by Sharon Green
“You see?” Lorand shouted over the hubbub, pointing toward Ravis. “If any of you doubt what I said, just take a good look at the man who assured you a minute ago that the empire doesn’t have an army. He works for the nobles who bleed you dry and treat you like slaves, so his actions are always in their best interests. Now he’s willing to let you all die, destroyed under the heels of an avenging army, just to keep his owners’ secrets.”
“Stop sayin’ that!” Ravis screamed, his country accent coming back with the hysteria. “I don’t have no ‘owners,’ I’m a free man! They have owners and they know it, but I don’t!”
“Too bad we can’t say nothin’ to deny that,” Idroy Welt, one of the district’s biggest farmers, said with barely hidden venom. “Those nobles own us body and spirit, an’ leave us with almost nothin’ to raise our families on. Are we supposta die for them now?”
“Ain’t you takin’ whut the boy said with a real big grain a salt?” another voice put in, that of Mollit Feldin, another large-acreage farmer standing at the front of the crowd. “I knowed Lorand there since he been a pint-sized hellion, an’ everythin’s always real important if he’s in the middle a it. Looks like nothin’s changed since he growed, an’ I don’t fancy runnin’ off on just his say-so. If the rest a you think on it, you’ll see thet whut he says ain’t real likely.”
This time the muttering of the crowd was in support of what Mollit had said, the voice of reason drowning out the voice of warning. The fact that they’d known him all his life was one of the biggest problems, as no one wants to believe the lie of a possible practical joker and thereby make himself look foolish. Add that to their very understandable reluctance to accept the possibility of their being about to lose everything, and control of the situation was abruptly taken right out of Lorand’s hands.
“I’ve never seen a bigger bunch of damn’ fools in my life,” Vallant said suddenly and loudly from where he now stood beside Lorand. “They’d rather believe the lies of that fat toady who steals from them in the name of the nobles, so why bother arguin’? It’s their lives, not ours, so let’s go on to another town where there might be fewer fools.”
Everyone took umbrage at that and anger rose in shouts, but the voice of Idroy Welt rose above the rest. Idroy was a big man, hard and tough and respected by his neighbors even if they didn’t like him very much, and his booming tone drowned out most of theirs.
“Let’s everybody calm right down,” he said, looking around in all directions. “This ain’t somethin’ to believe or not believe right off the bat. Let’s invite these here folk to the meetin’ hall where we c’n all sit down and hear what they gotta say, an’ then we c’n talk about it. Don’t know if the meetin’ hall’s big enough to hold all a them, though… Let’s show ’em hospitality an’ take care a their mounts too, an’ then some of ’em can come to the meetin’ hall. By then most everybody oughta be in town.”
Mollit Feldin tried to say it was a waste of time and food and effort, but happily the rest of the men there were more inclined to agree with Idroy. They weren’t happy about any part of the situation, but at least they were willing to listen. What happened afterward was still up in the air, but at least they’d get fed and their horses would also be fed and rested.
So then, if they were asked to leave after the meeting, there would be nothing but Lorand’s memories and regrets hovering in their path out of there…
CHAPTER TWO
Vallant kept silent as their five walked along the dirt street, his thoughts on something other than the meeting they were going to. Having an imagination was rarely an asset to people living in a small town, and those individuals, like Lorand, who were born with one usually left as soon as they could. The proposed meeting would probably quickly become a matter of the farmers demanding proof and their saying there wasn’t any—short of waiting around until it was too late. After that “wiser heads” would voice grave doubts as to the wisdom of leaving their homes, and the majority of farmers would listen to them. If this hadn’t been the place Lorand came from, Vallant would have been just as happy to simply move on.
But that would have been the only thing he was happy about. Vallant glanced at Tamrissa where she walked on the far side of the group, very clearly and obviously putting as much distance between him and herself as she possibly could. And the way she’d been acting with him… She hadn’t turned him invisible in her thoughts the way she’d done once before, this time it was worse. Every time he looked at her her whole being seemed to ache, and she no longer ever looked directly at him. He’d gotten the impression he was dead in her thoughts rather than merely invisible, and that brought him more than just a simple ache.
He took a deep breath then, stepping up onto the wood of the new sidewalk without really paying attention. He and Lorand moved into the lead with the other three behind them, all five apparently sunk into their own thoughts. Vallant had meant to speak to Jovvi, wanting to ask her to explain to Tamrissa that she, Tamrissa, wasn’t yet ready for the relationship she thought she wanted, but he hadn’t had the opportunity.
The townspeople had stabled as many of the horses as they could and had put the rest in a corral, and then they’d thrown together a meal for the humans. Not that the townspeople had acted friendly or concerned; they were doing what they’d been told was their duty, and standoffish was too mild a word for their attitude. People suffering from disease would probably have gotten a warmer welcome, if those people were considered their own. Strangers were a good deal worse than disease carriers, and no one even volunteered to help shift the horses which were fed out of the stabling and putting others in their place. The townspeople had supplied the feed and the stabling; let the strangers, no matter how tired they looked, take care of the rest themselves.
Vallant had had to walk among the liberated “segments” and calm their anger, telling them that these people weren’t worth getting upset about. Lorand had been born and raised among them, and even he was being no more than tolerated. People who were that afraid of change and difference weren’t likely to survive the coming of the Astindan army, and maybe that was for the best. When a community gets too insular, it starts to decay down deep, where the ruin can’t be seen until it’s too late for anyone to stop it.
Not like individuals, who were simply trying to keep someone they cared about from making a mistake. Vallant would have liked nothing better than to take Tamrissa in his arms and make love to her again, but it wouldn’t have been good for her. Was he supposed to forget about that and do it anyway, and ruin any chance they had for a lasting, loving—
“The meeting hall’s just up ahead there,” Lorand said abruptly, pulling Vallant away from the morass of rambling, chaotic thoughts. No matter what he tried to think about, the path always led back to Tamrissa and the last words they’d exchanged…
“Do you think there’s any chance of their listenin’ to us?” Vallant asked quietly, determined to be the master of his own mind. “The ones who brought that food were colder than mile-high ice, and they don’t yet know what we are. What do you think will happen when they find out?”
“I’m trying not to think about it,” Lorand replied, his tone weary rather than sarcastic. “I keep getting the feeling that someone has dismantled half this town, because I don’t remember it being quite this small. And that Mollit Feldin, who wanted to dismiss everything I said… I’m remembering how many others are just like him, uninterested in anyone’s opinion but their own. Maybe we should have gone to a different town.”
“If we had, you never would have forgiven yourself—or us,” Vallant countered, understanding far too well what his group brother was going through. “And I know what you mean about this place shrinkin’, and the people suddenly lookin’ like they have blocks of wood for heads. The same thing happened to me when I first shipped out and then came back, and it took some effort to understand that I was the one who had changed, not the town or the people. So give your old neighbors a chance, because t
hey just might surprise all of us.”
Lorand nodded with his intensity fractionally lessened, and Vallant was glad that he’d lied. He didn’t really expect these people to surprise them, but Lorand would do better believing they might right up to the time they didn’t.
The meeting hall was a large building standing alone to one side of the town square, with what looked like a large public bath house diagonally across from it. In the middle of the square was a small fountain with the alarm bar hanging from a post next to it, and people were milling around near the fountain in groups, watching everyone who walked toward the hall. It looked like not everyone had been invited to the meeting, which wasn’t a very good sign of progress to come.
Vallant let Lorand walk into the hall half a step ahead of him, a privilege his group brother was more than entitled to. The people who awaited them had no way of knowing just how hard things had been for Lorand, at least as hard as Vallant found walking into the building to be. But at least there were windows lining the big room on either side, windows that could be reached rather easily…
“You been learnin’ bad habits in th’ big city, boy,” the one named Mollit Feldin said to Lorand from where he stood at the front of the room. “This ain’t no place fer females, so you jest send ’em on home an’ then we c’n get this here meetin’ goin’.”
“What’s the matter, Mollit, are you too old to remember my name?” Lorand countered as they all walked slowly toward where the man and some of the others waited for them. The benches were only half full, Vallant noticed, which meant the people hanging around the fountain in the square had been told they weren’t allowed at the meeting.
“Just to help you remember, old man, my name is Lorand,” Lorand continued calmly and quietly. “And any man with sense would have asked why these ladies are with us, not just told us to get rid of them. So since you’ve proven you have no sense, why don’t you sit down and just listen for a change. I know the odds are against it, but you just might learn something.”
“You watch yer mouth, boy!” Feldin snapped, his skin darkening at the chuckling some of the others were doing. “I ain’t no old man, an’—”
“And I’m not a boy,” Lorand interrupted, now standing directly in front of the man—who wasn’t quite as big as Lorand. Vallant’s groupmate’s voice had been strong and hard, showing a self confidence Lorand probably didn’t completely feel, but it was the outer show that Feldin reacted to. The farmer wiped his lips on the back of one hand, glared balefully, but didn’t say another word.
“You’re a boy compared t’ us,” the one named Idroy Welt said mildly, drawing Lorand’s attention to where he stood, next to Feldin. “We didn’t aim to give no insult, Lorand, but you gotta understand—Mollit here’s got almost as big a farm as me, so he’s entitled to his say. Jest like everybody’s got the right.”
“An’ me especially,” another voice said, causing Vallant and the others to look around with Lorand. A big man had stood up among the benches, one who looked very much like Lorand, and Vallant could almost feel the increased tension in his group brother. “I got the right t’have m’say, and I got the right t’call ya boy.”
“You gave up the right to call me anything at all, Pa,” Lorand said after a very short pause, the words bitter. “When you put your own wants about my life ahead of mine, you stopped being kin to me. You might want to think about what would have happened to the people in this district if I’d done the same thing, and run to save my own neck without giving a damn about yours. There is an army heading this way, destroying everything in its path, and if you people choose not to believe it, your deaths will be on your own heads.”
“That’s somethin’ we gotta talk about, but not till everybody’s here,” Welt said, looking troubled. “Ravis ain’t showed up yet, an’ we can’t start till he does.”
“That man Ravis Grund won’t be showing up,” Jovvi put in calmly, drawing everyone’s attention. “When he left the square earlier, his intentions were perfectly clear. If he hasn’t left the district already, he’ll be doing it shortly. He lied about not knowing about the army, and he lied about coming to this meeting. He’s getting out as fast as he can with as much as he can, abandoning all of you and running back to the people he works for.”
There was a brief but very thick silence, and then Welt said, “Don’t mean t’be doubtin’ yer word, ma’am, but how could you know thet? Ravis ain’t the brightest nor the bravest, but I ain’t never seen him run frum a threat.”
“An’ he’s one a us, not sum bloody outsider,” Feldin added with a growl. “You got a real nerve, girl, talkin’ ’bout folks you ain’t near as good as—”
“Close your mouth, Mollit,” Lorand said in his own growl, one that did more to chill than Feldin’s. “Dama Hafford is ten times better than any mudfoot in this room, so you close your mouth and keep it closed. She’s also a High talent in Spirit magic, so if she says Ravis is gone, you can bet the farm you don’t own on it.”
Shocked exclamations sounded around the room, and Vallant saw the expressions of fear and revulsion that accompanied them. For that reason he stepped forward, to stand beside Lorand.
“If you’re wonderin’ about whether the lady is right, you might send someone over to Grund’s house,” he suggested, also keeping his voice mild. “But get someone from the street to go, because we’re ready to tell you the things you need to know. We’ll also probably be leavin’ not long after the tellin’, because we know that army’s real even if the bunch of you refuse to believe it.”
“Refe, go grab one a th’ boys outside,” Welt ordered after a brief hesitation, speaking to a man toward the back of the hall. “Tell ’m t’ knock at Ravis’s door, an’ if he don’t get a answer he’s t’ try openin’ th’ door an’ goin’ inside. If he hasta do thet, he’s t’ hightail it back here fast as he c’n run.”
The man addressed nodded and got to his feet, then headed for the door out of the hall. As soon as Welt saw the nod, his attention turned back to Vallant.
“We’ll be listenin’ to whut you gotta say, but first we’d like them ladies outta here,” he said, the words very neutral. “In things like this here, a man don’t wanna have t’watch whut he says ’cause there’s ladies about t’take offense. We don’t mean no insult, but…”
“I’m sorry, but we can’t oblige you on that point,” Vallant said while Lorand hesitated with a disturbed expression. “And you’d all better sit down, because the ladies are part of the rather long story. You’ll want to know how we found out the things we did, and when we tell you you’ll understand how everything fits. Are you ready to listen?”
Welt saw that the man Refe was on his way back into the hall from the door, so he nodded before choosing a place on a bench to sit. Feldin hesitated a moment longer, the resentful expression on his face saying he would have preferred to make more trouble, but caution won in the end. He, too, found a place to sit down, as did Vallant’s groupmates. But his groupmates sat on chairs on the short dais, leaving the plain, battered old table as a place for him to perch. Lorand’s father, with an odd expression on his face, had long ago resumed his seat, so there was no reason not to start.
“To begin with,” Vallant said, “our empire has been tryin’ for some time to take over the countries of Astinda and Gracely. We haven’t seen Gracely, but just over the border into Astinda there’s nothin’ left but destruction and death. They killed the land and murdered the people, and even left some of the people, still alive, hangin’ as a warnin’ to other Astindans. The army that’s comin’ here means to get revenge for all that, and we were told by somebody who saw it that they aren’t lettin’ any of ours live even if they surrender.”
Another mutter arose among his listeners, a very disturbed one, but not everyone was equally impressed.
“So you say,” Feldin sneered out, obviously prepared to do nothing but cast doubt. “Sounds like a lotta bull t’me, since there ain’t no way t’know fer sure ’thout takin�
� yer word fer it.”
“There are two ways to know for sure,” Vallant countered, showing how unimpressed he was by the fool of a man. “You can talk to a lot of our people, most of whom spent a lot of time bein’ forced to work for the damn nobles runnin’ the army. They can tell you what sickenin’ things they were made to do before the Astindan army forced them to retreat, or you can ignore what everyone says and just stick around. In your case I’d recommend stickin’ around, since the world becomes a better place to live every time a damn fool like you gets himself killed.”
Feldin surged to his feet bellowing, his fists clenched and ready to do some battering, but suddenly all his rage and insult disappeared. He just stood there blinking and silent, and Vallant smiled faintly.
“If the rest of you are wonderin’ what’s wrong with him, it should be obvious,” he said to the shaken men in the audience. “We already told you that Dama Hafford is a High in Spirit magic, and this is no time to let an imbecile start a fight. Personally, though, I’m gettin’ really tired of tryin’ to help a bunch of people who are too stupid to know they need the help. If you’d rather be rid of us than hear what we have to tell, just say so. Since we mean to leave anyway once the horses are rested and fed, we’ll be gone before you remember we’rearound.”
Most of their audience seemed to like the idea of being rid of these dangerous and awful interlopers, but Idroy Welt, despite being shaken himself, stood up and shook his head.
“No, we don’t want ’em gone yet,” he said to his friends and neighbors, looking around at them. “Mollit asked fer handlin’ like she done, jest like usual. He don’t think, he jumps, and this ain’t no time fer jumpin’. If’n we don’t listen, we culd lose more’n our land, so we are gonna hear whut they gotta say.”
Again most of the audience wasn’t terribly pleased, but none of them argued or got up to leave as Welt resumed his seat. Vallant was somewhat surprised, just the way he’d told Lorand he’d be.