“Just put your arm over my shoulder, grab onto my fur and hold on. I’ll get us out of here.”
Zoria did as he said.
“Tighter. My fur’s so thick you can’t do worse than pinch me a little.”
When she had a good grip, Balan eased into the stream. Merciful Maker! That water was cold! But Zoria didn’t have time to think about that for long, as Balan’s furry body began to undulate up and down, driving them forward faster than the current.
It took a moment to get used to the unusual movement and not feel like every surge was about to knock her loose and leave her floundering in the frigid water. But, once she did, Zoria began to revel in the sensation. If she did decide to change her avatar, could she choose something like this? And swim and play in the water with Balan?
A splash nearby interrupted those pleasant thoughts. What? That didn’t seem like the kind of splash a fish would make. She rolled slightly onto her side and turned her head at a second splash. Arrows! They were arrows. “Balan, they’re shooting at us.”
“I know. Hold on.” He undulated harder, speeding them even faster down the stream.
A roar sounded above them and something dark and very large swooped overhead. Zoria instinctively wanted to duck, though she had nowhere to go. Then she realized that a dark shape that size could be only one thing—Zoridan. She turned her head to try to follow his flight, feeling as if her heart was about to choke her.
It was hard to make him out against the dark sky. She could only track him by a blank spot among the stars until a gout of flame illuminated the archers at the top of the waterfall, near where her tent had stood. He hadn’t aimed directly for the archers—or he’d missed—but something behind them—probably her tent—was aflame now, showing up the darker figures at the cliff’s edge. The light also glinted off a dark dragon-shape hovering almost level with the ridge.
“Look out!” Zoria screamed in Far Speech.
Too late. In silhouette, she saw one of the figures raise his bow from pointing down slope to pointing at that dark shape—which was her brother. She only imagined she felt the shock of the arrow as it struck.
The wyvern screamed. Another gout of fire drove the archers back from the cliff. Then the wyvern whirled away, seeming to wobble as it flew, and dropped over the ridge on the far side of the waterfall.
“Zoridan was shot!” Zoria shouted. “We have to go back for him.”
“Can’t. Quetza will keep an eye on him.”
“Quetza’s here?”
“High up. She’s too visible at night. And Orleus is waiting for us below.”
What would have been a warm reassurance that they’d all come out to help her was drowned by her worry for her brother. How badly had he been hurt? Would the Exiles try to capture him in her place? And how would they rescue him? How would she live with herself if her panic had caused . . . No. She wouldn’t think about that. It couldn’t be true. Zoria clung harder to Balan’s surging body and wept into his already-wet fur.
She wasn’t aware they’d stopped until Balan heaved himself out of the water, shifting back to man-form, and threw his arms around her.
“Shh, shh. You’re safe,” he said.
“What about Zoridan, though?”
Someone stepped near. Two someones.
Orleus touched the gouges on Balan’s shoulder and the tooth marks in his ear. “What did that?”
“Mountain cat,” Balan answered.
Orleus nodded. “We’d better get them cleaned up, then. Mountain cat claws and teeth are bad for infections.”
Zoria looked up blearily to see Quetza looking down at her. The look of sympathy on the other woman’s face almost froze her heart. “Zoridan?”
Quetza shook her head. “He broke his neck in the fall. I’m sorry.”
Zoria buried her face in Balan’s uninjured shoulder again, gripping tightly against the feeling that the world was crumbling around her. “My fault. It’s all my fault.”
“No,” Balan said fiercely, tightening his arms around her, despite Orleus’s attempts to clean his wounds. “The only ones at fault are the ones who tried to hold you against your will, chase after you as if they had a right to supersede your free choice. And shot at what they knew was an avatar. They’re the murderers.”
Orleus and Quetza both nodded.
“And we still have to stop them,” Orleus said.
Chapter 34: Planning to Fight Magic
Vatar sat with Pa in the shade on one side of his parents’ hut, discussing strategies for the Council of Chiefs. That was complicated now, since Ramel and his friends had arrived late yesterday and started spreading his story. The Wolf Clan chiefs, at least, and probably some of the others would be harder to persuade now. And if Baraz chose not to back Vatar’s version, there might be no way to recover the situation.
Vatar looked up to see what Fenar and Zavar were up to and saw Baraz approaching. He let out a sigh. “Wonder what he wants.” He glanced toward where Theklan was pretending to do some leather work. “I hope it’s not bad news. I’m not sure Theklan could take any more of that right now.”
“Well, we certainly can’t afford to have the three of you sent away right now. We need all the help and advice you can give us,” Pa said. “If Baraz has decided to be difficult, I’ll have a word or two about that.” He clapped Vatar on the shoulder. “In any case, you’ve already proven yourself five years ago through your Ordeal. Even Baraz can’t accuse you of sorcery now. And, if it’s not sorcery when you do it, how can the same thing be sorcery when Theklan does it?”
Vatar shook his head. “Frightened people don’t always think that clearly. And just the thought of magic scares most Dardani more than a pride of hunting lions would.”
Baraz strode purposefully forward, but stopped abruptly when a black shape flew directly in front of him. The raven landed right by Savara’s knee where she sat playing with Jadar and his carved horses. Savara laughed and held out her hand. The bird obligingly hopped up onto her palm. Baraz looked thunderstruck.
Vatar chuckled. “I never expected that bird to turn out to be useful.”
Pa’s brows knit. “What?”
Vatar gestured with his chin. “Looks like Baraz has taken Savara’s pet raven as an omen.”
Pa cocked his head to one side. “Are you certain it’s not?”
Vatar opened his mouth to deny it, then shut it with a snap. How would he know? He shrugged. “If Baraz thinks so, who am I to argue? I’m certainly no shaman.”
Baraz approached Vatar and his stepfather more slowly, looking back over his shoulder at Savara and the raven frequently. “Your daughter seems quite . . . familiar with that bird.”
“She found it injured and . . . took care of it. The bird followed us here from Caere.” It was the truth, if not all of it. But Vatar didn’t trust Baraz with knowledge of Savara’s Healing Talent. Not yet, anyway. If it had been Trev . . . .
Baraz glanced back once more. “It is a sign. I was not certain, before, how to interpret the Spirits’ messages. After hearing Ramel’s account, I . . . had second thoughts. Now, I understand. You have been sent to protect us.”
Vatar bit the inside of his lip. He wanted to say he hadn’t been sent. But, then again, as Pa pointed out—how would he know? He should just be happy that Baraz was finally on their side. And with Baraz’s backing, persuading the Council of Chiefs suddenly looked less daunting.
~
Shortly after his return from the Council of Chiefs, Vatar sat sharpening his spear, more for something to do than because it needed it. It failed to stop his mind from circling around and around the unsolvable problems of fighting against magic while keeping his own magic—and Kiara’s—secret from the Dardani. Or, for that matter, fighting against many times their number of Exiles with similar magic.
Even with Baraz speaking for them, the chiefs had not accepted the idea of fighting magic with magic easily. The Wolf Clan chiefs tended to favor Ramel’s version over Vatar’s and the B
ear Clan chiefs were still divided in their opinion between the two. And, even with Baraz on his side, the Raven Clan chiefs wavered. They didn’t yet understand the kind of magic the Exiles would be using against them.
If the chiefs couldn’t agree wholeheartedly, what chance did they have with the rest of the Dardani? No one had even started preparing them, the ones who’d be doing the bulk of the fighting. And, if Vatar’s experience was any guide, some of them would be a lot harder to convince.
Arcas sat across from him, tracing the patterns in the woven grass mats with a finger, probably for the same reason. They kept their voices down because the children were all asleep—Zavar, Savara, and Jadar in a pile, like puppies, Taleara in Thekila’s lap.
Thekila stirred beside him, easing Taleara down into her basket. “Well, now that the chiefs are all—or mostly—convinced and starting to plan, I suppose we should be deciding what we’re going to do, too.”
Almost as if she could read his thoughts. Well . . . maybe she could, a little, through their bond. Vatar sighed. “We should probably wait until tomorrow, when Theklan can join in the planning. Because it seems likely it’ll only be the four of us. And Kiara’s less than half trained.” Against how many Exiles?
Thekila cocked her head to the side. “Orleus said he’d see that Teran rejoined us, here. And Sharila still might decide to come along.”
Vatar gave that the snort it deserved. Four or six—or even ten, if somehow Orleus, Quetza, Zoria, and Balan joined them, too—they were still far too few to accomplish . . . anything. “There still won’t be enough of us.”
“Then we’d better start concentrating on what we can do that they can’t—or what we can do better than they can. Or . . . maybe, how to minimize the effect of their magic on the Dardani. They can’t really do that much more than any other human, you know. Even distant manipulation has serious limits. It gets harder the farther you are from what you’re trying to move. And against objects that are too large or small or are already in motion.”
“Hmm.” Looked at that way, the task didn’t seem quite so insurmountable. “Maybe. I still don’t see what just the four of us—or six—can do against so many.”
“That’s because we haven’t thought it through, yet,” Thekila said.
“All right, what do you suggest?”
“Well, there’s your shield,” Thekila offered.
Vatar swallowed back a chill. While he was the only one who could cast it, that shield drew its power from Thekila, not him. Likely not an argument she’d accept, though. But . . . “I doubt I could cast a shield large enough to cover even the Lion Clan, let alone the whole tribe. Or keep it up through an entire battle” Without killing both of us, anyway. “Remember what happened the first time I used it. I nearly burned out my magic.”
“Hmm,” Thekila answered. “Possibly better to hold that for an emergency, then. There’s still your ability to strip shape changes. And Kiara’s.”
Vatar frowned. “A pretty slim thread to base the entire battle on.”
Thekila wrapped one flame-colored curl around a finger, then unwound it. “We don’t have to actually fight every one of the Exiles ourselves, you know. We just have to make it possible for the Dardani to fight them. What about the things our connection to the Spirits of the Eagle and the Lion make possible? Can we use those?”
Vatar thought about that. The news of Zoridan’s death made him sure of one thing, at least. “No one is flying over the Exiles. Orleus will let us know everything his scouts discover about their movements.”
Thekila ducked her head. “Yes. But . . . we still might be able to use the real eagles and look through their eyes. At least when the Exiles get closer.”
Vatar nodded slowly. That would be safe enough.
“What about catapults, like you used in Caere?” Arcas asked. “They could do a lot of damage to the Exiles and the Themyri before they ever got close enough to use their magic.”
Vatar rubbed his chin. “Maybe. We’d have to go to the Forest for the wood. Depends on how much time we have.”
Thekila frowned. “We might not want to do that. Or, at least, hold a catapult in reserve to use only against the Themyri. As a last resort. It might not be such a good idea to throw large rocks at people who are capable of throwing them back at you with their magic.”
Vatar turned to her. “The Exiles didn’t throw back the stones from our catapults in Caere.”
“We wouldn’t be able to get rocks of the same size, here. Very few Valson would have been able to use distant manipulation on boulders that size. And we wouldn’t have the advantage of being on top of a cliff, either. It’s a lot harder to stop—not to mention reverse—the momentum of a rock falling from that height. Besides, the Exiles were surprised by the catapults that first day. And they never had a chance to make a new plan. Now, they might be expecting it.”
“Isn’t there any way to fight these avatars directly?” Arcas asked.
Thekila cocked her head to the side. “Well, if one—or more—of them attempts to use a lion avatar, Vatar’s would be far more impressive. Theirs would still be bound by the usual rules that the shape change can’t be any larger—or smaller—than the person using it. Vatar’s is much more imposing.”
Vatar cocked his head in thought. “Any Exile using a lion avatar might enhance it, the way Teran does with his Forest tiger. They could make their lion look even bigger and more impressive than mine. Well . . . unless I did the same thing.”
Thekila’s eyes narrowed. “Except . . . no Exile would have already had a lion avatar. They can’t even have seen many lions, yet. So . . . their avatars might be flawed. And they certainly wouldn’t have had a chance to learn their avatars well. You spent some time practicing last winter.”
Vatar shrugged. “I can run and even jump well enough. I don’t know how much help that would be in a fight against another lion avatar. I’d have size and weight on my side. But . . . if I was as clumsy as I was the first time I tried to walk or run in that form . . . anything could happen.”
“But we have at least a little time for you to practice that, too,” Thekila pointed out.
“There’s no way I’m ready to even consider fighting a real lion.”
“No, not a real lion. But I did some of that practicing in lion form with you. It’s true, even with a little borrowed help from the Spirit of the Lion, my lion form is much smaller than a real lioness. But everything moves the same way. We could practice sparring, just like we used to when Orleus was teaching us to spar with staves. You don’t have to be good enough to beat a real male lion, only good enough to beat an Exile’s shape change into a lion. Which will probably be done badly and ill-practiced.”
“You and I never sparred against each other, even when Orleus was teaching us. I usually sparred with Arcas and you with Theklan. He was more your size, then,” Vatar objected. He sighed. “Still, it couldn’t hurt to practice a bit—as long as we don’t get carried away.”
Thekila grinned at him. “You’ll be larger and stronger, Vatar. But we proved last winter that I’m faster as a lioness than you are as a lion.”
“There is that.” Vatar’s grin turned to a scowl. “That might help the Lion Clan, but it won’t do much for the other five clans.”
Thekila sighed and stared at the far wall of the hut for a moment. “Not all the clans, I think.”
“Hmm?”
“I don’t think any of the Exiles will attempt to counterfeit the Spirits of the Eagle or the Raven. It’s much too hard—and takes too long—to learn to fly. Some of them might try mere projections of the birds, I suppose. But it wouldn’t be too hard to poke holes in that.”
Vatar’s expression grew thoughtful. “That still leaves the Spirits of the Horse, Bear, and Wolf.”
Thekila nodded. “Bear and Wolf, only, I think. Platan’s avatar is already a wolf, and Loran’s a bear. The wolf would be easiest, because the shape change would already be as large as or larger than any real wolf. But
horses would be another relatively unfamiliar animal to the Exiles. Harder to make a good shape change. And . . . I think the horses they know would seem too docile to them. I suspect Nertan and Wartan would tend to concentrate more on what they’d consider more . . . warlike animals.”
Vatar huffed. “Then they’ve never seen two stallions fight. Or a mare defending her foal.”
“No. That’s the point. They haven’t.”
Vatar cocked his head to the side, the corners of his mouth twitching up. “Plus, the horses we ride aren’t really the archetype of the Spirit of the Horse. The wild horses, like that little colt Theklan and his fellows brought in last summer, are.”
Thekila grinned. “So, even if they tried to, say, project horses, they’d get it wrong. Because I doubt they even know about the wild horses. Even if you spend a lot of time on the plains—which they haven’t, yet—the wild horses are almost impossible to spot unless you have someone who can point them out to you.”
Vatar returned her grin. “And the Horse Clan might be puzzled by such projections, but they certainly wouldn’t be fooled into thinking it was their totem Spirit.” He sighed. “So. We can protect four of the six clans—maybe. But that still leaves two of them vulnerable. Pity the Bear and Wolf Clans are the two most superstitious of all the clans. At worst, we could keep those clans to the back, I suppose.”
Thekila looked between Vatar and Arcas. “Well, I think we need to do something just to keep from winding ourselves up any tighter. If there’s any chance you’ll have to fight in lion form, we should practice. And we can’t do that here. I can also work on seeing through the eyes of the eagles while we’re at it.”
Vatar nodded. “I think that’s a good idea. But we can’t do that here.”
Chapter 35: The Black Lion
Kiara rode along at the back of the group of herdsmen—as far as she could get from Daron. He might be her cousin and one of Vatar’s oldest friends, but he was a long way from being her favorite leader. Anyway, it still beat sitting inside a hut working on those focusing exercises. She needed to get out into the air for a while. Especially since Vatar and Thekila had ridden off and left no one but Theklan to teach her. She wasn’t going to give up on her training, but she wasn’t going to spend all day with Theklan, either.
War of Magic (Dual Magics Book 4) Page 23