Betrayals (39 page)

The others didn’t take very long to decide that nothing could be done about Rion’s problem at the moment, so all we could do was keep it in mind in case a solution presented itself at some future time. We were one step away from ending the meeting and calling the others together—in between which times I’d girded myself to speak to Valiant— when an unexpected interruption came.

“The six of you are off here all by yourselves,” Alsin’s voice suddenly came as he appeared almost out of nowhere. “Would you like to tell the rest of us what you’re talking about?”

“You could have joined us and found out firsthand,” Jovvi said at once before anyone else could speak, giving him the sort of smile I didn’t know if I would have been able to show. “We discovered that some of the people here aren’t quite sure about committing themselves completely to our efforts, so we’re going to give them a chance to think about it and let us know when they make up their minds. We’ve also decided to get started right away with showing them the first of the exercises they need to do to increase their talents, and Rion has pointed out a problem we’ll be having with Air magic training. After that, we decided it was time to call a general meeting.”

“And you needed to be off by yourselves for that?” he asked with a snort, making his disbelief very clear. “Somehow I don’t think so, but we can discuss what you really talked about later. Right now I want to hear about the people you say have decided not to join us. They can’t not join us, and we have to make that clear to them.”

“Alsin, I said they hadn’t yet made up their minds,” Jovvi corrected gently but firmly. “But even if some of them have decided not to participate in whatever we do, there won’t be any question about forcing them. If we start out right from the beginning doing things the way the nobles do, what’s the sense in our bothering to displace them? There’s a big difference between using their own methods against them to defend ourselves, and using their methods to control the people supporting us.”

“But didn’t you just say they weren’t going to support us?” he countered, obviously hearing only what he cared to. “If we’re going to win this thing, we have to understand that anyone not with us is against us. We—”

“No,” Lorand denied, interrupting immediately. “That doesn’t happen to be true, so don’t even think it, let alone say it. There is such a thing as being neutral, since not everyone can handle the idea of a fight. We won’t be forcing anyone to do what they don’t decide on their own to do.”

“Is that your way of saying I’ll be standing alone?” Alsin demanded, his craggy face twisted into something that wasn’t very nice to see. “That even your group has decided to abandon me? If that’s the case, then—”

Suddenly his words broke off, and he simply stood staring into space. He’d obviously been working himself up into a true rage, so I had no idea what was happening until Jovvi spoke.

“I have him under control now, and not a minute too soon,” she said, her voice the least bit uneven. “His mind has really buckled under the strain, and he was about to become totally irrational. I think I might be able to bring him back, but I’ve got to work on him now. Lorand, please help me take him into the barn, then keep everyone else out for a while.”

The rest of us stood there watching as Lorand took Alsin’s arm and gently began to guide him into the barn behind Jovvi. The man moved as though he were asleep, jerkily and slowly, and I thought that Jovvi needed Lorand’s presence for something other than help. If she had Alsin under control, he would have followed her without protest to wherever she wanted him to go. Rion and Naran moved closer to the barn doors, obviously ready to keep others out, so I took the opportunity to grab my courage with both hands and turn to Valiant.

“Guilt can do some really terrible things to a person,” I commented, holding back on the shiver I felt on the inside. “And speaking of guilt, I’m forced to admit that it’s become my turn to apologize. I… was seeing things from only my own point of view, and I have blamed you for things that weren’t really your fault. You were right about everything you said the other day, and I… apologize.”

“Apology accepted,” he said, but he still sipped at his tea and gazed at something other than at me. “Don’t let it bother you anymore.”

“Don’t let it bother me,” I echoed, having no idea what was wrong. “Is that all-you’re going to say? I thought… After I made myself do the right thing …”

My limping protest ended rather abruptly, since I had no idea what might be added to it. I suppose—no, I know —I expected everything to be all right between us again, but there he stood, barely paying even half attention to me. But then he seemed to draw himself together again, and that very light gaze fell on me.

“What else do you want me to say?” he asked, his voice containing echoes of that commanding tone he’d been using so much lately. “You apologized to me and I appreciate that, but it isn’t really you doin’ the apologizin’. You’re usin’ the power to help you do what you think is fair, but I’ll wager that the little girl inside you still believes every-thin’ was my fault. You’re gettin’ really good at forcin’ yourself to do what you think you should, but that still isn’t you doin’ it. You still want someone who’s perfect, and that isn’t me.”

“Where do you get off telling me what I do and don’t want?” I demanded, suddenly so outraged that I could barely contain the anger. “It nearly killed me to apologize to you, and now you’re saying it doesn’t count? Who in chaos do you think you are to tell me what I want?”

“I’m someone fairly personally involved,” he countered, a gleam in those very light eyes that wasn’t quite amusement. “Right from the beginnin’ I spent my time tryin’ to force myself on you, and I’ve finally learned that that kind of thing never works. Now you’re the one doin’ the forcin’, so I’m tryin’ to save you some trouble. When you really want somethin’ to grow between us it will, but until then you’re wastin’ both our time.”

“Why, you stiff-necked, opinionated—” My words broke off, but not because I thought I might offend him. I simply couldn’t think of anything vile enough to call him, not after he’d told me that I didn’t know my own mind! “How dare you treat me as though I were a giggling, mindless child? I do know what I want, and I don’t need you to tell me what that is! If I’ve decided there should be something between us, who are you to tell me I’m wrong?”

It actually took a couple of minutes before I realized what I’d just said, but I was so angry that I didn’t care. And the fact that his amusement suddenly became more obvious didn’t help in the least. I was absolutely furious, and I might have lost my temper completely if Rion and Lorand hadn’t suddenly appeared between us.

“Tamrissa, take it easy,” Lorand soothed, his gentle hand to my face almost more than I could bear. “You can’t afford to kill him the way he so richly deserves, not now. We need everyone available to fight against the real enemy, but as soon as we take care of them, he’s all yours. Jovvi said to tell everyone that she was able to reach Alsin Meerk’s problem more easily than she’d dared to hope, and is now in the process of helping him to heal himself. As soon as she’s through, we’ll—”

This time it was Lorand’s words which broke off abruptly, and the way he looked away from me and into the far distance was disturbing enough to reach through my anger. I was about to ask him what was wrong, when his answer came before the question.

“They’re starting to surround us,” he said, his tone perfectly reasonable and matter-of-fact. “Our sentries are busy watching the road, but they aren’t coming along the road. They’ve taken to the woods to approach, and there must be at least a hundred of them. We’ve got to do something, or we’ll all be taken.”

“Naran, tell Jovvi!” Valiant snapped, tossing away his teacup as though it were an unimportant piece of paper. “Have her make the sentries pull back, and then get ready to Blend. Rion, tell the others what’s happenin’. Lorand, how far away are they? How much time do we have until they’re close enough to attack?”

“We have no more than twenty minutes to half an hour until they’re completely in position,” Lorand replied, no longer sounding as though he were half-asleep. “Chaos rot those sentries! I told them to use their talent rather than their eyesight, but they weren’t even touching the power when I brought them their food. Everyone is too well trained not to touch the power, and they haven’t overcome the habit yet.”

“If they don’t learn to adapt, they won’t live to overcome it,” Valiant said shortly as he looked around. “And so much for trainin’ the others to use their talent. We’ll have to do what we can with what we’ve got, but we need an organized plan of defense. Is Meerk likely to be in shape to help us?”

“I seriously doubt it,” Lorand said with a headshake. “Jovvi told me he’d be confused, disoriented, and unsure of himself for a while after she released him. It looks like we’re on our own.”

“But our own is a good deal better than nothing,” I pointed out, taking a deep breath as I straightened up. “Someday I might tell you what being alone can be like, rather than being one of a group. Since we are a group, I’m not worried about what will happen. Whatever they try, we’ll be able to handle it.”

“That’s the way I feel,” Lorand agreed with a small but actual smile, looking first at me and then at Valiant. “Well, we’ve all been wondering what our Blending might be able to do against more than just another Blending, and now we’re about to find out. If we end up disappointed, it won’t be for long.”

Valiant made a sound of distracted but amused agreement, and I also felt the same. Those guardsmen in the process of surrounding us weren’t likely to let us live if they won, so our losing would definitely not be a disappointment to us for long. I realized I ought to be upset over the possibility that I might die soon, but I wasn’t. Living or dying would be done with my groupmates, and that made whatever came perfectly acceptable.

People were already running over to join us, with Rion striding along behind. It looked like he’d wisely handed over the job of alerting everyone to someone else, and now returned to be with us. The babble of questions was rather intense, but Valiant simply waved their questions away with a distracted air. Everyone would be told what was happening at the same time, his refusal suggested, and Lorand was unavailable to ask as he had gone back toward the barn to see about Jovvi.

One of the new arrivals had the bad judgment to grab my arm in a demand to know what was happening, but he snatched his hand back quickly enough when I put a few flames under it. Then he had the nerve to look shocked, so I shook my head at him.

“Are you really too stupid to understand that we’re all getting ready for a fight?” I asked, annoyed over how wounded he looked. “You don’t touch people in that sort of frame of mind, not unless you don’t mind getting hurt. You already know everything we do, so just stand there and keep quiet. Once everyone is together, we’ll decide what to do first.”

More than that one man heard what I said, so they busied themselves pestering each other with questions rather than bothering us. People were still running over when Lorand and Jovvi came out of the barn, and when they reached us Jovvi shook her head in answer to Valiant’s unasked question.

“Alsin will be all right, but he can’t help us now,” she said with a sigh. “His mind is busy healing itself and rearranging the ideas which had begun to obsess him, so his military knowledge is out of reach. I touched our sentries and made them hurry back here, so they’ll be with us in just a few minutes. Is anyone else missing?”

We all looked around to check on that, but even Lidris had left his cooking fire to find out what was going on. Once the sentries got back we would all be there, to discuss what to do against the people who were after us. My touch on the power fought to keep my mind and thoughts hardened, but one of the things Lorand had said kept ringing in my head: there were at least a hundred of them. All told, our side had barely more than twenty-five. If those hundred or so linked up, would that make up for their not being High talents?

And how much help would our twenty be to us? Enough to let us win against four times our number? The day was becoming really nice and warm and sunny, but a sudden, invisible cloud brought a definite chill with it.

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

“We won’t wait for the sentries,” Valiant suddenly decided aloud, quieting the babble of voices with the tone he sometimes used to use aboard ship. “Even on horseback it will take them a few minutes to get here, and those are minutes we can’t spare. As all of you should know by now, the guardsmen who were chasin’ after us are now tryin’ to sneak up on us. There are about a hundred of them, and they’ll be here in about twenty minutes. Does anyone have a plan of defense they’d like to suggest?”

“We have to talk to them,” a man in the back of the crowd said in a very … assured tone of voice. “We’re all High talents here, after all. Once we explain that and they understand clearly what they’d be facing, they’re certain to change their minds. They aren’t stupid, after all.”

“No, stupid isn’t the proper word for them, just as it isn’t for you,” Valiant said, again overriding the babble. “You don’t want to fight, so you’re searchin’ for reasons why they won’t fight. What you’re not takin’ into consideration is the fact that their wants aren’t at all important, not when they have their orders. They’re supposed to capture or kill us, and if we don’t surrender that’s exactly what they’ll try to make happen.”

“Then we have to surrender,” a woman said, also sounding completely reasonable. “If we don’t give them a reason to kill us, they’ll have to take us back for a trial or something. That’s better than trying to resist uselessly, so—”

“Woman, you are stupid,” another male voice interrupted, sounding completely out of patience. “Have you already forgotten those bodies we found hanging when we first got here? What do you imagine those small children and infants did to cause themselves to be killed? This probably won’t be the same group coming after us who did that to the farm families, but they are being sent by the same people. If you want to bet your life on their being reasonable, I don’t.”