Betrayals (54 page)

The next instant Jovvi shook her head at herself, annoyed at having asked so foolish a question. Tamma was what was wrong between Valiant and Alsin, that and the fact that they were both natural leaders. They’d worked together well enough until now, but whatever had gotten Tamma so upset must be at the root of this new hostility. Jovvi decided that she’d have to speak to Lorand and Rion. Possibly the three of them working together could find a solution to the difficulty. …

But that would have to wait until later. A disappointed Lorand was walking back toward them, so in another moment they would be able to Blend. Jovvi looked around while she waited, trying to decide whether to hope they could stay there for a while, or hope that they couldn’t. There was a… heavy, invisible cloud hovering over that entire area, a cloud composed of agony and terror, desolation and despair. And Jovvi wasn’t the only one who felt it, she knew. Everyone seemed unhappy there, or at the very least uncomfortable.

And then Lorand joined them, so Jovvi was able to initiate the Blending. The entity formed as quickly as usual, looked about at the flesh forms it had visited earlier, then began to change its focus to find the enemy they had spoken about. It began to, then something else, in the opposite direction, took its attention. Those enemy flesh forms who had been following …

Intent became action, and the entity floated quickly in the direction its own flesh forms had come from. That morning it had found the enemy a shade closer than they’d been until now, but not close enough to cause worry. This time, however, no more than hours later, the distance between them had closed drastically. It would be only a short while before that particular group of enemies reached them, a disturbing revelation even for the entity.

It flashed back to where its flesh forms waited, then took a quick look in the direction it was to have investigated. Although a large number of beings could be detected in that direction, they were in no wise as close as the first group. That, then, would have to be made the first priority….

“Those miserable sons of chaos,” Valiant growled as soon as Jovvi dissolved the Blending. “They must have realized we were checkin’ on them only in the mornin’ and at night, so they waited until after our mornin’ check and then galloped flat out in an effort to catch up before we noticed. And since we’ve been takin’ our time, they can’t be more than a couple of hours away.”

“This must be what all those remounts were for,” Lorand put in, sounding just as angry. “They disguised the two extra horses each guardsman led as pack animals, but they’re really remounts. They ran the first set of horses into the ground, and now they’re on the second. When these are done, and they’re almost to that point now, they’ll mount the third and just keep coming.”

“But now we have the means to defeat them,” Rion pointed out, gesturing to the people they’d freed. “If our new friends are willing to cooperate, we should have no trouble overcoming those louts.”

“Are we to understand that the guardsman detachment is almost on top of us?” Alsin interrupted to ask, looking around at everyone but Valiant. “I thought you people were keeping an eye on them.”

“They obviously have a better strategist than we do, so the eye did no good,” Valiant replied, almost in passing. “But that’s beside the point. Right now we have to find out how many of these new people are willin’ to fight on our side. We can compel them of course, but I don’t believe we should.”

“No, of course not,” Jovvi began, but Alsin’s increased anger forced him to interrupt.

“What do you mean, ask these others?” he demanded. “If you can compel them to fight, that’s what you have to do. We don’t have the chance of a water drop on a hot skillet without them, and for some reason I’m not in the mood to die. Tell me how close that detachment is, and I’ll start to make immediate deployment plans.”

“Alsin, calm down,” Lorand said, overriding the angry response Valiant would have made. “None of us wants to die, but forcing people into fighting for and with us is wrong. We all know you believe the same, and probably more strongly than we do, but right now you’re upset. Take a couple of minutes to pull yourself together, then we’ll talk about this again.”

Jovvi felt Alsin’s urge to snap out a refusal and disavowal of what Lorand had said, but since she already touched the man with her talent, that didn’t matter. He calmed at once, of course, having no idea that he’d been soothed by her, but the intrusion had been necessary. If there was a worse time to fight among themselves, it could only be when the enemy was actually in sight.

“Let’s start asking around,” Tamma suggested when Alsin calmly turned away to sit down alone a short distance off. Jovvi knew that the others all realized what she’d done, and only Valiant was faintly disappointed. All the others were more relieved, and they really did have very little time.

They went in separate directions and spread the word, and it took a while but the wait and effort were worth it. Some of the link-groups weren’t happy about it, but all of them agreed to fight against the coming guardsmen. Their hatred and resentment of empire authority was intense, representing as it did the instrument by which their lives had been ruined. In contrast to the bold wine red and white uniforms worn by the officers and prods, the “segments” were dressed in clothing that was little more than rags. Most of them were also gaunt from not having been fed very well, and some of them were even in pain from the “discipline” given by the prods. But all of them were willing to give the five and their companions all the help they needed.

“I’m glad I asked Lidris to make a big meal from the army supplies before we began to talk to those people,” Lorand said to Jovvi after they’d finished speaking to their new allies. “They need a solid meal desperately, and now it’s just about ready. And our Earth magic people have volunteered to do some healing for those who need it. By the time all that is done those guardsmen will be here, but then our forces will be in better shape to face them.”

“In better shape physically,” Jovvi corrected with a sigh. “Their minds are terribly hurt, Lorand, and I’m not sure they’ll ever be able to get over this horrible experience. But they are ready to fight with us, and at the moment that’s what counts. Later we’ll have to try to help them forget, but for now…”

“For now we none of us have a choice,” Lorand agreed as he touched her face gently and with love. “But I meant to ask you: what’s going on between Valiant and Alsin? If you and I hadn’t interfered, I think they would have been at each other’s throats.”

“They seem to have two disagreements,” Jovvi responded, glancing around to see that the former captives were already lining up for their meal. “One is Tamma and the other is leadership, and we’re going to have to keep them apart until we have the time to sit them both down for a talking-to. We’ll also have to tell Rion about what’s happening, since I’m certain we’ll end up needing his help.”

Lorand nodded, then he led Jovvi over to join the very long lines of those waiting for food. They’d already had their lunch, but with fighting so close on the horizon for them, another meal would do more good than harm.

No one took their time eating, which turned out to be a very good thing. Jovvi and Lorand were able to speak to Rion and Naran and to finish their own meal, and then the link-group acting as sentries alerted them. The guardsmen were only a few minutes away, and they seemed to have already linked up. And it also seemed that they had no intention of stopping and dismounting. Their unslacking rate of speed suggested they meant to gallop into and through the camp, trampling anything and everything unfortunate enough to be in their path.

“So what do we do?” Tamma asked after hurrying over to where Jovvi and Lorand and Rion and Naran now stood.

“If we Blend, our bodies could be trampled. If we don’t, our forces will have to do without our entity’s strength. There has to be another choice!”

Jovvi shared the frustration filling Tamma and the others, but an answer to the question refused to come—until Naran spoke hesitantly.

“Excuse me, but I have a silly question,” she ventured. “If I’m bothering you when I shouldn’t I apologize, but I was just wondering…”

“Wondering what, love?” Rion asked gently when her voice trailed off. “As you’re certainly one of us, no intrusion can be possible. Tell us what has occurred to you.”

“All right, if you’re sure,” Naran agreed, bolstered not only by Rion but by the nods of everyone else. “I just wondered why you needed other people to protect your bodies while you were Blended. Couldn’t your—entity—station itself in front of you, and use its strength from there? But you’re always talking about how it goes places, so maybe that isn’t possible.”

Jovvi exchanged silent stares with her groupmates, feeling just as stupid as they now did. Of course their bodies could be trampled if they Blended, but not with their entity standing—or floating—right in front of them. Their protective link-groups might be run down just as easily, but if anything got past their Blending entity, the fight would be completely lost anyway.

“Naran, the next time we forget to consult you about a problem we have, please do us the favor of kicking us hard,” Tamma said after a moment. “We’ve gotten so used to sending our entity places, we forgot that we don’t have to. We certainly can stand it in front of us, since that’s what we did only a short while ago, so that’s what we’ll do again now.”

Naran was extremely pleased by Tamma’s comment, but not nearly as pleased as Jovvi and the others to have their dilemma solved. They also took a moment to speak to Pagin Holter and his group, who were eager to get more experience with their own Blending entity. The two Blendings would be stationed on either side of the rest of the fighting group, hopefully doing their best to save their peoples’ lives.

And they had just enough time to set themselves before the riders came storming through the camp. Everyone was ready and properly linked, not to mention expecting the terror tactics the guardsmen had hoped to rout them with. The element of surprise was turned in the other direction, especially when shallow trenches opened in the earth in front of the leading line of horsemen. The horses stumbled and many of the riders were pitched off, and then the following riders blasted into them before it was possible to slow or stop. Link-group battles were already taking place, and the murdered landscape all around echoed to a renewal of what had killed it in the first place.

The entity hovered in front of its flesh forms, fully determined to keep all harm from them. Some of the enemy jumped their horses over the tangle of men and beasts and continued to come on at top speed, but little good it did them. The men disappeared in a flare of intense brightness, and the now riderless horses were easily turned aside. After the initial attack, most of the enemy concentrated its efforts in the entity’s direction, but again to no avail. The entity’s allies struck hard again and again, and soon there were very few left of the two hundred men who had attacked.

Then there were none left, none but the trembling officers who were their captives, some of whom had tried to attack at the same time as the guardsmen. That particular treachery had been expected, and those who tried found that they weren’t killed out of hand as the guardsmen were. They were struck unconscious instead, so that their punishment could be decided on and meted out at leisure by those they’d wronged. Death would be too merciful, their former captives had decided, and the entity’s flesh forms would make no effort to disagree.

With all enemies in sight either down or gone, the entity made a quick check to see if any of them had refrained from joining the attack in order to fall upon them later, when they considered the battle over and won. But that hadn’t been done, which meant the danger was completely over. The entity sent a greeting to its brother Isister entity on the opposite side of camp, received an answering greeting, and then Jovvi had dissolved the Blending.

Some of their own people had been hurt a bit during the fight, people who had started out too badly starved or beaten to begin with. Jovvi took a link-group of Spirit magic users to help Lorand and his own link-group of Earth magic users, and they began to soothe and heal their wounded. Happily there weren’t that many of them, and they had just finished up when a rider came galloping into camp from the opposite direction from which the guardsmen had attacked.

The man wore a uniform with small collar tabs and looked as sweaty and foam-covered as his horse, and he didn’t seem to notice the remains of the battle so recently over. That no link-group had stopped him meant they knew—or suspected—how terrified the man was, and realized they all needed to know what had frightened him. As he pulled his horse to a dirt-scattering stop near the former officers and leaders of the section and half fell to the ground, Jovvi and the others moved closer to hear what he would say.

“Lord General… forgive me for … taking so long,” the man panted out, trying to speak and gasp for breath at the same time. “You must… gather your forces and … leave here at once, or … the section will surely … be overrun. All the rest of… our army in … their path has been … destroyed. They’re so strong … and there are so … many of them …”

“How many?” Valiant asked, and the newcomer’s head snapped around to stare at him. “Don’t talk to the leech, man, talk to me. The leech won’t be runnin’ this section again, not in this lifetime. Tell me who’s comin’, how many there are of them, and about how strong you think they are.”

“ The… the ones coming are the army Astinda put together to resist us,” the man replied haltingly, uncertain about speaking to a stranger but needing to get his warning delivered. “I’ve never felt such strength or seen such utter destruction, and they’re coming so fast… I saw one section try to surrender, but they didn’t even answer. They just destroyed them, and continued to come on…”

“You still haven’t given us the most important answers, boy,” Alsin growled as he stepped forward. “How many of them are there, and how soon do you expect them to be here?”

“I’m not a boy!” the young man flared, then he shook his head once, dismissingly. “As if that matters. There are ten times the number of them than you, and they’re no more than a day’s march away. One of their day’s march, which seems to cover more ground than our own. I think they’re headed for the border, and I don’t think they mean to stop when they reach it.”