even as I liked your father. I'd hate to see you dead, too.'
Good advice. Radu went to the caravan of Freji Lykan, now his ... and found it dark and stil, the lamps unlit, the door swinging ajar in a night breeze. But an empty clay jug lay on the grass outside, and a whiff of brandy stil drifting on the air: foul breath of the beasts who had been here before him.
Magda ... was in the bushes close by, where they'd dragged her, used her, and left her broken and naked and dead. And Radu incapable of believing it; he could only sit holding her in his arms, rocking her and shaking his head. Until in a little while he grew cold, then hot, then bitterly cold again, and trembling as from a fever - or from the fury building inside, as he pictured in his mind's eye that which he could not bear to picture:
The blood under her fingernails, some of which were broken, a sure sign of the furious fight she'd put up. The coarse-weave scarf around her neck, with which they'd choked her screams and eventually her life. The bruises and other ... signs, upon her tanned body. Many hands had gripped Magda's flesh, to hold her down (even as Radu had been held down, upon a time), their fingers digging in, to leave disgraceful, impure marks on what had been purest of al. And al of them had shared in her - shared in her! And there had been more than just the Zirescu twins ...
Back to the caravan Radu went, his feet finding their own way, for his mind was somewhere else. To the box under his bed, where in the afternoon he had cleaned his crossbow, and wrapped it in an oiled rag until the next time. For now it was the next time, except he wasn't after goats now but pigs.
Then to the campfire, where the coarse, gutural laughter of drunken men - or louts - rang out loud in the red-flickering light; and a half-dozen of them sitting there, where decent men no longer sat, for the Szgany Zirescu were ashamed of themselves. But no shame here, only whispers and jeers and the mention of ... of a name! Magda's name! But to have heard it from the rubbery, brandy-sodden lips of her violators and murderers! To have heard it in such a context: That's a fuck I'll never forget! And tight as the skin on a tambourine -wel, until we were al done with her, anyway!' The speaker was one Arlek Bargosi. He burst out laughing at his own coarse wit - then coughed, choked, and lurched to his feet. The others looked to see what was wrong with him -
- And saw the flighted half of a crossbow bolt sticking out of Arlek's Adam's apple, and the red-dripping barb protruding from the back of his neck! Arlek clutched uselessly at the stout ironwood shaft, said, 'Urk! Urk! Urk!' Then spewed blood and fel on his face in the fire. And as hot cinders flew this way and that, Radu Lykan stepped into view, stretched the gut on his weapon, and laid a second bolt in the tiller's groove.
But Radu was changed, his face no longer expressionless but broken in a nightmarish grin, his eyes reflecting the red firelight, and teeth bared like bars of white light where saliva foamed in the corners of his mouth. Taler and greyer than ever, he looked, and even more hawklike - except the hawk was blooded now, and stooping to its second prey.
The Zirescu twins shot to their feet. Bulky, bearded, red with booze, they were nevertheless sober in a moment. For this time, in the astonished silence, they heard the thrum as Radu released his bolt, and the hiss as it flew true to Ion's heart... or would have flown true, if another of their cronies had not stood up and put himself stumblingly in the way.
That one's name was Kherl Fumari, and Radu's bolt smashed through his spine and pushed out his jacket a little in front before it lodged there. And as Kherl gave a gurgling cough and crumpled to his knees, Ion Zirescu saw how close he had come. For Kherl clutched at him as he slid to earth, and looked up into his face with eyes already glazing over.
And there stood Radu grinning his mad wild grin, chil as the night but fluid as a river,