The man who had opened the door had a heavy club. Kormak moved to give himself a clear space in case of trouble.

“Easy,” he said. “I mean you no harm. The Holy Sun smile upon you.” He ducked his head and made the Solar sign, keeping his eye on the men the whole time, not wanting to take a blow as he bowed.

The men relaxed a little. They had feared a monster. They had found a big man, garbed like every other landless mercenary, a sword on his back, blood seeping through a dirty linen shirt and dripping from the thick leather jerkin. “See to my horse and I will pay you copper.” He pulled a coin from his flat purse, letting them see how empty it was. No sense in giving them reason to murder him in the night.

The oldest of the men nodded to the boy. “Do it. We will keep an eye on the stranger.”

The boy headed through the door, torn by curiosity about what would happen next, a desire to stay and help his father in case of trouble, and fear of going out into the gathering gloom.

“Do it!” the father said. The boy jumped to obey.

“You are bleeding,” said girl. She sounded concerned.

“Bandits on the road,” Kormak lied, too smoothly for his own liking. He had become too well practiced at lying. “I took a wound but managed to cut my way free. My horse all but foundered carrying me here.”

“You look more like a bandit than their victim,” said the eldest son, half-defiant, half-afraid, from his place of safety by the window.

“I am a soldier,” said Kormak, hiding the greater lie in the lesser truth. In one sense he was a soldier. He just fought in a different war from the one these people would think of.

“A lot of you on the road these days,” said the farmer. “Now that the wars in the East have ended. Sometimes I wonder if it had not been better if the orcs had over-run us. They could not commit more robberies or killings than our own so-called defenders.”

It was always the same, Kormak thought. When the threat was there, people cheered and threw roses and called you a hero. When the threat was gone, they forgot and called you a bandit. “You know nothing of orcs if you can say that,” said Kormak.

“And you do?” said the younger man. There was the sneer again, but there something else there as well. Fear, most likely. Or perhaps envy. Many a boy had left his farm to go fight in the wars, but many had stayed behind and doubted their courage ever since.

“I do. If the greenskins were here, they would not leave your house standing, they would burn it…”

“Men would do the same, and they would do worse to our women…”

“Aye, cruel men might. But they would not take you for their herds.”

“Dead is dead,” said the eldest man. “Does not matter how it happens.”

You’ve never seen an orc herd, Kormak was about to say, but the will to argue spilled out of him. Why should he inflict tales of such horrors on these people? They had troubles enough of their own. They lived with fear all their lives, saw the barons take more than their share of crops in taxes, and were unable to raise their voice in protest.