The turnip field needed plowing. Tabor bent and dug his calloused hand into the dark soil, crumbling the clods between his fingers. More manure, he thought and then glanced up at the early spring sun just cresting the row of poplars by the road. A good clear day for it. He straightened slowly. The wide flat valley was gold and orange with the dawn. But oh, did his old bones hurt.

He was heading for the barn where his donkey would still be sleeping, lazy animal that it was, when he heard the sound of horses on the road. Tabor stiffened. They’ll pass by, he told himself. They always do. Going this way and that, someone was always rushing off somewhere and it always seemed so very important. Tabor’s farm was on the borders of three Kingdoms, a river valley once used only for battles and the marching of armies. Now the flatlands were quiet, peaceful and isolated. Just the way I like it.

The horse hooves grew louder as he reached the barn door.

“You there. Old Man. Water for the horses.”

Tabor nodded toward the trough without a backward glance. “There’s the water, good sirs, and there is the pump. You’re welcome to it.”

He limped into the barn and Boots greeted him with a familiar friendly shake of her brown head. She was a good donkey, and Tabor wouldn’t have traded her for all the great warhorses of the world. He had just reached her stable when a dark shadow stretched in from the doorway. He turned without interest. All bristling young nobleman looked the same to Tabor.

“You, peasant, need a lesson in manners. Now you will pump water for my men, and then give us breakfast. We have been riding for hours.”

The young man glared. He had not seen twenty winters yet, Tabor guessed. His dark looks and the bright gold leaf pattern on his surcoat declared him from the Kingdom of Risa. He was handsome in the way of youth; bright, untested and sure of his own righteous place in the world.

Tabor sighed. “I am a freeman, milord, and I have a turnip field that’s in need of turning.  You may, however, have anything you find in the pantry. I think there’s some cheese and bread.” And would these young fools leave him enough for his own luncheon? He had little to share in truth but he was in no mood for fighting with boys. There was the field to get to.

The young lord stared at him as if he spoke in some foreign tongue.  

“Is there something else, milord? I have things that need doing.”

“Peasant! Do you know who I am?” The young man shook back his dark hair. Well, he had the face of several different families of Risa, and Tabor could sense the animal in the boy, his family’s talisman. Wolf? Leopard?

Tabor gave yet another sigh. A chaos demon must have passed over him while he slept, because this day was not turning out the way he had planned. He should have just pumped their water and played docile servant. He patted Boots on her velvet nose before limping towards the door. “I’ll fetch your water, milord.”

As he passed the boy pushed him from behind and sent Tabor sprawling in the dust of his yard. The other young men, who had now dismounted, laughed. Laughed? Tabor shook his head. Was it funny to see an old peasant pushed down and abused? The worth of knighthood had gone down since Tabor’s day.

He started to climb to his feet, the old injury paining him. He saw the young lord raise his boot to kick him down again and Tabor took hold of the boy’s heel. He flipped him on his back. Dust rose in a small cloud and the lordling sputtered.

“You would dare?” He waved off his companions as they moved in. “I’ll teach you some manners.”

Tabor told himself to control his temper. These were just children after all. Mean children, he amended, as he eyed the other five. They were companions, and not really guards, and not a one of them a seasoned man. None of them had been more than toddling boys during the Wars. “Do you think you’re so brave to take on an old man? Six to one?”

The lordling narrowed his bright eyes as he watched Tabor climb unsteadily to his feet. “I don’t need their help, but you should not treat your betters with such disrespect.”

“I do not see my better in this crowd.” Tabor could have bit his tongue. What was wrong with him today? That chaos demon for sure, he thought. He should have just given these boys their water and then shooed them on their way.

Tabor waited. The boy twitched. He attacked from the right. Tabor stepped to one side, grabbed the boy by the back of the tunic and tossed him six feet across the yard…oops, right into the pile of composted manure. That probably would not calm the lordling down.  No, surely not, thought Tabor. The boy rose, grunting, red-faced, and now his friends laughed at him.

To his credit, he didn’t draw his sword. But his hand twitched as he brushed off his fine clothes. He then came at Tabor again, growling. Growling? Tabor smiled. So that was the boy’s line. “House of Dog?” he commented dryly as he again evaded the lordling’s rushed attack.

The laughter silenced and the boy’s eyes widened, shocked and glaring. “That is a mortal insult, scum. I don’t know who you think you are, but that is a dueling offense to my House’s honor.”

“Why?” Tabor shook his head. “Is the honor of House Urick so brittle? What do words mean, unless they contain truth? And what is the truth? Your grandfather was a wolf. So what? Do you want to guess what my ancestor was? Eh?”

“You should not speak of what you do not understand, farmer.” The son of House Urick said this last word like it was an insult and this made Tabor smile. He remembered a time when no one would call him farmer. Now this young boy spit in his face. He ran at Tabor once more, but this time with his long sword.

Tabor had had enough. His temper roused. The crimson rage unclenched from that secret place beneath his heart, unfolding like the wings of a great beast. The old farmer’s eyes flashed red. He stepped into the boy’s charge, turning. He grabbed the lordling’s wrist, using the momentum of the attack, and squeezed the fragile bones until the boy squawked. The sword dropped. The son of the House of Urick then flew head over heels and into the grime near the barn.

Tabor caught the sword and before any of the young men could react, he ran it right down the back of the young pup. It slid beneath the tunic but did not cut skin.  With a twist of the blade the surcoat was torn in two. Tabor tore it from the boy as he might have once done on the battlefield. The House of Urick had fallen, this symbol meant, and he tossed the gold leaves of Risa to the ground.

Tabor lifted the startled lordling by the neck. He pinned him to the barn with one hand, while the other waved the sword at the foolish boys who now stared in open fear. The Dragon rose in Tabor’s eyes, a dark thing, wings spread, talons ready, it seemed to fill the air around them with its shadow though Tabor didn’t change. He forced the monster back. The boy under his hand whimpered, the dog smelling the reptile and recoiling in fear. For just a moment Tabor forgot where he was, he stood on the battlefield of Jasa with fallen enemies and friends at his feet, and the Dragon blood burning in his veins with killing madness.

Tabor released the son of Urick and dropped the sword into the dust. “And who has learned a lesson in manners today, boy?” he murmured and shook his head, struggling to recoil the Dragon, to force it back inside… to sleep, to sleep, he silently whispered.  There is nothing left to fight for. Dragoncrest has fallen. We are empty now. We are without country, without reason to fight. Sleep.

Battle horns faded from his ears, and the taste of blood receded from his mouth. For just a moment, he thought he saw the white and green flag flying again from the crenellated towers of Dragoncrest, and then it was falling…falling… It is over. She has gone on and I will join her soon enough. Tabor closed his eyes and shook his head.

The young lord fell to the dirt, coughing, and then he bowed low, hanging his head in shame. “You can only, you can only be…”

“I am not that man.” Tabor shook his head and stared out over his field. The sun was rising over the swamplands, heating a mist from his field. Like the ghosts of the dead, rising from the dark earth, he thought with sadness. He had so many ghosts.

The other boys whispered, shaking their heads, wondering what to do. But the young lord, he knew the truth now, and he crawled forward.

“My Lord. My Lord Tabor of Dragoncrest.” He wiped the tears off his face, the marks on his neck bright red. “I must make amends. I am Lord Jared of the House of Urick. You saved my father’s life on the Battlefield of Jasa. How can I repay that debt by insulting and attacking you? Please, I beg to make amends. I’ll do anything. Send me on some quest. Let me fight some foe, oh, give me some way to reclaim my honor.”

“Well.” Tabor frowned. The boy was a fool, and his friends were worse, but they were children and Tabor had liked the boy’s father so many years ago. He sighed and glanced at the sun. “You can plow the field for me, boy.”

“Plow?” Jared stared at him.

“Plow. I need to get the turnips in.”

And so that morning, the young lord and his noble friends learned to till the ground while Tabor sat in the warm spring sunlight and rested his old bones. He supposed that chaos demon had done him a favor after all.

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