such a force would come against them. Their hesitance is telling, do you see?"
"Yes, Yatol."
"Do you?" Grysh asked again, more emphatically, turning to face Carwan. ?Why are they afraid?" he asked when Carwan gave him his full attention.
Carwan knew the answer, but he chewed on it for a few seconds, not even wanting to speak it aloud, fearing the consequences. ?Because they are guilty," he said at last, and Yatol Grysh nodded slowly and deliberately, turning his head as he did, his eyes narrowing, to face the gathered To-gai-ru.
Carwan could not deny the logic of his claim, for it seemed obvious to him that this village was at least aware of, if not in league with, the bandits. But as he looked around at the gathering, frightened women and children, and a few old men staring out from the shadows, the word ?guilty" just did not seem appropriate.
A commotion to the side caught his attention, and he turned that way to a Behrenese warrior emerging from a tent, a young To-gai-ru man held fore him, arm wrapped painfully and effectively behind his back.
"They say that their men are all out hunting, Yatol," Wan Atenn said at i same moment, for the Cheznou-Lei warrior and the translator had con-tinued the conversation to the side.
"All but one, it would seem."
The soldier with the prisoner moved before Wan Atenn and threw the man at his leader's feet. ?A tunnel concealed within the tent," he explained.
Wan Atenn nodded to a pair of soldiers and they ran off to the tent, dis-appearing within its folds without hesitation.
"Who is this?'V锟?toTtkysh said to Wan Atenn and the interpreter, and the outposter immediately turned to the To-gai-ru woman with whom he had been speakingand barked out a series of questions. The woman was slow to answer at first, but! the outposter began screaming at her, the same question over and over.
She started screaming back, answering with such enthusiasm that her lie was easy for all to see, even for those who didn't understand the To-gai-ru language.
Then it stopped, suddenly, the outposter and the defiant woman staring hard at each other.
"Where are the others?" Yatol Grysh calmly asked, and his translator echoed the question in the same tone.
"No others," the woman answered, and both Carwan and Grysh under-stood the simple phrase before their man turned to explain.
"Where are the others?" Grysh asked again, in the same calm tones, and again, it was properly translated.
The woman responded exactly the same way, and as the outposter turned to Grysh, the Yatol held up his hand and turned to Wan Atenn.
"No trees to hang the prisoner properly," he said. ?Stake him."
Carwan's eyes widened with shock. ?Yatol..." he started to say, but the look Grysh shot him clearly said that he was out of bounds.
Wan Atenn began barking orders, and in short order, the prisoner had been dragged to the side of the encampment and laid out, spread-eagled, staked down by his wrists and ankles. Every time he tried to struggle, a Behrenese soldier kicked him in the ribs.
The gathering of To-gai-ru screamed and jostled, but Grysh's escorting contingent was more than able to hold them at bay.
At the next moment of calm, Grysh again nodded to Wan Atenn, and the fierce warrior, no novice to these techniques, fetched a torch from the fire his companions were preparing. Another soldier dutifully ran to intercept Wan Atenn, handing him a bulging waterskin.
A waterskin of lamp oil, Carwan knew. Carwan was at a loss, hardly able to draw breath, let alone speak a word of protest. A word that his unques-tionable master did not want to hear, in any case.
He watched, fighting hard to hide his revulsion, as Wan Atenn stuck the torch into the ground between the man's knees.
"Ask her again where the others might be," Grysh instructed his out-poster interpreter.
The woman, her eyes wide and unblinking, hesitated for a long, long time, then answered with the same words, though in a much more subdued tone.
Grysh nodded to his fierce Chezhou-Lei warrior, who immediately began splashing the lamp oil all over the staked man.
Then the Yatol turned to the woman, a wide smile on his face. ?One last time," he said, somewhat flippantly.
The woman looked away, and Carwan wanted to as well, but found that he could not, mesmerized by the sight of his master calmly nodding to Wan Atenn, by the sight of Wan Atenn, showing no emotion at all, as he grabbed up the torch and touched it to the oiled prisoner.