Lorellan stood up and snapped his fingers to make his inKera slaves look at him. “Bring him,” he ordered them, gesturing to make his meaning clear because they did not speak darau. He said to his own people, “Get the four women with the youngest children and bring them to the gate. Bring the lord of the inKera as well.”
I could hardly believe he would do what he implied, but I did not resist as the warriors pulled me to my feet and took me out of the tent. I had to take very small steps because of the hobbles, until Lorellan gestured impatiently. They lifted me then, and carried me along the rows of tents until we came to the gate. Four Ugaro women were led up, each carrying a child—one woman held two, a baby and also a toddler on her hip. They walked with their heads high and their shoulders straight, pretending they were not surrounded by enemies. They did not look at the Lau soldiers who surrounded them, nor at Lorellan, nor even at Soro inKera when he was brought from another direction. He did not fight the soldiers who brought him. He looked at the women and then at me, his lined face expressionless. I had seen before how his back was a little stooped, but that was not so now. He stood straight. I knew he would not flinch from anything.
“Open the gate,” Lorellan told his people. “Put the women out. Ryo, you see I’m letting them go. Once they’re outside the gate, I’ll give you five minutes to calm yourself enough for me to get through that shield. If you can’t or won’t, I’ll have the inKera lord killed. If that doesn’t work, I’ll try something else. You’ll probably like that even less. There they go. Breathe. Five minutes.”
I watched the women walk away, into the dark and the falling snow. They did not run. The one with two children would not be able to run, and the other three kept her pace rather than leave her. They were very brave. I thought of that, their courage and pride. Very soon they were lost even to my sight. After that I watched the falling snow and tried to settle my heart into the peace of the clean cold. I did not care about Soro inKera, but I did not want to see Lorellan kill him. And I did not want to know what else Lorellan might do, to his other captives or to me. I breathed deeply and slowly.
“Better,” Lorellan said. “I admit, this was not a bad suggestion. Captive infants are nothing but trouble anyway.” He was silent for some time. From the way he looked at me, I knew he was looking into my mind, trying to find a way past the protections Aras had set upon me. Eventually, he said, “Think about your last conversation with Aras. You remember it now, don’t you?”
I did. I could no longer remember what false memories Aras had put over the truth; it was as though the lies had shredded and blown away on the cold wind that carried the snow. I knew I should not have permitted Lorellan to make me help him see the truth. I should have let him kill Soro; I should have used that to strengthen the fear and anger that Aras had made into a protection for my mind. But it was too late. I remembered that whole conversation perfectly.
Lorellan cursed. He cursed for a long time, and then he laughed. “Now, that’s ruthless,” he said. “And you agreed to it. That’s remarkable. You barbarians don’t lack courage. It’s one of your few virtues.” He turned to one of his people, “We’ll go south at dawn. We can expect some trouble from the Ugaro out there. We’ll handle that as we’ve discussed ... with certain complications, granted; I didn’t expect to face a real enemy yet.” He glanced at me and then added, “Put him with the others. Where’s Ircaras? Never mind, I know where he is.” He walked away, to all appearances forgetting me completely.
They took me to where the warriors were held and bound me there as the warriors were bound. They bound Soro inKera to the stake next to mine and left us. I turned my face away from him and rested my cheek against the smooth wood, closing my eyes. Now that I had failed, I felt less afraid, but I was very tired.
“What was that?” Soro asked me. His voice was level and cool. “What will happen now?”
I would have ignored him, except I remembered how he had stayed on his feet when even his brother Hokino had been forced to his knees. I did not want to look at him, but I answered without turning my head, “He wanted to see the truth in my mind. He saw it. I should have let him kill you. That would have made me too angry for him to see the truth. I should have thrown defiance in his face so that he would punish me for it; that would have made me too afraid for him to see the truth. Instead, I let him persuade me toward calm, and he saw everything. It did not even take him a whole night.”
“What truth did he see?” Soro asked. His tone had not changed at all.
I did not want to explain my failure. But he had a right to ask. His people were among those who would suffer most now that I had failed. I still did not look at him, but I said, “Aras sent the Lau messages, explaining what Lorellan is and what he means to do. They know how to defend against even a sorcerer of Lorellan’s strength; they have tales that tell them how to do it. If they had time to prepare, they could arrange that kind of defense. Lorellan was supposed to be distracted by trying to see into my mind, and then he was supposed to see a lie that made him linger here, delaying him until the Lau in the summer country have time to prepare. But I let him break through the protections Aras put into my mind and he saw everything. Now he will move swiftly and come against the Lau who are his enemies before they have had enough time to prepare. He is so powerful he will defeat all their efforts and take power in the summer country, exactly as he wishes, and no one will be able to stop him.”
For a long time, Soro was silent. Finally he said, “You are Ryo inGara.”
“Yes,” I said wearily. “I mean no disrespect, lord of the inKera, but please do not talk to me. I am tired.” Sliding down the stake to kneel in the cold slush, I rested my forehead against the stake and closed my eyes. I was shivering again. I could not help it and did not care very much anymore.
“This Aras you speak of is another sorcerer,” he said, ignoring my request. “When you met my brother in our forest, you were taking a Lau north to your people. That Lau was this Aras. You had escaped from an enemy—his enemy. That enemy was this sorcerer.”
“Yes, all that is true. Please do not talk to me.”
“Why did Lorellan let those women go?”
I sighed. Plainly he did not mean to stop. Giving up, I answered, “Because I stupidly told him that if he did, I might feel calm enough to let him see into my mind as he wished.”
“Why did he have me brought there?”
“Because if I had not been calm enough, he would have punished me by forcing one of your warriors to kill you. Though at the moment that hardly seems like a punishment. I mean no disrespect by saying so, lord.”
Ignoring that insolence, he asked, “It seemed like a punishment at the time? Our people are enemies.”
“Not at this moment, lord. At this moment, no matter the direction I look, the only enemy I see is Lorellan.”
“Surely this other sorcerer is also an enemy?”
I was too downhearted to argue. I said only, “No. He is the best hope we have. But he is not as powerful as Lorellan, and now that I have failed him, I do not know what else he can do.”
Soro was silent. It was impossible to sleep, but I let my mind drift.
After a time, Soro asked me, “Are you the slave of this other sorcerer? This Aras?”
“No.” I did not open my eyes.
“Why would that sorcerer believe you could lie to this one, if he has not made you his possession?”
In his place, I would have asked all the same questions. I explained wearily, “Lorellan tried before to make me his fool. He put many lies into my mind, but Aras had shown me how to see that a memory is false. I did not believe those lies, so Lorellan failed. I showed him what I wished to show him and hid from him things I wished to hide. I know how to lie to a sorcerer ... I thought I knew how to do it. Aras thought I could do it. We were both wrong. I think Lorellan is even more powerful than Aras feared.” I stopped, letting out my breath. “Lord of the inKera, none of this matters now.”
“
The truth always matters. Why did you care which sorcerer kills the other? Why do you care which seizes power in the summer country? How is any of that your concern?”
I opened my eyes and looked at him. Soro was leaning against his stake in order to stay on his feet. The lines in his face were deeper than before. He looked as weary as I felt, but he was still standing. His back was even straight. I had to respect him for that. I told him, “Aras will never seize power anywhere. He is not that kind of sorcerer. Lorellan is a danger to us all. Aras is not. There is not the remotest similarity between them. I know you will not believe me. I do not set any fault against you for that. But you said you wanted the truth. That is the truth. Let that answer any other questions you want to ask me, lord of the inKera. I am very tired.” I closed my eyes again. Perhaps I even slept, after a fashion. If Soro inKera asked me anything else, I did not hear him.
-29-
At dawn, Lorellan and all of us left the palisade behind and walked south.
The Lau formed up into two long rectangular formations, each framed by three rows of men. The men on the outside carried the spears and swords and shields that made the kind of line our warriors could not break through, and the men on the inside carried bows so that they could shoot out of the formation while still protected against our superior bows by the shields of the men in the middle, which would be lifted high the moment arrows began to fly. On the inside of the line were more men who could take the place of anyone who fell and also guard against the Ugaro warriors, who walked in the center of the rectangles.
Also in the center of each formation came the carts that held supplies and tents and axes and all the tools needed to raise a palisade or fortify a position in other ways. The horses might have been vulnerable to arrows, but men with long shields rode them, ready to guard against that kind of attack. A few riding horses were tied behind the carts. I saw Lorellan’s tall black stallion. The horse looked happier and more relaxed without his rider on his back. I felt I understood him very well.
The Ugaro warriors walked in the center of one formation, and the women and children in the center of the other. Now I could see that there were not so many women: two twenties or so. Warriors from several tribes might be captive, but I thought all those women probably came from one tribe—almost certainly inKera. That was at least better than seeing evidence that Lorellan had taken more than one women’s camp.
Most of the men were bound. The rest, perhaps one in five of the number, were those Lorellan had succeeded in making into slaves. They carried swords and walked between the bound warriors and the Lau. Plainly if the inKera warriors tried to attack the Lau, they would have to tear down their own people first—and by the time they did that, Lorellan would have tightened the sorcerous leashes by which he held them. The women were not bound, but many of them carried young children. I wished I had pretended I could not be calm until more of the women were free. I had not even thought of that.
I did not walk with the inKera warriors. I walked at the rear. My wrists had been bound together and then to my belt, and I walked surrounded by Lau soldiers, two of whom held cords that led to running nooses around my throat. If either soldier pulled hard, I would not be able to breathe. If I attacked one of the men, the other could choke me. They had demonstrated this to me twice, once so I would know and the second time because they took pleasure in it. I had killed some of their companions, so I hated them less for that than I might have. Also, one of the young men looked very much like Suyet. It took some time for me to be sure it was not him, and even after I was certain, the resemblance made me remember that many of these soldiers might be Lorellan’s slaves, not willing followers.
I did not know where Lorellan was, except not near me.
Sometime during the night the snow had stopped and the clouds broken, and now the sky was high and clear. Though the Sun had stepped into the sky, the Moon still showed her face, though modestly, her light dimmed in respect for his strength. It is always lucky when the Moon lingers in the sky after the Sun comes there. I looked up at her sometimes, to help myself remember that.
The palisade fell behind very quickly at the fast pace set by the Lau soldiers, and then we walked through a narrow belt of forest, and then out again into the more open country that the Lau preferred, and south along the top of a ridge where the snow was not deep. Then we passed through another belt of forest and our pace slowed. The trees were spruce and fir and larch, very old trees, with high, heavy branches that blocked the Sun so that suddenly we walked in twilight.
Suddenly wolves were singing. Many-many wolves, very near. The formation seemed to stutter as men missed their step. I tried to stop, but the men with the cords jerked hard and I stumbled and then walked forward.
They were not wolves, of course. These were Ugaro warriors. Mounted warriors swept suddenly into view, riding fast, weaving among the huge trees, their ponies flinging up great clouds of snow as they plunged through the high drifts. These were not men who had come with Aras and my father and Royova; we had not had any ponies. Probably they were inVotaro warriors.
The warriors began shooting the moment they were in bow range. They shot once, twice, three times, and then they stopped singing like wolves, stopped shooting, slung their bows over their backs, and clung to their ponies. I knew what had happened. They were seeing something they knew was not true, so they were letting their ponies decide what to do. That was in an old tale of a sorcerer. He had been defeated that way: by heroes who knew they could not trust their own minds and trusted their ponies’ good sense instead. No man could strike this sorcerer with a sword or an arrow. In the end, he had been trampled to death.
Before they came against the formation, the ponies turned east and west and then plunged back into the forest and out of sight. Our ponies are far too wise to run onto Lau spears. But as they turned aside and galloped back into the forest, other warriors stepped out from behind the trees and began to shoot, aiming carefully so that some of their arrows passed between the uplifted Lau shields and struck home before the soldiers realized arrows were coming from a different direction. The Lau were disciplined and adjusted quickly, but some had been struck. I heard cries all around me—
—and someone fell on top of me. He had leaped out of one of the great trees, I understood that after the first astonished instant. He had not fallen, exactly, because there was a rope—more than one rope. But he had hit me hard enough to knock me down. His sword flashed as he cut to one side and then the other, cutting the cords of the running nooses. Then he flung his sword at a Lau soldier who, recovering from the shock faster than the others, began to attack him. I had no time to see whether the sword struck home, because the warrior jerked me to my feet and then up off my feet. He had locked his legs around my hips and wrapped his arms around my chest, and we both rose sharply into the air. Lau were trying to catch at my feet, but at least one warrior was shooting down from above, and then it was too late, we were too high for even a tall Lau to reach, and then higher and higher, and hands grabbed and hauled, and we were lying across the great naked branch of a huge larch.
I was too stunned to think at all, but I tried to cooperate as a knife cut my hands free. I turned to stare at the man who had hauled me up to this place. It was Rakasa inGeiro, and he was laughing, so breathless he made almost no sound.
“You are completely mad,” I told him.
“Not completely,” he assured me, barely able to speak because he was still laughing. “Quick, this way.” He shoved me and I turned and scrambled that way, following the ropes that had been strung between this larch and the next and then the one after that. I was not at all surprised to find Bara, Rakasa’s friend, helping me. My friend Keyova was with them, and young Tyo. All of them were young and strong, not nearly as heavy as a warrior in the prime of his life, and completely, ridiculously stupid.
“Lorellan—” I began.
“Yes, that is why we are trying to be quick,” Keyova told me. “Here, we go down here, y
ou have no gloves, wrap your hands with this.” He gave me a piece of leather. I was glad someone had thought of that, though I would have been more than willing to sacrifice the skin off my palms to get away from Lorellan. I still did not really expect to escape; I thought at any moment he would reach out with his sorcery and take some or all of these young men for his slaves or his dogs, force them to bring me back to him—something of that kind. I thought so even as we came down at the base of a massive spruce, and my father, waiting there, put the reins of a pony into my hands.
I swung onto the animal’s back, and we all rode together, fast, the ponies laying their ears back and crow hopping to show their opinion of deep snow and winter forests and mad riders who wanted to go plunging through the drifts instead of sensibly seeking warmth and shelter. We skidded down slopes and forged up ridges, leaving a trail a blind Lau could follow. Behind and to the west, I could hear many-many Ugaro, singing out with the voices of wolves.
I drew what felt like the first real breath I had taken in more than a day. But I said furiously to my father, “Lorellan could have taken you all as his slaves! You were completely stupid to do that!”
This was not something a young man should say to his father. He pretended not to hear me. Rakasa was still too breathless with hilarity to answer, but Bara said from my other side, “Our sorcerer protected us. He put silence and patience into our minds and made us forget why we were there. We waited with the quiet minds of hunters, until everyone else made a great deal of noise. Then we remembered. But I admit I was not happy to have Rakasa take the most demanding place. Look at him! He might have laughed so hard he dropped his sword before he cut you free.”
I could only shake my head, but Keyova reached over and punched me on the arm. “As though we would leave you there, Ryo! It would have been completely disgraceful! Even Royova agreed!”
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