Tak never forgot that incident, but over the next few days and weeks the memory faded as it was eclipsed by later events.

     Life was hard for the young boy. If Derro was in the sky his father might make him work long after the yellow sun had set in an attempt to stop the weeds from choking the crops, or gather the harvest before the rains came, but there were moments of fun as well. His father delighted in playing with his children, jumping out as they passed the spot where he lay hidden or pretending to be a monster and chasing them around the place until their disapproving mother came out to put a stop to it. "You'll scare them!" she scolded her husband, wagging a finger at him. "You'll give them bad dreams!" There had been a gleam in her eyes as she said it, though, and other times she would laugh and clap her heavily calloused hands as he allowed himself to be wrestled to the ground by her children.

     The months following the soldiers' visit were dominated by an atmosphere of tense expectancy that mystified Tak. There was something going on and he had no idea what it was. Tak's father began treating his wife as though she were made of glass. Forbidding her from doing any heavy work. Making sure she had plenty to eat instead of skimping to give more to her children as was her usual habit and making her sit down whenever she paused in whatever she was doing.

     It was such a change from her normal hard working, never any time at rest habit that Tak feared that she was ill and one day he nervously asked her if she were going to die. She laughed at that, but it was a nervous laugh and she refused to give any explanation for the change that had come over her.

     His father was similarly uncommunicative, simply snapping at him to get back to work and it was from his sister that he finally got the answer. One night, she beckoned him to come over and slip into bed with her so that they could whisper without being overheard. "Mummy's going to have a baby," she whispered into his ear. "I heard them talking about it. Mummy's got a baby growing in her tummy."

     Tak already knew where babies came from and how they were made, both from his parents' cautious explanations and from watching the livestock, principally the goats. "A baby!" he whispered back, his eyes wide with delight. "Will she let me hold it?"

     Laira ignored the question. "You mustn't talk to mummy or daddy about it," she warned. "They don't want us to know about it yet. You must pretend you don't know."

     "Why?"

     The girl paused for a moment, wondering how to explain it to a six year old boy. "They're afraid the baby might die before it's born."

     Tak stared, uncomprehendingly. "Listen," she whispered. "When you were little mummy had another baby growing in her tummy, but it died before it was born, and I think there was another one when I was little, before you were born. They don't want us to know about this one until they're sure it's going to live. Do you understand?" Tak nodded solemnly.

     "Mummy and daddy will be very sad if the baby dies," she continued. "They were last time. They cried for days and days, so if it happens again we're going to have to keep out of their way for a while, give them some space to be together. Are you old enough to understand?"

     Tak nodded, tears in his eyes as if the tragedy had already happened. "Like when I found the baby bird and brought it home and fed it and wrapped it up warm, but it died."

     "Yes," agreed Laira and kissed him on the forehead. "Just like that. Now go back to your own bed and remember, you must pretend you don't know."

     Tak padded across the bare floorboards to his own bed and slipped between the woolen sheets, the news spinning in his head and a dark horror hovering over him. Earlier that year, his father had had to deliver a baby goat that had died in its mother's womb. Normally the whole family helped deliver the kids. It was a joyful time, witnessing the emergence of new life, and it was an experience that helped bind the whole family together, but this time the children had been sent back to the house with strict instructions to stay there. Tak had crept out, though, knowing that something was going on and wanting to know what.

     He'd peeped through a hole in the side of the barn and watched as his father inserted a bare arm into the nanny and groped around. Instead of the normal smells of blood and uterine waters, though, the air held the reek of rotting meat, a smell he'd recognised from when he'd found the body of a dead fox crawling with maggots. A sense of horror had filled him, but he'd been rooted to the spot and could only watch while his father removed something from the dismally bleating goat. It was a leg. One of the baby goat's legs, so badly decomposed that it had become separated from the rest of the tiny corpse. The reek of rotting meat intensified and Tak had fled in horror, running back to the cabin and throwing himself into his sister's arms where he'd wept uncontrollably until his parents returned to the house and found him.

     Was that what was going to happen to mummy? Perhaps the baby was dead already and rotting in her tummy. Perhaps daddy would have to put his hand in and pull it out one leg at a time while the cabin filled with the reeking stench of death. He curled up into a ball, sobbing to himself, and then he toddled back to where his sister lay and slipped back in with her. He cried himself to sleep in her arms.

☆☆☆

     In the morning his parents saw immediately that something was upsetting him and sat him down until he told them what it was. When he finally spoke his father was silent for a long time, as if choosing his words carefully.

     "Your mother does have a baby inside her," he confirmed at last, holding her hand, "and yes, it might die before it's born, but it won't be like the goat. A baby's just a little egg until just before it's ready to be born. No arms or legs. Just a little egg."

     Little Tak stared up at him in hope and blessed relief. "Really?" he said imploringly.

     "Really," confirmed his father, but there was an unhappy look on his face that Tak took several more years to identify. He hated lying to his son. The older Tak understood the reason, though. The damage had to be repaired somehow. His father had been wishing with all his heart that he hadn't seen the goat.

     "So if it does die," his father continued, "ell, we'll all be sad but your mother will have other babies inside her and one day you'll have a little baby brother, or perhaps a little baby sister. Would you like that?"

     "Yes!" cried Tak joyfully, his earlier fears forgotten. "Then I won't be the littlest any more!"

     His father laughed and patted him on the shoulder. "Off you go now and do your work."

     Tak's mother lost the baby later that month, her fifth miscarriage, and her sixth took place ten months later, but she managed to carry her ninth and last pregnancy to full term. That was when Tak was eight and Laira twelve. She was in labour all day and all the following night and Tak's father tore great clumps out of his beard and gnawed his fingernails to the bone as he squatted between her spread legs, praying and praying for the child to be delivered safely. Tak and Laira became convinced that she was dying and held each other tightly, Tak crying into his sister's chest, but then came the wonderful, unforgettable sound of a baby crying and they ran back into the room to see a wrinkly red infant sitting on their mother's bare stomach while both parents wept with joy and gratitude.

     That was the beginning of the golden age of Tak's childhood. There was a lot more work to do, as both Laira and his mother spent more time doting over the baby, but such was the atmosphere of joy and happiness that surrounded them that he welcomed it and he could almost imagine that he'd died and gone to the paradise a passing cleric had once told him about. Many of Tak's happiest memories came from that time, and some of the most amusing as well. Like the time Tak's mother was breast feeding little baby Balfin. Laira stared interestedly at the ample swelling of her mother's breasts and opened her shirt to look down at the small buds that were beginning to grow on her own chest. "Will mine be as big as that one day?" she asked hopefully.

     "Bigger," her mother promised. "You'll be able to feed a whole army of babies."

     "Me too!" chimed in Tak, fingering his chest under his shirt, and then couldn't understand why his parents and his sister collapsed in helpless laughter.

     Later, while Tak was sharing a bath with his father, he tried to explain it to him. "You're a boy, he said. "You'll grow up to be a man. Men don't grow up here. They grow down here."

     Tak stared in fascination at the indicated part of his body. "Is that where the baby will suck?" he asked in complete innocence, and his father almost overturned the bath in convulsions of laughter before running off to share it with his wife.

     It was as though the Gods Themselves shared their joy at the new life, because that years harvest was the best they'd ever had. When Tak's father had safely stored away enough to see them through the long and bitter winter they still had enough to fill both their wagons and he loaded it up ready to take it to market.

     They always took a portion of their harvest to the market town, even if it meant them having to tighten their belts for the last few weeks before the spring thaw. There were some things they just had to have. Tools and building materials. Household items. Clothes. Replacement bolts for the crossbow. Potions of healing. Ingots of bronze which Tak's father, a competent blacksmith, could fashion into an emergency replacement for a broken plough share or a hoe. They had to have these things. They could literally mean the difference between life and death, and so they had to have the money to buy them. This time, though, they had enough surplus stock to perhaps be able to afford a luxury or two. A new dress for Tak's mother. Toys for the children. A new crib for the baby.

     Tak was bouncing with excitement, therefore, as his father let the livestock out into the field to graze for the next couple of weeks. They wouldn't wander far, they knew where they were well off, and it would be the work of but an hour or two to round them up again when they returned. Most of them would come running as soon as Laira rang the dinner bell.

     The last of them, a bearded nanny with long, curving horns that would one day be hollowed out and carved by Tak's artistically gifted mother, was leading a pair of excitedly hopping kids out into the pasture as the family climbed aboard the wagons. Laira sat in the front with her father while Tak sat in the rear with his mother and the baby. The infant squirmed in his arms as they set off, the sole of one bare foot continually prodding him in the face, but Tak was too excited to notice. He was going to Jalla! He was going to buy something for the first time in his life!

     Tak's mother carried the crossbow in the crook of one arm as the two wagons bounced uncomfortably over the rough and uneven ground. It was unlikely they'd be attacked while they were on the move. The only thing they really had to worry about was an opportunistic attack from a gang of bandits. A loaded crossbow in the hands of someone who knew how to use it meant the almost certain killing of one of their number, though, and most bandits wouldn't take the chance of being the unlucky one unless they were pretty sure the wagons held something worth their while. They wouldn't attack a family of peasant homesteaders unless they could do so with no risk to themselves whatsoever.

     It was a two or three day journey to Jalla, depending on the weather. The market town was almost due south of them, but they had to angle wide to the east to reach the Fords of Hesco, the only place within a hundred miles where the wide and fast flowing river could be crossed. It had been hot and dry for weeks and the river was low when they reached it. The water barely came up to the bellies of the horses and the axles of the wheels, but even so Tak's father breathed a sigh of relief when they were safely across. Crossing a river was always tricky. A horse could slip and break a leg on a submerged rock, or the current could wrench a wagon around, tearing the wheels off or even overturning it completely. On the far bank was a cairn of rocks commemorating a newly married man and his young wife who'd foolishly tried to cross the river during the spring thaw of '22, just after the heaviest deluge of continuous rainfall in living memory.

     For the first night of their journey they slept under the wagons, Tak and his sister huddled together for warmth, the occasional sound of the baby crying and his mother cooing over him coming from nearby. On the evening of the second day, though, they passed close to another homestead and changed course to stay there for the night. It was a strange experience for Tak, the first time he could remember being a guest in someone else's house. He'd seen dozens of travellers warming themselves by his fire as they stopped by on their way somewhere, but now he was seeing it from the other side.

     The cabin was similar in size and design to their own, but Tak stared at it as if it were made of green cheese. Their hosts had two boys. One about Tak's age, the other about a year older than Laira and visibly interested in her from the moment he clapped eyes on her. The parents, both with shaggy black hair, the man sporting a huge black beard that covered most of his chest, stared suspiciously at the newcomers, then bade them a grudging welcome as custom demanded. The wife was boiling up a pan of soup and added some cups of faintly brown water to make enough to fill the extra bowls while glaring at Tak's parents as if accusing them of stealing food from the mouths of her children. Once the meal was under way, though, the four adults began talking to each other and the atmosphere of tension began to subside a little, but the elder boy never took his dark eyes off Laira, mentally undressing her as he slurped noisily at his soup.

     After dinner, the two women swapped baby anecdotes and doted over baby Balfin while the two men talked seriously about wolves, shologs and the depredations of outlaws. They were sitting on the porch, enjoying the dying rays of the setting suns while the children played on the narrow fringe of grass between the cabin and a field of cotton. The two families might have been friends for years. Tak's father produced his spear and handed it to the other farmer while they discussed its state of wear, the history of every smallest notch in the razor sharp blade and the chances of finding a good enough weaponsmith in Jalla to give it a well needed looking at. Tak, meanwhile, was growing increasingly disturbed by the attention his sister was receiving from the elder boy, and when he invited her to take a look at the family's brand new foal, born just a couple of weeks earlier, Tak followed them to the stable. None of the adults noticed them leave.

     The boy grew angry when he saw Tak following them and ordered him back to play with his little brother. He was twice Tak's size, with the first fuzz beginning to appear on his chin, and Tak backed away in fear, although he paused once he was out of their sight. He ran up to the wooden wall of the barn and peered through a knothole. The foal was sitting contentedly beside its mother and Laira crooned with delight at the sight of it. The boy grinned and put an arm around her shoulders, pulling her to him. She twisted away but he grabbed hold of her and in their struggles they ended up on the floor, he sitting on her stomach, her hands held by the wrists beside her spill of golden blonde hair. She struggled under him but was unable to stop him kissing her hard on the lips. He then transferred both her wrists into one grimy hand, freeing a hand to caress the soft skin of her face, her silky hair. He kissed her again and began pulling at her clothes.

     Seeing this, Tak's outrage grew greater than his fear and he rushed in shouting, jumping onto the bigger boy's back and pummeling him with his pudgy fists. The boy threw him off with a snarl of annoyance but had to release Laira's hands to do so. The girl wriggled out from under him and ran for the barn door. The dark haired boy grabbed for her, but Tak grabbed him around the waist and held him back, allowing her to escape. The boy cried out in frustration and punched Tak full in the face, knocking him to the ground. He ran out after the girl, but by then she had reached the safety of the cabin and collapsed in relief on the porch steps by her mother's feet. The four adults looked up briefly as the three boys arrived just behind her, and Tak's mother beckoned her son over at the sight of his bloody nose.

     "You shouldn't play so rough," she scolded as she dabbed at his face with a damp cloth. "Now just sit quietly. It'll be bedtime soon."

     The dark haired boy stared at him, waiting for Tak to tell what had happened in the barn, but Tak remained silent, afraid to make a greater enemy of the older boy than he already had and after a moment the older boy wandered away in relief. His dad would have beaten him, Tak realised. He'd have taken the skin off his back, but if he looks at Laira again, if he just looks at her, I'll tell! I will!

     Then he realised that Laira was staring at him, smiling with gratitude, and Tak's heart swelled with sudden pride and happiness. He was his sister's guardian! He would protect her from rough boys and outlaws and shologs and dragons! She stayed close to her parents after that, and eyed the dark haired boy warily whenever he came into sight, but an hour later, as the farming couple were showing them to a warm, dry spot in the barn where they could spend the night, Tak saw her fingering her lips thoughtfully, a dreamy expression on her face.

     "Will we be passing this way on the way back?" he asked his father anxiously as soon as their hosts had left them."

     "Passing by, aye, but not stopping," the man replied. "We'll be stopping with the Taywells, who own the spread on the other side of the brown hills. We don't leave our own spread often, and when we do we have to meet with as many of our neighbours as possible. We don't know when we might be needing their help, so we have to be friends with them." He cast an amused sideways glance at his daughter. "They've got a son about your age. A fine handsome chap, too."

     Laira looked up in surprise, and Tak realised that some of what had gone on between her and the dark haired boy had been noticed after all. His sister was cleadly excited at the prospect of meeting another boy, though, and Tak's heart clamoured with alarm, too young to understand that his father was already looking around for a possible husband for her. Too young to understand that their relationship as brother and sister living in the same house couldn't last forever.

     The older Tak, though, thinking back from years in the future, had understood that his father was more worried about keeping her out of trouble until then.