Prophecy (15 page)

“You said them furriners wusn’t gonna be here this soon!” Mollit Feldin shouted at them as soon as he was close enough. “Half th’ town’s burned, an’ it’s all
yer
fault!”

“You can stop that right there,” Lorand countered in just as loud a voice, looking at Feldin with disgust. “Since you’rethe one who insisted there wasn’t danger of any kind coming, you have nothing to complain about. You’rejust as much of a fool as you’ve always been, Mollit, and if you’rethe one leading these people, you can lead them right back out of here.”

“No, Lor, he ain’t leadin’ nobody,” Idroy Welt said quickly, giving Feldin the same sort of look. “We din’t even want ’im comin’ in with us, but he shoved in anyways. Just don’t pay ’im no mind, but I’d be obliged if’n ya told
me
: what in the name a th’ Highest Aspect
wus
all that?”

“Those people are from
our
army, and they’rerunning away ahead of the Astindan army,” Lorand explained, doing as Welt said and ignoring the now-sputtering Feldin. “Some of them aren’t very nice, but we have them under control now. Nothing else will be burned because of
them
, but that doesn’t mean the town will stay untouched. There have to be other groups like them, and after the groups will be the Astindan army.”

“So we don’t have nowhere’s as much time’s we thought,” Welt said with a nod while his neighbors paled and muttered to each other. “Don’t know ’bout nobody else, but I’m gettin’ packed up t’night an’ leavin’ with first light. My woman’s got kin somewheres in th’ east, so us an’ th’ kids’s headin’ out. Your bunch gonna stick around a while longer?”

“We’realso leaving in the morning,” Lorand replied with a headshake, which comment silenced the people behind Welt. “We’ll appreciate being able to take as much food with us as possible, as we’ll be quite a few in number. We’rewilling to pay for the food, and selling it to us will be better than leaving it behind to rot.”

“Ain’t nobody in this here district gonna charge you nothin’ fer th’ food,” Welt said belligerently, turning to scowl at his neighbors. “This town’d be ashes if your bunch gave back what you been gettin’ frum us, so I don’t wanna hear nothin’ different. Ever’body’s gonna bring what they can’t carry ’n use themselves. Ain’t that right, men?”

“We’ll see t’ it,” one of the group said quietly, the others nodding in the same way. “We feel shamed fer th’ way we follered th’ babble Mollit kept spoutin’, like none a us got minds t’think with. Men git stupid when they git scared, folks say, an’ now
I
c’n say I know it’s true. But it ain’t gonna be true no more.”

“Is there anyone who’s willing to stop at the surrounding towns and spread the warning?” Lorand asked after nodding soberly at what the man had said. “Whoever goes may well get the same reception we did, but with pieces of the army running around ahead of the Astindans, the danger is a lot closer and more immediate than it was.”

“When they sees us passin’ through in smaller r’ bigger groups an’ not stoppin’ t’argue, they oughta know it ain’t no joke,” Welt said after taking a deep breath. “If’n they don’t, they c’n stay ’n find out like we done, th’ hard way. Well … gotta leave now ’cause I got things t’do, so I’ll jest wish ya luck wherever yer goin’. Got a feelin’ ya’ll need ’er…”

Welt let his words trail off as he held out his hand to Lorand, and Jovvi was able to feel Lorand’s disturbance as he took the hand and shook it. The other men—except for Mollit Feldin, who had stalked out of the stables a pair of moments earlier—also came forward for handshaking, and for a wonder Jovvi and Tamrissa weren’t excluded. Jovvi’s hand was pumped more gently, though, and then the group of men left.

“Alsin is working with the guardsmen and our own people,” Lorand said after the men had gone. “He’s organizing rest for those who haven’t had any, and food for the new segments we just brought in. I think he also ought to be put in charge of the food that will be coming, and that’s something we can use the Low level talents for: keeping the food fresh as long as possible. It won’t be easy feeding almost five hundred people on the way to Gan Garee.”

“It also won’t be possible to move very fast,” Tamma pointed out. “I think we ought to leave them all to come at whatever rate of speed they have to use, and go on ahead alone. We can use the time to … look around while they’recatching up.”

“Whether or not that’s a good idea depends on what we’ll be … looking at,” Rion pointed out dryly. “It isn’t likely that our enemies won’t have large groups of guardsmen waiting to pounce on us, not to mention other things we won’t have thought of. We won’t have the strength to handle all that alone, so why, dear lady, should we put ourselves in jeopardy for no reason?”

“Rion’s right,” Vallant said, once again looking directly at Tamma—who was deliberately not returning the look. “Headin’ out alone would be foolish, and we’ll be doin’ enough foolish things without needin’ to search for more. If we take things one step at a time, we may even live to take care of other matters once this business with our enemies is over.”

Tamma made no response to that, partly because, as Jovvi could tell, she knew that the suggestion had been less than practical. Jovvi wanted to speak to Tamma, had been wanting to since they returned to the stables, but Lorand’s sudden and intense inner stiffening took her attention. When she turned to look at him she saw that he was staring toward the front of the stables, where a husky man stood partly in shadow. The man, who wasn’t one of theirs, was alone, and Lorand stirred where he stood.

“It … looks like I have a visitor,” he said softly to Jovvi without taking his gaze from the newcomer. “Will you walk over there with me?”

“Of course,” she replied at once, slipping her hand into his. Lorand was both reluctant and eager at the same time, which meant the stranger had to be his father. He’d felt the same exact things in the meeting hall, where the man had first shown up.

Lorand’s fingers closed gently but firmly over hers, and then they walked together toward his father. The man actually came forward a few steps into a patch of lamplight, and when they reached him his gaze was locked to Lorand’s.

“Wasn’t gonna come here, but felt I hadda,” the man said, sounding as unsure as his emotions showed him to be. “When you left—when I throwed you out—I knowed I wus right ’cause you wus jest gonna throw away th’ life you shoulda bin usin’ fer yer fam’ly. Now… Now I c’n see you had somethin’ more waitin’ on you, an’ I shouldn’t never have—done whut I did. Jest needed t’say I’m proud a you, boy, comin’ back after gettin’ whut you said you wus gonna. Me an’ yer Ma an’ th’ boys is headin’ out now, ’cause I went back home soon’s I heard whut you had t’say. It took half th’ town burnin’ t’make them fools see reason, but I knowed th’ truth soon’s I heard my boy say it. We’s gonna be awright—thanks t’you.”

Jovvi knew Lorand wanted to speak, but the lump in his throat kept him from doing it. He released Jovvi’s hand to step forward as his father did the same, and the two men hugged in that half-embarrassed way men sometimes have a habit of doing. But they didn’t hurry, and when they finally parted they were smiling at each other.

“Now then, boy,” the elder Coll said with a hoarseness that suggested a smaller but similar lump to the one Lorand had had. “I gotta be leavin’ soon, but first you gotta let me meet this here beautiful lady. You two holdin’ hands fer a reason?”

“Pa, this is Dama Jovvi Hafford, the Spirit magic member of our group,” Lorand said, and Jovvi had no trouble telling how carefully he chose his words. “She and I love each other, and if we happen to survive what we have ahead of us, we’ll probably be married. I—wasn’t going to mention that part about surviving, but I think you have a right to know. It won’t be easy, but for everyone else’s sake as well as our own, we have to try. A man shouldn’t have to slave all his life to make profits for people who never lift a finger to help.”

“Ain’t thet th’ truth,” Coll muttered, his expression now troubled. “It also makes a man say stupid stuff, ’cause he’s afeared he won’t have help enough to do what he’s gotta. But it ain’t worth yer life, boy, not t’
my
way a thinkin’. You watch yer back—an’ this here lady’s back—an’ when it’s all over you come home an’ bring yer lady. Yer Ma’ll wanna meet ’er”

The two men hugged again, and then the elder Coll turned to Jovvi for a hug. She gave him one, relieved that the big man did nothing but squeeze her carefully for a moment, and then he turned and left. He looked back once when he reached the exit, and then he was gone into the night.

“I have to admit I never expected him to do that,” Lorand said softly once his father was gone from sight. “Not come here to speak to me, and not believe me so completely that he’s already ready to leave. It’s fairly clear that I misjudged him.”

“You just didn’t know what pressures he was under,” Jovvi pointed out, moving closer as Lorand put his arm around her shoulders. “And he didn’t understand the need driving
you
. Now the two of you see things a bit more clearly, so everything will be fine—assuming we do survive.”

The only reply to that was the sigh Lorand gave, so they turned and went back toward the stalls that they would use to sleep in. They all needed sleep rather badly, because the morning would find them starting back to Gan Garee for real. And come to think of it, Jovvi decided that leaving
before
dawn might be the best idea. With all those other people who would be fleeing the town, the road would be more crowded than they would be easily able to ride through.

Jovvi voiced her own sigh, knowing she would have to pass on that idea before she could sleep. And those who stayed up arranging things while everyone else slept… They would have to be given places in the food wagons so that they, too, might get some sleep once they were all on the road. There were so many things that would have to be taken care of… Maybe Tamma had been right to suggest that leaving everyone else behind would be the best idea. But no, that just wasn’t practical. There might be a practical compromise, but Jovvi was too tired to think about it. Tomorrow… Tomorrow would have to be soon enough…

CHAPTER TWELVE

“That was really very delightful,” Kambil heard Selendi say as they all took chairs in Kambil’s private meeting room. “I feel less tired now than I did before we began.”

“It was more than just delightful,” Bron said in partial agreement after sipping at the tea he’d taken. “It added to my strength in a way I never thought was possible. It’s really a lucky thing you found that journal, Kambil.”

“And I, for one, would like to know what else it contained,” Homin said, also looking fully satisfied. “If the rest is anything like drawing from link groups, we all need to know about it.”

“And you all
will
know,” Kambil said with strong approval for their enthusiasm. “Drawing strength from link groups is only the first, most all-around useful trick I discovered, and easily explains how our adversaries overcame all those guardsmen we sent against them. Once they freed those first segments from the caravan, they had
their
strength to call on.”

“But the caravan contained strong Middles and Highs,” Homin pointed out, now faintly disturbed. “We used members of our palace guard, who are mostly Lows with a few ordinary Middles. If we gained so much by drawing on low grade link groups, how much more are our adversaries gaining?”

“Actually … not as much as we did,” Kambil said, breaking the news to them with a grin. “The journal spoke about using single link-groups, and said that that wasn’t as effective as using link groups arranged in tandem, the way ours were. When you hook in a second group after the first, you get more than double the strength from the arrangement. But you have to know the proper way to hook them in, or you get a jumble instead of additional strength. Unless our adversaries have read the journal—which I strongly doubt—they don’t know about that particular trick.”

“What a shame!” Bron crowed out with a laugh, Selendi and Homin joining him in his amusement. “They don’t know about the trick, so they can’t use it. What else aren’t they likely to know about?”

“Well, there’s the matter of how vulnerable our bodies are when we’reBlended,” Kambil said after sipping at his own tea. “I discovered more than one way around that problem, and the first is relatively simple. Instead of stopping at a distance from where we want to be and sending our entity out ahead, we move ourselves in close and let our entity stand guard over our bodies. That way nothing can get past it to harm us.”

“That’s so obvious, we should have seen it ourselves,” Homin said after blinking in surprise. “It goes against our instincts to stay out of harm’s way, though, so that’s probably why we missed it. But can’t our link groups protect us, as well as feeding us additional strength?”

“That’s another simple way, but not the best,” Kambil agreed with a nod. “If we use our link groups as buffers between us and any danger and something happens to them, we also lose our extra strength. After thinking about it I believe I prefer a different way, the way suggested by the writer of the journal. He said that once we practice a bit with the tandem link groups, we’ll discover that we can …
project
an image of ourselves in a place other than where we are. Our enemies can fight like madmen to reach our poor, vulnerable bodies with the intention of destroying them, but it won’t do them any good. They’ll have reached an illusion, and we’ll be somewhere else entirely.”

The others laughed aloud again, the idea as enjoyable to them as it was to him. But there were other things they needed to discuss, so the laughter would have to wait until later.

“I’ve ordered a celebratory meal for tonight, so let’s save any further discussion of this topic until then,” Kambil said, causing the mirth to wind down and dissipate. “Right now I’d like to hear about the chores I’ve assigned to you, a report on the progress—or lack thereof—that you’ve made. Bron, will you begin?”

“Certainly,” Bron agreed, sober again. “The army in Gracely has been recalled, which at first annoyed its commanders no end. They were making more than adequate progress, with little or no opposition. I made sure that they weren’t told about how strong the Astindan army is supposed to be, just that they would be a punitive expedition sent to assist our forces—who aren’t being capably led. I think they began to preen when they heard they were to punish the leaders of
our
force as well as the upstart members of the Astindan force. That secretary was right when he said the commanders of the Gracely force felt slighted and insulted that they hadn’t been given commands in Astinda. They’ve already crossed the border back into the empire, and they’remarching directly west.”