Gulthar Kro hiked the last sixteen miles to Burnt Woods on roads, the last five being on the main road from the south, ditched, graveled, and graded. The farm families in the Halvess settlement had accepted him as Smoleni; he'd continue as one.
He'd burned the incriminating mapbook; he didn't need it now.
The road passed through intermittent farmlands the last few miles, emerging finally from a short stretch of swamp forest to enter continuous fields. Across them he could see Burnt Woods, more than a mile away. A formation of uniformed men came toward him down the road, double-timing, and he stepped aside onto the shoulder to watch them pass. He knew them at once, though he'd never seen any before—mercenaries; a company of them. They wore a uniform like none he'd ever seen; the cut was standard, but the color was mottled green and brown and yellow. The rationale behind it was obvious. And they weren't double-timing after all; their pace was considerably faster, a brisk trot. They wore packs, too; not combat packs or field packs, but pack frames with what appeared to be sandbags.
What impressed Kro most about them was their sense of presence. He felt it as they passed; these were warriors, all the way. These were the men that had given Undsvin fits. To kill their commander might be even more difficult than he'd thought. As for escaping afterward—that, he judged, would be the real challenge.
The road he was on ended at a junction, and instead of turning east into the village, he turned west toward the merc camp, to have a look at it. Nearing it, it seemed to him much the same as any regimental camp might be. Near its near side, he saw activity, and went to watch. He'd never seen gymnastics before. The difficulties would not have impressed the judges at a meet, but the exercises they did there were powerful and demanding, and they impressed Gulthar Kro deeply. He'd never seen anyone do giant swings before. And while he'd learned as a boy to stand on his hands, and even walk on them, the mercs kipped up and planched into handstands on horizontal and parallel bars. Beyond that they did tumbling runs, boots flying, shirttails flapping.
He would have missed the close combat drills, because the jokanru ground was on the far side of camp. But an off-duty Smoleni had strolled up beside him, and the two of them carried on an intermittent conversation while they watched the gymnastics.
"Somethin', ain't it?" the Smoleni said.
"Yup. Sure is."
"You ever watch 'em practice fightin'?"
"What d'ya mean?"
"You know." The man stepped around as if in some dance, moving his arms. "Hand to hand."
Kro frowned at the exhibition. "Nope, never did. Where do they do that?"
The man pointed. "Round t' the far side." So after another three or four minutes, Kro trotted over there. Several pre-teen Smoleni boys were already watching. These drills were even more interesting to Kro than the gymnastics had been, and he began to grasp a concept he'd never known before; the concept of personal development technologies. The platoon he watched was sparring, the men matched off in pairs. One played the role of a man who had a knife but lacked jokanru. He'd attack using some technique, and his "victim" would counter and "destroy" him. Then they changed roles. These encounters were brief, over in a moment, but Kro's warrior eye, evaluating, saw how truly powerful the techniques were. Then they faced off as two jokanru opponents. Some of these bouts lasted as long as fifteen seconds, and were even more impressive. He saw the techniques here as for use between men who were more or less equals. Then the troopers grouped in threes, two as canny fighters lacking jokanru; the one would subdue the two. Kro recognized that such skills could only have grown from true talent drilled at length.
Finally that platoon moved on to other activities, another platoon replacing them. They started with stretching, even though they'd just come from the gymnastics area. Men stood on one booted foot, with the other leg out straight, foot at shoulder height, reaching out with their hands to pull back on their toes, stretching the Achilles tendon. After two or three minutes of stretching, they began their forms, as flowing and rhythmic and graceful as ballet, but moving ever faster. Watching them almost hypnotized Kro; this, he realized, was the basis of the fighting skills he'd just seen.
He watched the platoon through a full twenty-minute cycle, then hiked thoughtfully back toward Burnt Woods. If they develop such skill in hand-to-hand fighting, he told himself, they no doubt do as well with their weapons. To kill their commander, it seemed to him now, might best take an indirect approach. Perhaps he needed to get hold of a rifle, and a sniper scope if the Smoleni had them. Make his strike from a distance, then disappear into the forest. It was not an approach he cared for.
Meanwhile he needed to find a home, a unit to live with. After getting directions, he went to the Smoleni army camp south of the village, and presented himself to the personnel officer. The captain there frowned at Kro's coarse-stubbled face, and at the dirt ingrained in clothes and skin. The captured Smoleni uniform Kro wore had sergeant's insignia on the sleeves, and the unit emblem of a regiment from the Eel River-Welvarn District.
"Where have you been, Sergeant?"
Kro had had days to concoct a story, should he ever need one, and he knew enough about the fighting in the south, that spring, to make the story sound real. He'd been in the Eagle Regiment, he said, an outfit that had fought long and hard to hold the coast, and been pretty much shot to pieces. When his company was overrun, he'd hidden in a culvert. After that he'd picked his way west and north through occupied territory, traveling by night and hiding by day. Civilians had given him food, and at times had hidden him. Finally he'd reached the Free Lands, and made better time. Now he was here, reporting for assignment.
The captain bought it all. And looking beneath the unsoldierly appearance, he recognized Kro's strength and presence. There'd been an attempted assassination of President Lanks, two nights earlier, he said. Since then, 3rd Battalion had been scouring the woods for Komarsi infiltrators, and lost several men in shoot-outs. They'd be glad to have a seasoned replacement.
Gulthar Kro had a home.