Free Farlander by Col Buchanan

hand across the stubble of his chin. ‘And what of you? What brings you to this condition?’
    Nico had no wish to get into the whole sorry affair. ‘My healer said it would be good for my lungs, so I come down here from time to time.’
    ‘Your father had wit, too,’ the voice replied without the merest hint of humour. ‘It was the one thing I liked about him.’
    There was an edge to his voice as he said this. Nico heard it, and waited for him to say more. The tobacco smoke curled about his face for a moment, the scent pleasant here in this foul place. It reminded him of nights sitting around a campfire in some park or empty building, with Lena and the others he had come to know while without home or shelter, Nico cracking jokes and watching the bottles of cheap wine and the tarweed roll-ups pass freely between them, their laughter raw, while the warm circle of light held at bay the hard day that was inevitably to come.
    ‘We didn’t see eye-to-eye on occasion,’ the man continued in his sour drawl. ‘He accused me once of cheating at rash. Though he couldn’t leave it be at that, of course. Had to go and catch me out in front of the whole squad. Cost me a lot of money, did your father. I got the man back, though.’
    A cough followed that might equally have been dry laughter.
    ‘To be honest with you I wasn’t hardly surprised when he lit out on us, and deserted like he did. The last time I saw those scared eyes of his, I knew what he was thinking. Clear as day I saw it.’
    Nico’s jaw clenched tight. His nostrils flared. He took a breath and said, coolly, ‘My father was no coward.’
    Again that cough. ‘I don’t mean anything by it. Everyone’s a coward when it comes down to it, save for the crazy ones. Some are just more scared than others, is all I’m saying.’
    Nico’s breathing was now loud enough to be heard above the snoring of the other men.
    ‘Easy now, it’s only talk, and talk’s not worth a damn. Here, have a draw.’
    Nico ignored the burning end of the cigarillo held before his face.
    He thought of his father instead: a tall, straight-backed figure in his memory, long-haired and kind of eyes, and his words softly spoken. The same man laughing wildly, with a pitcher of ale in his hand, while grabbing his mother by the waist to dance with her, or snatching up his jitar to pluck them some poorly composed song. A hike the two of them had made together in the lonely hills. A sunny Foolsday when he had taken Nico to some beach so that he himself could gaze out to sea while Nico played down by the shore line.
    Nico had been ten when his father enlisted with the Specials. The enemy was pushing harder than ever before, it was explained. Every day some new Mannian tunnel was encountered, or the Mannians themselves broke through into the underground works of the defenders. The Specials were taking heavy losses, and they needed volunteers.
    For a month at a time his father would go off to the city and fight beneath the walls of the Shield, then come home a slightly different man. With every return he seemed quieter, and less handsome in appearance.
    On one visit home he had lost a whole ear, so that only an orifice remained on that side of his head. Yet Reese still embraced him and whispered soft words in his damaged ear loud enough for Nico to overhear, telling his father how relieved she was to see him still alive. Another time, his father arrived at the door with a bandage wrapped all around his head. When he took it off some days later, it looked as though his remaining ear had been chewed by a dog. Over time his eyebrows faded to nothing. His long hair became stubble. Scars criss-crossed his scalp, face and lips. He began to hunch his once broad shoulders as though he was permanently cold.
    Nico’s mother would try to hide her horror at these changes in the man that she loved, but often some unguarded expression would betray her.
    When his father had finally returned for his first prolonged