by Sharon Green
“Please, my dear, you have to believe that everything will work out right,” Jovvi urged, her voice striving to match what her mind tried to send. “You’rein such a turmoil that you won’t even let me ease you a little, which is exactly the state Tamma is in. I think she’s given up completely, and hasn’t simply walked away because she knows she’s needed by the rest of us. Let me talk to her, and maybe something can be worked out between the two of you.”
“What do you mean, she’s given up completely?” Vallant asked, opening his eyes to frown at Jovvi. “I haven’t seen her behavin’ any differently from the way she usually does, and that includes talkin’ to Meerk. You don’t think she’ll … do somethin’ foolish?”
“Why should she be any different from the rest of us?” Jovvi asked, her expression now rueful. “But no, I don’t think there’s any immediate danger. Later, though, is another matter entirely, and it can’t really wait to be taken care of. It’s too easy to wait just a little too long, and then you lose the chance to do anything at all.”
“Maybe I should be the one to talk to her,” Vallant said, still more than a little disturbed over what Jovvi had told him. “I know she doesn’t believe me most of the time, but… All I have to do is figure out what to say… No, I’ll figure it out once I’m standin’ in front of her.”
“Vallant, wait,” Jovvi said as he began to walk around her and back into the stables. “It might not be the best of ideas for you to be the one. Let me start it off for you, and then—”
But Vallant had put a hand to Jovvi’s face as he passed her, and then he just continued on into the building. He might be too much of a coward to want to let himself be hurt again, but sooner him than Tamrissa. He’d done his share of hurting her, something he’d sworn he never would, so now it was time to repair the damage. Afterward … well, afterward would take care of itself. Right now the woman he would love forever needed him…
CHAPTER TEN
After we dissolved the Blending everyone went in a different direction, and that included me. I wasn’t exactly bothered by what we’d done with those guardsmen, it was more a matter of wondering what we would find it possible to do next. I wandered off away from the link groups we’d used, also realizing that we’d drawn strength from them so automatically that the entity hadn’t even consciously noticed the action. It was nice to know that we weren’t helpless, but how far do you have to go before you cross the line between not-helpless and horribly-overbearing…?
“Excuse me,” a voice said, breaking into my distraction. “I don’t mean to interrupt you while you’reso obviously deep in thought, but I’d appreciate a minute of your time. And it really won’t take more than a minute.”
“I’m going to hold you to that, Dom Meerk,” I countered, pausing to look up at him. “I’m not as tired as I was a few minutes ago, but I’m still too tired to listen to—”
“No, there won’t be any of that,” Alsin said quickly, raising one hand and looking serious about what he was in the midst of saying. “I’ve decided not to keep telling you that I’m the better man, but to start showing you. With that in mind, I’m not going to talk bitterly about Dom Ro again, nor am I going to take offense at anything he does. In fact I’m not even going to mention him again, not unless you ask me to. You have enough things to worry you with this … semi-private war you and the others are waging. You don’t need me adding to it.”
He gave me a brief smile and began to turn away, apparently ready to keep his word about only taking a minute of my time. I’ll admit I was more than a little surprised, so I raised one hand to stop him.
“Alsin, wait,” I said, which did stop him from walking away. “I’d like to know what suddenly brought this on. Only a little while ago you were so angry I thought your blood was about to boil over.”
“It was,” he replied ruefully, smiling without humor. “I couldn’t seem to stop the anger, but then someone told me that my actions were just adding to your unhappiness. Since that’s the last thing I want to do, I finally got it through my head that the whole thing had to end—and with me making the first effort. I want you to be able to pay attention to what you’rein the middle of, without having to worry about what I’ll do next.”
“I really hope you can stick to that,” I said, letting him know I meant every word. “If you can and do, I’ll be very grateful. And there’s something you need to know: our force has just grown by some two hundred more men. Those guardsmen are now ours, but we can’t expect them to be as strong as the rest of our people. Putting them where they’ll be most effective is something you should start to think about.”
“I will, even if it turns out that no one takes my suggestions,” he said with a thoughtful nod. “But I have a feeling they probably will, if I’m not yelling my head off when I put them forward. But who’s this?”
I turned to look at the man entering the stables, a hard-faced man I’d never seen before, at least not by myself. The part of my memory that covered the doings of the entity recognized him immediately, though, and that told me who he was.
“He has to be the leader of the guard group,” I said to Alsin while the two of us watched the man walk closer. “They were all told to report here to us, but only the leader was directed to come inside. Well, we should know for certain in another minute…”
That comment was because the man was now heading directly for me, and when he reached us I found I was right.
“I’ve been ordered to report to the true Five,” he said without preamble, his hard, dark gaze only on my face. “I’ve already spoken to two before you, and now I need to see the others.”
“I saw Jovvi speak to him briefly on his way in,” Alsin supplied when I raised my brows, clearly knowing what my question was. “And Ro went outside a short while ago, so he must be the second.”
“Then he still has Lorand and Rion to meet,” I said with a nod. “I’ll take him over to them, and in the meanwhile you can do that thinking I suggested. There’s no telling when we’ll need the ideas.”
He matched my nod with one of his own, so I crooked a finger at the guardsman and headed for Lorand and Rion. The two of them were standing with Naran and talking, probably about the activity around Pagin Holter’s group. They were getting ready to head out, intending to go back the way we’d just come. They were taking two of the newly formed Blendings with them, but only one additional set of link groups. That was another thirty-five people we would have to do without, and the two hundred we’d just acquired might or might not be an adequate replacement for them.
“Ah, Tamrissa,” Rion said when I walked up to them. “Is that the leader of our new forces? If so, he’s more than prompt.”
“I’ve been ordered to tell you that there are another ten of my men at a farm not far from this town,” the guardsman said, which took Lorand’s immediate attention. “I’ve been rotating them into and out of town to give them all a rest in groups. Which of you is the one who knows the area?”
“I am,” Lorand replied, stepping a bit closer. “Tell me where the farm is as precisely as you can.”
“The farm is called Arbors, and is on the eastern road,” the guardsman replied at once. “It lies approximately five miles—”
“Never mind,” Lorand interrupted as he nodded. “I know Arbors, and exactly where it is. How soon are you due to rotate that group out and another in?”
“At midnight,” the man replied without hesitation. “But none of my men were going to be sent there because that was when I’d intended to launch our attack on this stables. I was fairly certain you’d all be here at least that long, but beyond that… These farmers are fools, and most of them think they can forget about being in danger if your group isn’t here any longer.”
“Yes, we’d noticed,” Rion said dryly. “But that—and our group—is no longer your concern. We can see to the ten at the farm without much trouble, but I’ve been wondering just how thorough our efforts were. Do you know as yet whether all your men
here in town have been neutralized?”
“I haven’t had the opportunity to check,” the man replied, completely unbothered by anything said to him. “Would you like me to do so now?”
“Yes,” Lorand said after glancing at Rion and then at me. “If you find one who hasn’t been touched, get him here however you can without doing him permanent damage. We’regoing to need every talent we can get our hands on once we get back to Gan Garee.”
“Sooner than that,” Naran said abruptly, startling everyone, apparently including herself. “I mean … it isn’t very likely that we’ll get all the way back to Gan Garee without running into some kind of trouble. In fact, it might be a good idea to keep a sharp eye open while we’restill here. I have the strangest feeling…”
“I think we’ve all learned better than to ignore your feelings, my love,” Rion said to her while putting his arm around her shoulders. “So while you’reabout it, guardsman, set some of your men out as sentries around this town. If there’s additional danger in the offing, we’d like to know about it before it turns into a crisis.”
“At your orders, sir,” the man replied, all but coming to attention and saluting. “Is there anything else?”
We all glanced at one another, but when no one added any other requirement Lorand dismissed the man with orders to report back as soon as possible. When the man walked away I began to think about sitting down somewhere for a while, possibly even to take a nap, but quickly discovered that I was premature in believing that all the fuss was over with for a while.
“Tamrissa, I need to talk to you for a minute,” I heard, but this time not in Alsin’s voice. This time it was Vallant who spoke to me, and I didn’t even need to turn to know that. To be absolutely honest I couldn’t turn, not when that would have put him directly in my sight. I hadn’t looked straight at him for quite some time, and probably never would again…
“Please, Tamrissa, it’s really important,” he said when I neither turned nor spoke. “I don’t blame you for erasin’ me from your life, but there’s somethin’ I have to tell you. All this trouble between us … isn’t your fault. It’s completely mine, so there’s no sense in you blamin’ yourself. You can’t give up on life just because I … have a problem. I wanted you to know how I really feel about you, which is—”
By then I had pushed between Rion and Lorand and had hurried away, no longer able to bear hearing him talk to me. It didn’t matter why he wanted nothing to do with me, not when I’d had to admit to myself that I would love him forever. When a feeling like that isn’t returned the pain is horrible, but worse, for me at least, would be trying to change his mind. He didn’t want his mind changed, and he didn’t want me anywhere near him. He’d come to speak to me because he thought I needed help, and that had increased the pain. To have someone you love come to help you, but only because he’s a gentleman, not because that love is returned in any way…
I hate trying to see through a blur of tears, but simply walking straight out the other side of the stables didn’t take much clear vision. Happily no one tried to stop me or speak to me, and then I had stepped outside into the evening air. The street here was quiet, with shops closed down for the day and lamplight visible through the windows of the houses. The people who lived in those houses led quiet, normal lives, the sort of life I’d never be able to find for myself. And to tell the truth, I no longer even wanted it. What’s the sense in settling down with someone you’ll never feel more for than fondness? The memory of the man you loved with every fiber of your being would stand between you and any other man for your entire life, which would be completely unfair to the second man. No, better to give up thinking about never being lonely again…
I stood listening to the chirp of crickets for a while, also watching the fireflies blink to each other as they bumbled through the air. There was a giant hollow inside me where a small happiness had begun to grow, a happiness I hadn’t expected to become very big at all. I’d once told Jovvi that I expected Vallant to get tired of our relationship, and was ready to accept his walking away whenever it happened. I knew now that that had been a lie, that I’d been hoping with all my heart we’d stay together forever. I should have realized that I was hoping, and then I might have had a chance to cope with what was now happening. I knew hoping never worked, and now here I was, bleeding into the hollow inside me because I’d forgotten that very important lesson…
I have no idea how long I stood in the dimness of evening, trying to pull myself together. I hadn’t quite accomplished that feat when I heard something of a to-do going on inside the stables. By then I was desperate for a distraction, so I went back inside to find that people were moving around and speaking excitedly to one another. It was difficult making my way through the throng, but I managed to get to Lorand and asked what was going on.
“The guard leader, Herstan, was just finishing setting up the sentry positions we’d asked him to establish, when one of the ones he’d already posted toward the west came to report.” Lorand’s frown was clearly one of worry, a reflection of the expression on everyone else’s face as well. “The sentry has Spirit magic, and he noticed the large number of people approaching just a matter of moments before they reached here. By the time he got to Herstan, the town was already under attack.”
“Attack?” I echoed, shocked to hear the word. “But the Astindan army couldn’t have gotten here already. It would be impossible even for an individual to move that fast, so an army couldn’t possibly do it.”
“I know it isn’t likely to be the Astindans, but it is someone,” Lorand returned, disturbance as clear in his voice as it was on his face. “Once we put the Blending together we should be able to find out who the someone is, or should I say someones? There are more than a few of them, and Herstan has gone to check with his men, whom he’s formed into some sort of defensive effort. They’retrying to delay the attackers until we can find Jovvi and Vallant. Vallant left the stables from the other door after you went out that one, and Jovvi went out after him.”
That probably explained Rion’s absence, I thought. He’d gone looking for Jovvi and Vallant Ro, and I couldn’t help wondering why she’d gone after him. Then it came to me how difficult it must have been for Vallant Ro to force himself to talk to me, and that told me why Jovvi had gone to help him rather than coming to join me. His sense of upset must have been worse than mine, and to add to that, Jovvi had said she couldn’t reach through to me. Right now I wished rather fervently that she could have, but then I remembered that wishing was very much like hoping…
And then my own private problems were pushed aside by the problem we all had. Screams and shouts sounded in the distance, as though people in the middle of town were in a panic, and various people rushed into the stables. Some of those had to be guardsmen being sent with word, as one of them spoke quickly to Alsin before running out again, and then Alsin hurried over to Lorand and me.
“The attackers have formed into link groups, and our guardsmen can’t do anything against them but retreat,” Alsin reported at once. “Whoever they are they’restronger than the guardsmen link groups, and if it comes to a face to face fight our guardsmen will lose. The townspeople are running in a panic and getting in everyone’s way, because the leading link group of the attackers is of Fire magic.”
“Where can Jovvi and Vallant be?” Lorand demanded, looking completely frantic. “If Rion doesn’t find them fast and bring them back here, there won’t be a town left for us to defend.”
“What about our own High link groups?” Alsin asked, almost as seriously concerned as Lorand. “They should be able to do a better job than those guardsmen, none of whom can be anything but a Middle at best. If we can get them out there—”
“We’ll just have a war between our side and theirs,” I interrupted, knowing I was right. “It seems to me that the better idea is to stop a war, not contribute our own effort to one that’s started. I’ll go and see what I can do, and as soon as Jovvi and the others get b
ack she can form the Blending. We don’t all have to be together, remember, so standing around waiting while things get worse doesn’t make any sense.”
Both Lorand and Alsin tried to talk me out of going, but they were men worried about a poor, helpless little girl. I, on the other hand, was a woman worried about the coming destruction of a town, so I didn’t let their silliness interfere. I left them still painting horrified word pictures about how hurt I would get, and hurried out of the stables.
The street outside was filled with pure insanity. People ran every which way as they shouted and screamed, as though they had no idea where the danger was coming from. Lorand had said it was the sentry on the western approach who had first sounded the alarm, so that had to be the direction the attack was coming from. I remembered our route into the town well enough to retrace it on foot, fighting to get through the insanity without being killed by accident, and after the first couple of streets there were fewer people in my way. That had to be because the attackers weren’t very far off, something the flicker of flames suggested rather strongly.
I had to be very firm about not letting my hands tremble as I drew even nearer, and then the scene I came on made me forget all about being afraid. Anger rose as I saw a link group of guardsmen stagger back from a wide gout of flame, one which was allowed to spread to a nearby building. The gout shrank back to nothing but the building began to burn, and those who caused destruction so easily laughed as they swaggered forward. They laughed at the guard link group and they laughed at the fires burning behind them, and it was all just one jolly good time—at least for them.
For my own part, I’d gone past being angry and was well on the way to being boiling mad. I’ve heard it said that everyone would be a bully if they thought they could get away with it, but that doesn’t happen to be true. Bullies pick on people who either can’t or won’t fight back, and that will never be something I’d enjoy. Intimidating the weak isn’t the way to prove yourself strong, but sometimes it’s all right to show off a little to people who think it is.