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Suvarian said in a shaky voice.
    Rorr tapped his cheek with the boss at the end of his hilt in silent prayer to Gorum. Then he flashed the sword in a mocking salute.
    Suvarian attacked. His assault was primitive, and Rorr hoped that his own untrained sons would have done better, had he handed them a sword.
    A quick flurry of parries and a simple thrust sent Suvarian staggering away, a long cut across his torso.
    “Kill him, you cowards! Do as I order!” Suvarian gripped his weapon fearfully, more like an ax than a sword. His eyes widened in fear as Rorr slashed the air. The lord switched from threatening to cajoling. “A thousand acres of pastureland to whoever kills him. Two thousand!”
    Rorr heard nothing behind him to hint that any of Suvarian’s soldiers found the offer intriguing enough to die for. He stamped his foot and sent Suvarian scuttling away.
    “You don’t deserve to die by my sword—not this sword, with so proud a history.” Rorr thrust the blade into the ground so hard it quivered for several seconds. He saw calculation come to Suvarian’s eyes. The lord’s courage returned as Rorr advanced, weaponless.
    “You are a fool, farmer.” Suvarian screamed and charged.
    Rorr watched, gauged where the pretender’s foot would be planted, then swept up his shovel where it had been thrust into the ground at the middle of a plowed row. He swung the tool with his right hand as he parried Suvarian’s thrust off the buckler. The tiny shield whined with the impact—and Suvarian fell facedown, tripped up by the shovel’s shaft.
    The man tried to rise, but Rorr’s patience was at an end. He gripped the shovel handle with both hands and swung, batting the sword away. A foot in the middle of Suvarian’s back forced him flat again and pinned him there.
    A quick look up told Rorr what he needed. None of Suvarian’s brigands made a move to aid their lord.
    “You should not prey on those unable to fight back,” Rorr said.
    “I’ll see you executed!”
    “No, you won’t.” The shovel rose and fell. Suvarian’s head rolled away and stared off down a plowed row, as if making a final examination before approving the straight furrow and deep, even cut.
    Rorr left the shovel buried in the ground, walked deliberately back to where his sword thrust up. He withdrew it from the dirt, prepared for a fight against the remaining soldiers.
    Only dust met his eyes. When the cloud settled, his view was unobstructed all the way to the trees at the far side of his land, save by the occasional bush or sapling. Those would be removed as autumn plowing went on.
    He turned and saw Beeah and his two children. Fren and Rayallan stared openmouthed at Suvarian’s body. His wife’s eyes never left him.
    “I’ll tend to this,” he said. “Go back to the house. You did a good job of fastening the planks over the windows, Rayallan. Now get your brother to help you remove them.”
    “There’s no more?” Fren sounded disappointed.
    “Go,” Rorr said, but there was no crack of command in his voice. He was no longer a commander of men. A father directing his sons was more appropriate now.
    “Aw, Pa,” protested Fren. Then he punched his brother in the shoulder and challenged him to race back to the house. Only when they were halfway back did Beeah step up.
    “I don’t understand,” she said. “How—?” She looked at Suvarian, then jerked away from the gory sight.
    “No one threatens my family or my land.”
    Fear widened her eyes—fear of her husband.
    “We have work to do.”
    She opened her mouth to speak, then clamped it shut once more as she shook her head.
    “I’ll plow. When the boys are done with the house, send them back. There will be work for them in the fields.”
    “He was a lord,” she said, her voice cracked with emotion. “He will have an heir.”
    “He was nothing but a brigand.”
    “Someone else will come. If not his heir, then another in his company. What will we do then?”
    Rorr looked at