Boltac slammed the door of the inn behind him. He was angry at Asarah for reasons he didn’t fully comprehend. He looked up at the stars. He looked down at the muddy cobbles at his feet. Then he looked across the square to his store. For a time, he stood in the middle of the square, trapped between inn and store. He paced in a circle, not knowing which way to go. But he avoided looking at the bench where the Farm Boy slept.

Damn what that woman thought! Her fool ideas of Romance and Heroism. Damn the world, for that matter. The boy was an idiot and searching for death. No good to anyone and a great deal of trouble to whomever he meant to poke with whatever sword he could beg, borrow, or steal. That was the thing that all the would-be Heroes forgot. The people they meant to stab to death in the name of Glory thought that they were Heroes too.

In the end, observed Boltac, it wasn’t even the Heroes that got the worst of it. It was the people in the middle. The shopkeepers, the peasants, the simple folk just trying to get through the day. To make a buck, raise a crop, or raise a family.

This dark line of thinking steeled Boltac’s nerve so he could get across the square. But, when the shop door closed behind him, his resolve faltered. He peered through the window at the boy he had knocked unconscious. For a moment, Boltac was worried that he had killed the lad. But then the boy stirred a little in his sleep.

Boltac remembered when he had been the Farm Boy’s age. Young and strong and chained to a store. His father had been fond of saying, “Keep a shop, and it will keep you.” And so it did, keeping a young boy from doing anything that he might want to do in this world. Keeping him at endless, boring work that served as torture for a young man who craved Adventure.

He did not feel guilty for braining the lad. If it was Adventure the boy was after, he would have to withstand far worse. And if his younger self had appeared by Magic before him in his own store Boltac would have done far, far worse. He would have worn his arm out trying to beat some sense into his former self.

Why couldn’t Asarah see the logic of that? Why did she never approve of Boltac’s carefully negotiated ways? He craved her affection and approval more than he understood. But it was a thing of which he could not speak. Even to himself.

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There was no way to tell a young man of the hazards that awaited him–of the costs to life and limb and family–of all the ways of hurt and all the ways those hurts could radiate beyond himself. It was a terrible thing to be a Hero. And Boltac wished the pain of it on no one. And on no one’s family.

But there was no way to frame the words, no order to put them in that could make it through a testosterone-addled brain and overcome the lust for Glory. If not this Priestess con, the lad would find some other cause, or scrape, or trouble. At least he wasn’t off in search of the Evil Wizard all of the other Adventurers were always harassing. None of them ever seemed to come back. Who knew, maybe that meant the Wizard was real and terrible after all.

No, Boltac realized, there was no stopping him. So why had he tried? Because he saw himself in the lad. Because he would have given much to take back the poor choices of his own youth. He spit and cursed the bards. It was all their fault. Putting all these ideas in young men’s heads. Sending them off to war or in search of gold.

Damn it all. He stomped to the sword barrel, drew a blade, and tested its balance. Awful. He sighted the edge. It was as curved as an old whore’s back. What an awful piece of workmanship. It was the kind of item he would willingly sell to a fool, but not the kind of weapon he would wish on his worst enemy. A man needed a sword he could trust. Boltac saw the shape of a terrible memory rising from the dark waters of his mind. Before the thought could fully take hold, he slammed the sword back in the barrel.

He walked to the rack of weapons. He removed the blade on the bottom. It was the one he would have chosen, if he were spending his own money. It was a stout Mercian sword. At one end, its straight blade came to a broad triangular point. At the other, the hilt was a heavy round pommel that, in the hands of someone who knew what he was doing, qualified as a weapon on its own. The blade sang softly as he unsheathed it and begged to dance in his hand. He sighted this weapon and its hard edge was as crisp, final, and unforgiving as the border between life and death.

There wasn’t a soul on the streets as Boltac crossed the square. The stars seemed impossibly high and uncaring. When he got to the Farm Boy, he hung the sword around the lad’s neck very carefully, so as not to wake him. Underneath the thick head of straw-blond hair, Boltac could see a freshly-risen lump. Ouch. He reached out to touch it. His fingers almost made contact. Then Boltac became self-conscious. He looked around as if he were afraid of being caught doing something wrong. But there was no one watching. He scuttled back across the square.