The two wounded guerrillas climbed out of a truck at Malisheve's market, their injuries having already been bandaged near where they were shot yesterday morning.
They were the first casualties to return yesterday to the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) stronghold high in the hills of south-west Kosovo. Serbian forces have not come up here to Malisheve since last March. The gunfights happen lower down the hills, when one side spots the other and begins shooting from a distance.
Yesterday's shooting began at 9 a.m. and continued well into the afternoon. On mountain roads several kilometres away amid vineyards, planted fields and pretty red-roofed villages in bright sunshine, the smell of gunfire carried on the breeze.
Each of the injured men had his arm heavily bandaged and in a sling, with one having a white bandage wrapped around his head. Market stall-holders, women out shopping and old men just hanging around stopped to watch the two men in combat fatigues walk by.
They smiled at the onlookers as if to say they were all right, before retiring indoors for further treatment.
Carloads of men with rifles took off from the town at regular intervals for the scene of the fighting.
Fighting took place in other parts of Kosovo yesterday as well.
The Serbian government's information centre in Pristina reported several gunfights, but there was no information on casualties.
Malisheve provides evidence that the KLA has made progress in the last few months. Its uniformed soldiers walk up and down the streets; the atmosphere is relaxed and people say more and more recruits are joining the organisation.
KLA supporters now claim their pro-independence guerrilla army controls up to a third of Kosovo's territory.
The KLA is seeking independence from Serbia, whose province it is. Some 90 per cent of Kosovo's population is ethnic Albanian, the rest being ethnic Serbs. Yet Albanian culture is repressed and Serbs hold most key posts.
Not so in Malisheve. Shop signs are in Albanian only, not in Serbian. The Serbian language is not spoken. We sat at a pavement cafeteria with an Albanian man in his late 40s watching the wounded arrive, and he had no doubt what would happen.
"If it's one Albanian against 100 Serbs we will win, because we have morality on our side," he said.
Two weeks ago the KLA men wore masks and hid in bushes. Yesterday they were unmasked and visible all along the mountain roads. Their first presence began just two kilometres from the last Serbian checkpoint. They sat behind sandbagged checkpoints, watched from the hills through binoculars and patrolled the area in saloon cars.
"We may not yet have all the equipment we need, but we have the strength inside to win," said the man at the cafeteria as he continued to smoke and drink his beer. He was not in the KLA himself, he said, but he felt as if he was.
Leaving the final Serbian checkpoint before heading into the mountains, a policeman said: "Be careful up there. It is full of terrorists shooting at cars." Leaving the final KLA checkpoint on the way down again a soldier said: "Be careful. You are dealing with idiots over there on the Serb side." Neither warning was accurate.