They stood on the outskirts of the settlement, a small collection of tents congregated around a well in the wilderness of western Serbia. As it did before every assignment, Tacit’s heart beat hard within his chest. There too was the sickness in his stomach, the trepidation he always felt. But today he felt something more, something approaching repugnance, a shame at what he was about to do.
A cold breeze whipped up around them, shaking the walls of grey white tents and guy ropes of the nomadic settlers away in the distance. The Serbian town of Loznica lay just behind them. Within an hour, the settlement on the town’s doorstep would be razed.
“Remember, they aren’t like us,” growled Tocco, checking his revolver and then feeling the weight of his studded mace in his left hand. “They’re not normal people. They’re heretics. They drive our faith and our God from these lands. They wish to see their Orthodox ways flourish. They trample our good Catholic name into the dirt. They call our Pope false. We need to send them a message. No mercy. No mercy for the heretics.”
Tocco swung his arm and stretched his neck to loosen the tightening muscles. He looked over the young man next to him, armed similarly with a mace and revolver. “Forget what they might appear to be. Remember your past,” he muttered darkly. “Don’t forget what they did to you.”
“I don’t like you reminding me,” retorted Tacit sharply, letting the weapons drop momentarily to his side. “I don’t need to hear. Every time, every time we face an enemy, you remind me. I don’t need to be reminded.” There were tears in Tacit’s eyes. He closed them and immediately he was there in the room, engulfed by the screaming, the men, the stench of their sweat, the wickedness of their laughter. The blood. The blood.
He trembled and his chest heaved.
“It’s your past, Tacit,” Tocco hissed, thumping his fist into Tacit’s shoulder and holding it there. “You can’t get away from it. It’s with you. It’s in you. You lived with it. Now live with it. Feed off its anger!”
A group of settlers from the camp had stepped out nervously to greet them. Tocco raised his pistol and without warning blew the top off the head of the tallest of the men. They squealed and instantly picked up sticks and rocks to defend themselves. A man with a dirty moustache ran up with a branch raised screaming.
Tacit thought of his mother.
The rest was easy.