel. "Still, the clerics can fix that. Make you perfect again."

     He fingered the boy's knotted hair. "Could be soft and silky," he said. "Once we've got all this dust and grease out of it."

     He allowed his hand do drift downwards, to stroke the deeply tanned skin of his neck and shoulders. His breath began to come in panting gasps.

     "Not yet," he said with a trembling voice, taking a step back. "Yes, one day I'll come and take you away, young man, but not yet. You've got a bit of growing up to do first. You will mention this to no-one." Then he left, leaving the boy all alone in the dark barn.

     It was a couple of minutes before Tak was able to move again, whereupon he pulled his shirt back on and fled back to the cabin, desperately anxious for the reassuring presence of his parents. He arrived to find three of the soldiers asleep on the floor, snoring gently, and his father looking pleased and relieved as he prepared to join them. The matrimonial bed was occupied by the decurion, and two others were in Tak and Laira's bed. A little cramped but probably more comfortable than they'd been for many a day. Tak's father gestured for him to follow him into the kitchen, where Laira and their mother were already wrapped up in blankets on the floor, the girl nearest to the far wall so that a lustful soldier would have to stumble over her parents to get to her.

     "We're sleeping here tonight," his father explained. "Keep your underclothes on, in case we're woken up in the night." He noticed for the first time the distressed state of his son. "What is it, Tak? What's wrong?"

     Tak tried to tell him what had happened in the barn, but instead found himself saying that he'd been scared by the sound of an animal close by. His father chuckled. "The whip cats know better than to attack one of us," he said, wrapping his great arms around the boy and giving him a gentle hug. "They might try to make off with a chicken, but that's all, and snouts would have seen the soldiers coming here. Besides, we've got a wizard to look after us tonight."

     Tak stiffened with surprise. "A wizard?" he whispered.

     "The fat man with the grey beard and the posh clothes, so don't worry. Nothing's going to hurt us tonight. Now get ready for bed."

     Tak did so, his head spinning. He'd heard of wizards. His father and various visitors had told him stories of them, about how they could destroy their enemies with earthquakes and bolts of lightning and how they could call down plague or drought to bring whole cities to their knees. The skin of his neck and shoulder tingled where the dry, bony fingers had touched him. I'll come and take you away, he'd said. Tak shivered with fear and got no sleep that night.