The innkeeper had woken Novek up as he'd requested. As there wasn't much left to do but wait for something to happen, that's what Novek did. He'd certainly gotten a lot of experience in doing so, throughout his career — if you could call it that.

  Career implied he'd intended it — he had not. He'd started as an uplift conscript, then served later in various militias and paramilitary organizations; fighting had been all he knew, so he'd stuck with it. It would have been ironic, a conscript staying in the military, except for the fact many like him ended up the same way. The lack of viable alternatives was the issue. It was hard to get a job as a baker's assistant when your prior job experience read like the opening to a war crimes tribunal. Conscripts of any race or creed didn't get to choose when, why, or how they fought; that meant they got the jobs more privileged fighters wouldn't do; not the merely questionable ones, the jobs that went beyond simply dangerous or ethically gray.

  It also didn't help that uplift conscripts were more prevalent than they should have been in any rational world. Due to inherent advantages in size, strength, and natural weaponry, every few years some government or faction would get it into their heads they could snatch a group of whatever species they fancied, drop them in a combat training creche, and build a custom-tailored elite force to solve their problems. Except Brin took just as long to mature as Humans, and almost inevitably the project would fall apart mid-way when all they had were some half-trained child soldiers with raging hormones, unresolved anger issues, and claws like knives.

  Why these projects disintegrated never really mattered; the reasons were as varied as any human endeavor. The project's faction fell out of favor. The nation itself went bankrupt — probably because they spent their money on impractical military decisions. Maybe they got taken over by another state that didn't want to patiently wait 16 years for the fighting force to mature. Once in a dog's age someone with the barest hint of ethics took over and cancelled the project; Novek wasn't sure if that qualified as a pun because it was disturbingly accurate.

  To Novek's cynical mind, it was usually that in the long training period, someone focused on short-term profits saw a small fortune in selling half-developed living weapons to some new idiot that just had the most brilliant, unique idea that they could grab some animals off the plains and train them to be an elite fighting force.

  Once the decision to sell the ‘assets’ was made, the story might not always go exactly the same, but it sure did rhyme. The young uplifts would be sold off to even less-principled individuals, for purposes unstated, to recoup the not-insubstantial costs of uplift treatments and training — or to line the seller's pockets. The only real question was their ultimate disposition; maybe the original purpose of combat, undesirable labor, or worse.

  Novek had taken the choice out of his benefactor's hands — their word, not his, as they invariably thought of themselves as such — and made the choice himself. Between continued subjugation and violence — he chose violence. Which wasn't to say Novek a bad person — a bit unconventional, sure. He was here trying to help defend some village at great risk to himself for no stated compensation, after all.

  The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

  All of that aside, today's preparation felt refreshing, in a way. Novek didn't feel any big moral conundrum; people needed help — he'd help. He liked simple. He hoped it stayed that way.

  Simple lasted a little less than an hour.

  Dusk was approaching when the smallholder's expected wagon made an unexpected entrance, careening through the small dirt road that served as the main thoroughfare of the village. The commotion among the villagers alerted Novek to the activity, and he made it outside in time to watch the wagon judder to a halt just outside the stables halfway down the main road.

  As wagons went, it was simple; a front bench attached to a rectangular boxed back half covered by dirty white fabric. There was only the single horse in harness clearly meant for two; that explained the off-kilter approach. The wagon's remaining horse was wild with fright and desperately trying to get into the stable doors; clearly towards what it considered safety. The horse ignored the shouted commands of the driver; they were really more of a passenger at the moment.

  The driver gave up on shouting and jumped down from the front bench, and immediately tried to calm the horse enough to unhook it from the harness before it hurt itself or someone else in its panic. The wagon stopped rocking back and forth as the horse was sufficiently soothed. A young man and a middle-aged woman took the opportunity to emerge from beneath the cloth overhang and climb down out of the back. Both were obviously shaken, though not panicked, and each wore the loose coveralls typically associated with farm work.

  A small group of people had left the inn to surround the cart, awkwardly holding their weapons at a semblance of ready, glancing around nervously. They circled protectively around the wagon and its prior occupants. Good instincts, Novek observed.

  “Tenny!” yelled the woman from the wagon, and the smallholder — Tenny, apparently — rushed up and embraced her tightly. Novek couldn't make out the words in the din, but comforting reassurances were obviously being exchanged. That would make her the smallholder's partner, Novek assumed.

  The young man stood there as the people gathered, searching the faces of the assembled group and then sweeping his gaze over the barricaded houses; he obviously hadn't been expecting the town to be mobilized and ready for defense — Novek certainly didn't blame him, he'd been surprised at how fast the village had moved to the purpose. The farm owner whose land had been the scene of the attack went up to greet him, a consoling look at the ready. The youth was probably another farmhand then.

  The village head took charge and ushered everyone out of the street back toward the inn, while the driver finished coaxing the horse out of harness and into the stables — then followed the animal in, closing the doors behind them. Novek approved — the driver had their priorities in order.

  Novek looked down the street, half-expecting to see something staring back. Nothing was — and the wagon passengers hadn't been glancing behind them or rushed to get inside. He did a small half-circle around the wagon, giving it a once-over, and set his mind to updating the situational analysis.

  There wasn't much more to add yet, but he noted that there were no wounds, no blood, and no visible damage to the cart. There was the one missing horse, but neither the driver nor the farmers were outright panicked. Strange. An animal attack on the missing horse that spooked the other, but nobody saw anything that would alarm them?

  He headed back towards the inn, head on a swivel and eyes searching for a threat. Coincidences happened, but he didn't believe for a moment this was one.

  Time to get more intelligence. As the last through the entrance to the inn, he closed and barred the door behind him after he was through.