Many more lights were on as he moved through the western reaches of Pryd Town, affording him a better chance to locate Cadayle. The shadow that was Bransen drifted through the lanes and small yards, one by one, peering into house after house. And finally, he found her.
She lived with her mother at the end of a lane in a small stone house with flowers all around the yard. She was inside going about her nightly routines. Bransen's heart leaped at the sight. He watched the two eat their dinner, laughing and talking. He listened as they sat before the small hearth later, sometimes talking and sometimes sitting silent, taking in the meager heat on this unseasonably chilly night.
When at last Cadayle rose and moved to a small cot and began to undress, Bransen froze and nearly panicked.
She pulled her tunic up, and Bransen turned away, putting his back to the wall and fighting for every breath. How he wanted to watch her, to bask in the beauty of her soft curves and delicate limbs! His curiosity and something deeper, something he didn't really understand, something deep in the base of his line of life energy, in his loins, tugged at him to watch.
But he knew that it would be wrong.
He stayed by the house until late in the night, protecting his dear Cadayle. And while he was there, he practiced the Jhesta Tu exercises, the precise movements designed to instill memory and precision into the muscles of a warrior.
Any Jhesta Tu mystic watching him would have thought he had spent years at the Walk of Clouds.
No trouble came to Cadayle that night, nor the next, nor the next after that. And through each night, Bransen was there, outside her house, keeping watch and examining, too, his newfound physical prowess and the implications that it might hold.
"How will Master Bathelais and Brother Reandu accept this change?" he asked himself quietly. The young man found himself speaking aloud quite often these nights. The sound of his voice, without the stuttering, without the wetness of unwilled saliva, without the tortured twists and tugs of uncontrolled jaw muscles, amazed him and pleased him in ways he had never imagined. "Or Bernivvigar? Yes, the old one will be surprised and not pleased. What will he say when I look him in the eye and declare him a criminal? What will he say when I knock him down and kick him hard for the pain he brought Garibond?"
Bransen's eyes gleamed as he considered that, as he pictured Bernivvigar helplessly squirming on the ground before him. He shook the dangerous fantasy away, when he reminded himself that Bernivvigar had acted on behalf of Laird Prydae. Would he challenge the whole of Pryd?
"Garibond," he whispered to the night. "My father of deed, not blood. You will see your efforts rewarded. You will see your prayers answered. You will see your son stand straight. I will tend to you as you did for me all those years. Never again will you have to sit huddled in the cold rain, trying to catch a fish or two to silence your growling belly. Never again will you stagger toward the house, an armload of firewood in your weary arms.
"Never again, my father."
As he finished, Bransen leaped high into the air and spun one leg flying out in a circular kick, muscles working in perfect harmony, joints moving smoothly and without pain. He heard the crack of wind at the end of that kick, so sharp and swift was its motion. He landed easily in a crouch, arms flowing side to side before him as if fending off enemies.
He stopped abruptly and looked back at the house. "Cadayle," he whispered. He tried to imagine the look upon her face when he revealed himself to her, when he showed her that he was the Stork no more-or at least, not all of the time. "My love, my all."
A sudden stab of fear stole his voice. He thought he would rush forward and profess his love to her, tell her that there was nothing in all the world more precious to him than her smile and her gentle touch, that there was nothing warmer to him than the feel of her breath.
He realized that she wouldn't reciprocate. He knew in his heart, then and there, that she would never be able to see past the shit-covered Stork, wallowing in the mud. How could someone as beautiful and perfect as Cadayle ever hold any feelings other than compassion and pity for the wretched creature he had been all his life?
"How could I begin to think myself worthy of you?" he asked the empty night.
No, not empty, he only then realized, as his senses reached outward and caught the movements of several forms, distant laughter, and the crash of a bottle thrown to the road.
Bransen ducked into the shadows of a tree a dozen yards to the side of Cadayle's house. He stared back to the east, back down the lane, and noted the approach of five dark forms. He couldn't make out any details from this distance, but he knew at once that it was Tarkus Breen and his friends, come at last to make good on their threat. Bransen's hands trembled so hard that his fingers tapped against the rough oak bark. His legs turned weak beneath him and his mouth went suddenly dry.
"This is why you came out here," he reminded himself, but the words sounded hollow against the fear, the terror that was welling within him. He thought himself a fool, a pretend hero who kicked at the air and imagined he could do anything.
Anything at all.
For he was just the Stork, just a boy, who had never been to war, who had never fought back against anything other than pounding his dirty hand into the dirt after being thrown down.
A movement before him brought him from his thoughts, and he caught a flash, a reflection of glass in the starlight, as the bottle soared and smashed against Cadayle's door.
The three walked right past, taking no notice of him.
"Cadayle," Tarkus Breen called. "Come out and play, girl. I've a weapon too long sheathed!"
The others laughed.
The group strode right up to the house, one going left, another right, to ensure that no one got out.
Bransen wanted to shout. He wanted to charge at the group and demand they leave. He wanted to run back to town and call out the guard.
He couldn't bring himself to move. Not an inch. He couldn't bring himself to swallow, let alone cry out!
Everything seemed to move before him so slowly and yet very quickly as if his mind couldn't properly take in the unfolding scene. He saw candlelight inside the house. He watched a large man walk up to the door and kick it hard, and then again, knocking it wide open.
He heard a protest-Cadayle's mother.
And Tarkus Breen and two others went in.
He heard a scuffle, saw the two other men coming back around the house; and the sound of a slap jolted him straight.
Cadayle appeared in the door, wearing only a white nightshirt. She started to run out, but Tarkus himself caught her by her thick hair and tugged her back. She fell to her knees right there in the doorway.
Bransen shook violently. He silently cursed his cowardice. How could he watch this and not go to her? How could he stand here, ready to pee in his pants?
"Shut up, you old hag, and be glad that you're too ugly to feel the sting of our weapons!" one of the brutes shouted from inside. And Bransen jumped at the sound of another slap.
Cadayle crawled out and started to rise, but Tarkus's foot planted on her back and sent her sprawling to the ground.
In a moment, four of the five were around her, taunting her, while the fifth remained inside with her mother.
"You should know your place, girl," Tarkus Breen said. "You interfere where you're not wanted."
Cadayle looked up at him. Even at this distance, Bransen could see her eyes full of hate and fear.
"You defend that creature," Tarkus Breen said, and he spat upon her. "Do you not understand who we are and what we have done for you? We fight in the south and we die! We defend you, whore, and you side with that creature over us?"