Old Habits

11 - Modesty

It was less an organised military strike force, and more a citizen's militia. And, like all militias, it was malicious.

Abaye had been right. These strong, aggressive types didn't know the first thing about what they were facing. Tam was clearly the expert on the mythology, but he barely got a say. To have your voice heard, you just had to shout louder than anybody else. Mobs are rarely meritocracies.

The general opinion seemed to be that the flame and pitchfork approach was tried and tested. If the system wasn't broken, why fix it?

If anybody has listened, Tam would have pointed out that this was a terrible attitude. Not being broken was not the same as being perfect. Something didn't need to be broken to be improved. The historical struggle against these creatures had been just that: a struggle. In Tam's view, it didn't have to be.

He'd have explained that, had anybody listened. They hadn't.

Hence, just as he'd worried, Tam was stuck following Kaida.

They made an odd couple. Whilst she had the natural Lydelian tendency to protest, he had been brought up in the strictness of the monastery. 

When left alone, then, their conversations were rather one-sided. Tam's natural reaction to criticism was to quietly accept it. This meant that, when it was just the two of them, Kaida always got her way.

She hated it.

When all of her complaints were acknowledged politely, Kaida soon ran out of things to complain about. This was not a situation she had ever found herself in before, and eventually it itself became the subject of complaint. When Tam accepted even this paradox, she really wasn't sure where that left her.

Still, she was happy to be doing what she was doing. When they found the beast, Kaida would be able to confront her attacker, and her guilt. Helping her morale was the fact that the group's semi-official leader, and her new idol, was a strong, independent woman.

Captain Calba could certainly hold her own amongst the pitchfork-waving men. More than that. Many of them weren't soldiers, but local men who had signed up. They were scared. Some of the soldiers were, too. In this time of peace, many of them had never fought another man, let alone this monster. If it had been frightening to those who saw it, their rumours had made it many times worse for those who had not.

Just as the monks had looked to their Abbot in times of fear, the militia looked to their Captain. The difference, of course, was that Calba was used to it. She knew how to control this obedience, to assert her will on a rabble which would naturally have run amok. Here was a woman who could turn chaos into order. Regardless of what the orders were, you had to respect that. Kaida certainly did.

When Calba came to talk to them, she practically swooned. That hadn't been something Tam had expected to see.

If that had surprised him, he was outright shocked when the Captain started talking to him. After being ignored for hours by the other soldiers, he had forgotten that he had something to offer them. Calba, however, had not.

"The men are worried", she told him. "They seem to believe that, mythologically speaking, this creature cannot be killed with normal weapons. I know the legends as well as anyone, but is that really what the official history tells us?"

"Actually, the books don't say all that much about weapons", answered Tam, after he'd worked out who she was addressing. 

"What do they say?"

"Well, whichever creature it is that we're hunting, the sources agree that they don't like daylight."

"It harms them?"