Evil for Evil by K. J. Parker

but he didn't seem able to make any sound. Very bad indeed.
    "Splint," someone said. He tried to remember what a splint was, but there were holes in his memory large enough for words to fall through. Anyway, whoever it was didn't seem to be talking to him. It hurt, though, and he clenched his hands to work out the pain.
    Oh, he thought. Maybe not so bad after all.
    "He's awake," someone said, and a face appeared above him; huge and round, like an ugly brick-red sun. Its eyes, round and watery blue, looked at him as if he was a thing rather than a human being; then the head lifted and looked away. "He'll keep," the voice said.
    He cleared his throat, but he couldn't think of the right words; he felt awkward, because this was a social situation his upbringing hadn't prepared him for. "Excuse me," he said.
    The eyes narrowed a little, as if seeing a man inside the body for the first time.
    "It's all right," the man said. "You'll be fine. You had a bash on the head, and your arm's busted. Nothing as won't mend."
    "Thanks," he replied. "Where is this?"
    The man hadn't heard him, or wasn't prepared to acknowledge his question.
    "You got a name, then?"
    Yes, but it's slipped my mind. "Gyges," he heard himself say. It took him a moment to realize he was telling the truth.
    "Gyges," the man repeated. "What unit were you with?"
    "Fourteenth Cavalry." Also true. Fancy me knowing that.
    "Rank." A different voice; someone talking over the man's shoulder. Oh well, he thought. "Lieutenant colonel," he said.
    The man's left eyebrow raised. "Well now," he said—he was talking to his friend, the man behind him. "Not so bad after all."
    "Excuse me," he said—that ridiculous phrase again, like a small boy in school asking permission to go to the toilet. "Who are you?"
    The man smiled. "Nobody important. Don't worry, we'll get you back to your people, soon as you're fit to be moved."
    That didn't make sense; they were Eremians, he was an officer in the Mezentine army, so surely he was a prisoner of war. "Thank you," he said, nevertheless. The man made a tiny effort at a laugh. "No bother," he said. "Lie still, get some rest."
    "What happened in the battle?" he asked, but the man had gone. Besides, he realized, he wasn't all that interested in the narrative. He knew the gist of it already. Lieutenant Colonel Phrastus Gyges, formerly of the Seventeenth Mercenary Division, currently on detached service with the Fourteenth Cavalry. He remembered it now—not clearly, not yet; it was like thinking what to say in a foreign language. But at least he had a name now, and a body to feel pain with, and possibly even a future; there was a remote chance that, sooner or later, he'd once again be the man whose name he'd just remembered, rather than an item of damaged stock in the back of a wagon. Well; he'd come a long way in a short time.
    They had apparently tied a thickish stick to his left forearm. Splint, he remembered; and the man had said his arm was broken. Also a bash on the head. The battle; and he'd taken his helmet off so as to be able to hear the reports of his subordinate officers. Bloody stupid thing to do. It occurred to him that this Lieutenant Colonel Gyges couldn't be all that bright.
    He lay back, and saw rafters. He was in a barn. For some reason, he felt absurdly cheerful; he was alive, no worse damage than a broken arm, and all he had to do was lie peacefully for a while until someone took him home. Meanwhile, he'd been granted leave of absence from his life. A holiday. Nothing wrong with being in a barn. He'd been in barns a lot when he was a kid. Better than work, that was for sure.
    More sleep. This time, he felt himself slide into it, like the crisp sheets on a newly made bed. When he woke up, there was a different face looking down at him. It was just as pink and ugly as the other faces, and it had a large, three-sides-of-a-square scar on the left cheek, just below the eye. A smile crinkled the scar's shiny red skin.
    "Hello," the