Betrayals

by Sharon Green

  "That's Alsin just ahead," Valiant said suddenly as the coach abruptly began to slow. "He's wavin', so he probably wants to talk to us."

  The prospect of finally getting down to it made my heart pound a bit faster, but with anticipation rather than fear. If I'd had to sit there thinking for much longer, I probably would have ended up screaming in frustrated insanity. As it was the coach slowed to a stop, and Alsin rode up on Rion and Valiant's side of the coach.

  "We have a problem," he announced without preamble, his face looking drawn as well as wet. "The guardsmen and drivers should be ready to nod off by now, but they're not. In fact they look more wide-awake than ever, as if they're expecting some sort of attack. If we go up against them now, there's no telling what will happen."

  "Yes there is," I said at once, before any of the others could comment. "If we go up against them now, we'll win the way we're supposed to. If we don't even try, I'll prob­ably be dead of old age before we do get around to it."

  "In other words, we're goin' ahead with it," Valiant said as Rion's expression told us he agreed with me. "We can't afford to wait for a time when they'll be less alert, because they may get to their destination before that happens. You do remember our discussin' the matter last night?''

  "Yes, I remember," Alsin conceded with a sigh. "I'm sure you're right, but I'd be happier if we at least waited until tonight. Will waiting another half day make that much of a difference?"

  "You tell us," Rion put frankly, gazing calmly at Alsin.

  "Can you guarantee that they won't reach their destination before tonight? If so, I'm sure we'll agree to wait. If not..."

  "All right, you've made your point," Alsin grumbled, now looking even more unhappy than he had. "The attack goes ahead as planned, even if it isn't the best of times. The coach can take you a little closer to where the convoy has pulled off the road, but after that you'll have to walk."

  He turned his horse around and moved toward the front of the coach, and we could hear him saying something to our driver. After that we began to move again, and the four of us inside the coach exchanged glances. We really were about to do it, and once started there would be no turning back.

  After about another half mile, the coach pulled to a stop again. Alsin was right there, and he dismounted as we all got out. I'd spoken quietly to Rion, so what we got out into was the pouring rain. Rion might need every bit of his strength for the coming confrontation, so wasting it on shielding us from the rain could end up being fatal instead of just silly. It would hardly kill us to get wet, not when we'd have no trouble drying off again—if we won.

  Alsin tied his horse to the coach, then he led off into the woods. Just a short distance up the road it was possible to see the disturbance of the mud where a large number of wagons had turned off, so we followed silently into the trees. Letting them know we were there would have been stupid—assuming they didn't already know. If I'd put peo­ple out on guard, they would have been people with the ability to know what the approach of other human beings felt or looked like. Naran had made no effort to go along with us, not when we might be needing to defend ourselves in just a few short minutes. Having someone else to protect in addition to ourselves could mean the difference between victory and defeat.

  It had been raining too long for it to be any drier under the trees. The grass under my feet kept trying to sink my shoes into the mud beneath, the bushes showered my clothes with water as I passed, and the leaves overhead dripped, dripped, dripped. It was the most exciting and enlivening time I'd ever had, which means I really had to work hard to control my excitement. I needed to be calm and in pos­session of myself....

  And then it came to me that I might be able to help us get closer without the sentries noticing us. In this weather the best sentries would have Fire magic as well as Earth magic, but there was nothing I could do about those with Earth magic. Fire magic, though, was another story....

  "Hold up a minute," I whispered to Alsin, causing him to pause in the cautious way he'd been advancing. We'd just passed Grath's horse, tied to a tree, so the convoy couldn't be all that far ahead. "Just how close are we now?"

  "We're almost there," he answered in a return whisper, his face creased into a frown. "If you'll just be patient—"

  "No, no, I'm not being impatient," I interrupted, wiping my face with one hand. "If we're almost close enough to be detected, I think I can arrange a distraction."

  "Then go to it," he said, losing the frown. "We're al­most close enough to step on them."

  I nodded to acknowledge that, then took a better grip on the power before sending out my ability. What I now used was the fingers of my talent, trying to touch with them what I couldn't yet see. I didn't know if it would work, but it couldn't really hurt to try... especially if I... diffused the strength I used, making it hard to tell from which direction it came....

  All these new ideas were something I wanted to think about, but right now there wasn't time. My searching fingers of talent had found something, and it took no more than a moment to understand what. There were a large number of sources of heat, the stronger sources undoubtedly horses. The lesser ones had to be the guardsmen and drivers, and the least were surely the captives. There was also a pattern of sorts to their placement, especially the one lesser source of heat closest to us. That must be Grath, watching them while Alsin brought us back.

  There were other individual sources of heat ranged around the area where all the others were, and those must be the sentries. I could tell just where they were, so I picked two places, one on each of the far sides of the camp, and heated patches of air in those places. The patches ought to be ob­vious to anyone with Fire magic, even Low talents, and also ought to distract those talents from our approach.

  "All right, let's continue on now," I whispered once it was done. "And since the distraction won't be good for more than a few minutes, let's hurry."

  "What did you do?" Alsin asked, his expression more than curious. "I think I hear some shouting ... No, never mind. You can tell me later, once this is behind us."

  He turned and hurried on then, and in another moment we reached Grath where he stood and watched the camp. The scout turned to look at us, his expression almost a match to the one Alsin had worn.

  "Is one of you responsible for that minor riot?" he asked, gesturing toward the camp we could just see through the trees. "They were alert but quiet a minute ago, and now they're all running around because someone shouted an alarm."

  "Yes, Dama Domon supplied a distraction," Alsin an­swered softly with his own distraction in his voice. "If none of them are coming our way, this may be the best time to do whatever it is you three mean to do."

  "None of them are coming this way," I confirmed, able to tell that easily. "The only problem is, three of the wagons have people in them who aren't captives. And now that I'm really looking, I can see that the captives' body temperatures aren't as low as sleeping peoples' should be. Some of the captives are apparently coming out of it more rapidly than others, but they all seem to be coming out of it."

  "We should have thought of that," Valiant said, speaking primarily to Alsin. "By takin' them off the sedative and lettin' them come awake, we've brought attention to them. Those who give them the sedatives have to have noticed, and that may be why they aren't fallin' asleep. Their victims aren't being good, docile captives, and they're worried."

  "Then we'd better get to it," Rion said, straightening where he stood. "Tamrissa, can you direct me to the wagons which have other than captives in them?"

  "Good idea," I said, knowing immediately what he meant. "If you put those guardsmen out first, we won't have to worry about what they're doing when we go after their friends. The wagons they're in are the third, seventh, and ninth ones, counting from the first in line."

  Rion nodded and looked toward the wagons, and three minutes later the sources of body heat that had to mean guardsmen were horizontal instead of vertical. All three of them had gone down together, whi
ch means I was im­pressed.

  "All right, it's done," Rion said once the bodies had been down for an additional minute. "Please keep a watch on them if you can, Tamrissa, to see if they come awake again too quickly. If they do and we haven't won yet, I'll have to put them down a second time. What do we do next?"

  "Next it's my turn," Valiant said, also drawing himself up. "If Tamrissa will guard the wagons against anyone doin' anythin' foolish with the last of their strength, we'll see if it works."

  Alsin and Grath exchanged a glance filled with nervous curiosity, but neither of them asked Valiant what he meant. And Valiant was too absorbed in gazing toward the wagons to notice them. We could now see quite a number of men in uniforms—and men in ordinary clothes—running about around the wagons, mostly shouting and pointing in the di­rection of my distraction. I watched those men, some of them having begun to look in other directions as well—and then many of them began to stagger! It was as if something had hit all of them at the same time, as if they were puppets and someone had begun to cut their strings.

  Most of the men in view sat or fell to the ground, and so did the heat sources I was still able to detect on the far side of the camp. Valiant was putting the lethe directly into them, into their blood, probably, and the idea of that was rather startling. It's one thing to put a liquid into a small jar, quite another to put it into the tiny channels which carry our blood around our bodies. But he seemed to be doing it, and the guardsmen and drivers were responding by falling over.

  But not all of them. When I found myself moving toward the line of wagons Rion and Valiant were right with me, and Valiant still wore that look of concentration. Probably because some of the men were still fighting to stay on their feet, struggling to keep awake despite the sedative being put into them. They were the only ones still between us and our Blendingmates so we didn't let their stubbornness keep us away, but we did watch them.

  And that turned out to be a very wise decision. I suppose there are always people around who don't react to things the way everyone else does, and three of those guardsmen refused to fall over. They were big men, taller and huskier than those around them, and when they saw us coming to­ward them they drew long, ugly-looking knives, and one led the other two in attacking us.

  If you've ever been attacked by screaming, wild-looking men coming toward you at a shambling run, you may be able to understand how I felt. That sort of thing has to be terrifying even if you're used to it, although I can't imagine how anyone might get used to it. The part of me not touch­ing the power wanted to scream and run in the other direc­tion, away from the madmen who were clearly ready to end my life.

  But the part of me which did touch the power reacted differently to that sort of thing. One of the three came di­rectly toward me, and he was the one given full attention. I stopped to regard him calmly while he came near enough to slash down at me with that long knife, and then—and then his knife moved through a flash of flame so intense that most of the blade vaporized as it passed through. Lack of balance caused him to stumble when the downward arc of his swing found him left with little more than a hilt, and he stood gawking stupidly between me and what was left of his weapon.

  Rion stood to my left, and out of the corner of my eyes I'd been able to see that the man who swung his knife at him had also not reached his target. The knife came to a jarring stop in front of and above Rion's head, probably because of a shield of hardened air. Fear paled the man's face, just as it did with the man in front of Valiant, who stood to my right. That time it was a thick layer of ice which stopped the knife, and all three men were clearly shaken. Then they were choking and falling to their knees, which obviously meant that Rion had taken away their air. They might have resisted the sedative, but lack of air to breathe can't be resisted.

  As soon as the three stopped moving, Rion, Valiant, and I continued toward the wagons with Alsin and Grath trailing along behind. I'd expected to have to look through all of them, but now that Rion and Valiant stood so close to me, something about the sixth and ninth wagons seemed to draw me. And I wasn't the only one who felt that, as Valiant gestured toward the ninth wagon.

  "Let's start with that one," he suggested, staring at it in the same way I did. "I have this feelin'..."

  "And so do I," Rion agreed after glancing at me. "It seems to be drawing me in some way, and I'd say that Tamrissa also feels it. Are either of you getting anything from that wagon three places ahead?''

  "You mean the sixth wagon," I said as Valiant simply nodded. "Yes, it's just the same. But this one is closer, so let's start here."

  "Wait just a minute," Alsin called from behind us as we began to move again. "What about the rest of the guards­men and drivers? I don't see more than half of them scat­tered around on the ground here."

  "The rest are scattered around on the ground beyond the wagons," I replied, smiling over my shoulder in order to soothe his nervousness. "Aren't you close enough to them to tell?"

  "Only just barely," he said after a second's worth of hesitation, his brow wrinkled with effort. "And yes, you're right, they are all out of it. If you three are starting with the ninth wagon, Grath and I will start with the tenth."

  "Good idea," Valiant told him, an odd ... reserve of sorts in his voice. "Just keep half a talented eye open in case some of these guardsmen start comin' around too soon. If you find one that does, just give us a shout."

  Alsin nodded, and he and a disturbed-looking Grath headed for the wagon behind the one we had the most in­terest in....

  Twenty-four

  Rion helped Tamrissa into the wagon, then followed with Valiant close behind. It was dim inside the wagon with the canvas closed tight all around, but Tamrissa took care of that by creating a ball of brightness which she hung in the air above them. That let them look around, to see the six pallets on which six people lay, the pallets arranged three to each side of the wagon. The people, men and women both, were moving in discomfort, as though they were get­ting ready to awaken. In the middle of the wagon a guards­man lay slumped in unconsciousness, one of those Rion had put down earlier. And at the front of the wagon, moving even more than the others, was—

  "Jovvi!" Tamrissa cried, stepping quickly over the un­conscious guardsman to rush to their sister's side. She knelt and raised Jovvi with an arm around her shoulders, then smoothed the tangle of her once-beautiful hair. "Jovvi, it's Tamrissa. Can you hear me? Can you wake up all the way?''

  "Tam-ma..." The word was slurred and garbled and very soft, but Jovvi was actually trying to speak! "Too... much ... floating . .. Help .. . wake up ..."

  "I think she means she needs help to wake up," Tamrissa said, looking up at them with distress. "We can't do any­thing to help, but maybe Alsin can. Rion, please go and call him in here."

  "I don't think that will do it," Valiant said, putting a hand to Rion's arm to keep him from leaving. "Now that I've got the feel of that sedative, I can tell it's in Jovvi's

  blood—but it's too spread out for me to remove it. Meerk's just a Middle, so it's probably beyond him to remove it as well. We'll just have to wait until the lethe is washed out of their systems by their own bodies."

  "Lorand could probably filter it out, but Alsin's not Lor­and," Rion was forced to agree when Tamrissa looked as though she might argue with what Valiant had said. "Most likely they'll all have to come out of it on their own, which might actually be for the best. We should prepare for their awakening, and do something permanent about the guards­men and drivers."

  "And while we're at it, let's get Lorand and put him in here with Jovvi," Valiant said with a nod. "That way Tam­rissa can be guardin' the two of them together while we take care of the ones who kept them like this."

  Tamrissa's nod showed she'd changed her mind about arguing, and she went back to paying attention to Jovvi while Rion and Valiant gave their own attention to the un­conscious guardsman. The two of them carried the man out of the wagon and put him on the ground near his compan­ions, then Rion
followed Valiant to the sixth wagon. They climbed inside and peered through the dimness, and sure enough, the middle pallet on the left-hand side held Lor­and's feebly struggling body. Once they found him, Valiant went to one knee beside the pallet.

  "It's Valiant and Rion, Lorand," Valiant said slowly and clearly, a hand on their brother's shoulder. "You keep tryin' to wake up, but don't worry about what's happenin'. They had you for a while, but we've got you back now."

  "Val-nt," Lorand croaked, obviously trying to open his eyes. "Where .. ,'m I?"

  "Right now you're in a wagon," Valiant answered, "but in a few minutes you'll be in a different wagon. I'm goin' to carry you to where Jovvi and Tamrissa are, and Tamrissa will keep you both company until you wake up. You won't be worryin', will you?"

  "No ... won't... worry," Lorand mumbled, his agita­tion eased quite a bit. "Need ... t'wake ... up."

  "That's right, you concentrate on wakin' up," Valiant agreed, then looked up at Rion. "I'll pick him up, then you ought to take that pallet so we'll have somethin' to put him on in the other wagon. But I'll need help gettin' him out of here without droppin' him."

  "Helping is my specialty," Rion answered with a smile. "I'll climb out with the pallet, and then I'll take half his weight. That ought to let you get out easily enough."

  Valiant nodded his agreement, then reached down to pick up Lorand. Rion used his ability to help with that, too, as Lorand was far from being a small man. After that it was simply a matter of taking the pallet out and giving the same kind of help with Lorand a second time, which let Valiant just slide out of the wagon. Then they carried their burdens back to the wagon Jovvi was in, and in another few mo­ments Lorand was settled right beside Jovvi.

  "You two and Alsin and Grath had better get on with doing something about those guardsmen," Tamrissa said once she had settled herself between their groupmates. "Some of them are beginning to stir, especially the ones you put out first, Rion."