Soldier’s Boy could read the magic as clearly as if he were witnessing the events with my eyes. Blades, iron blades, had cut and torn the magical barrier around Kinrove’s encampment. Like knives through silk, they had shorn his protection away. Iron was moving toward the pavilion at a deadly pace. Soldier’s Boy already felt it burning against him. Kinrove looked about in consternation. “We are under attack!” he announced to his people. “Arm yourselves!”
But he was already too late.
Through that barrier had swarmed Dasie’s followers. They came at a run. She could not quick-walk them all; she was not that strong. And those that were bearing iron, her magic could not move at all. But she did not need many of them. Half a dozen armed warriors suddenly strode into the pavilion. They moved like hunting cats through the chaos. Their copper-bladed weapons caught the light and flashed as each took up his position.
Her strategy was well planned, and her warriors knew their roles perfectly. They rushed in, and in an instant, each Great One was being menaced with a blade. Feeders and servers shouted and shrieked in horror. Folk attempted to flee in all directions. Tables were overturned, dishes and food went flying, and Kinrove’s own guards were hampered by the panicked mob as they struggled to reach his side. “Take her prisoner!” Kinrove shouted at them, even as he struggled to master the man and the blade that threatened him. A young man with a gleaming copper blade sprang at Soldier’s Boy. Olikea and Likari pressed close to me, and in a matter of moments, Soldier’s Boy had summoned his magic to protect them.
I saw the warrior menacing us react. He gripped his sword more tightly and leaned on it, as if hoping that the magic that held him back would give way for just an instant. Soldier’s Boy’s heart was pounding with effort. We both knew that if his shield of magic gave way, that sword would sink straight into his chest. Including Likari and Olikea in his sheltered space demanded a great deal of effort. I could feel the magic being consumed as his effort burned it away. He spared a quick glance for Kinrove.
With a greater reservoir of magic at his command, Kinrove was almost in control of the situation. With a pointing finger and a clenched-fist gesture, he’d forced his attacker to his knees. The man, his eyes dazed, seemed intent on trying to plunge his blade into the wooden floor of the pavilion. Soldier’s Boy shifted his gaze sideways. Jodoli and Firada were safe but under siege as we were. For her part, Dasie was using her strength to keep Kinrove’s warriors at a distance from her. Sweat stood out on her face. Four men, each bearing a large flint blade, had surrounded her. They pressed toward her but could not reach her. Her feeders had drawn knives of their own. They were back-to-back, outside her circle of safety and unhampered by it. Kinrove’s guard had chosen not to close with them. I read in that their inexperience. For too long, they had counted on the Great One’s magic to protect them all.
“Come take this man prisoner! Leave her for me to deal with!” Kinrove commanded them. His attacker had succeeded in wedging his blade into the floor. With an addled expression, he was trying to shove the blade still deeper. Kinrove’s guards looked relieved to be given a simpler target. They moved to close in around the man, and I dreaded that at any moment I’d see him slain. Kinrove turned his eyes toward Dasie. She met his gaze. Slowly he lifted both his hands, open palms toward her, and then began to bring them together as if he were squeezing something. I heard her make a strangled sound, as if she expended great effort. His moving hands slowed and then halted. Without touching, they struggled against one another.
Despite the threat that menaced us, Soldier’s Boy’s eyes were drawn to watching her. Dasie trembled suddenly and I thought all her defenses would give way. Then she suddenly took a deep breath, threw back her head, and gave a wild cry as if she had thrown all her resources into one blow. Kinrove flinched, shook his head wildly, and then hung his head, panting. His hands fell to his side. One of Dasie’s feeders laughed aloud, a hoarse triumphant sound.
Before Kinrove could recover, I heard a sound I’d never expected to hear in Speck territory. I knew well the clatter of hooves. I put the pieces together quickly. Dasie’s reinforcements had arrived. The force that she could not quick-walk down to Kinrove’s encampment had just charged into Kinrove’s encampment on horseback. And they bore iron, lots of iron. Soldier’s Boy could feel it.
We heard wild cries of confusion outside, shouts of angry men and shrieks of terror. The flap of the pavilion was torn loose and six armed Specks raced in. Each bore one long sword and carried a second, shorter blade of iron. The motley collection of armor they wore would have been laughable, if not for the impact of the iron. The shock of the metal near stunned Soldier’s Boy. He felt as if the air in the place had been torn asunder by an explosion. A man with an iron sword swiftly replaced the fellow who had threatened us with a copper one, and handed his extra blade to the first man. He waved the weapon at us and I felt Soldier’s Boy’s magic shield literally fall to threads. In that instant, I expected to die, but the warrior merely rested the tip of the blade against my breast. That was enough. Just the presence of the metal made it hard for Soldier’s Boy to breathe.
The presence of iron in the room disrupted all magic. The balance of power in the pavilion shifted until a blade was menacing every Great One in the pavilion except Dasie, while four were pointed at Kinrove. Dasie’s two feeders still flanked her, flourishing bronze blades. They quickly moved her and her chair as far as they could from the iron without taking her out of the pavilion. Her brow was furrowed and her breathing seemed labored, but undoubtedly she was in a better situation than the rest of the Great Ones.
Kinrove was pale and his lips puffed in and out with every breath he took. Not one but the tips of four iron blades touched his flesh. It was quickly apparent to me that all of his feeders and other hangers-on were accustomed to relying on his magic for defense. They gawked, stupefied, as if expecting that at any moment Kinrove would seize control of the situation. But, confronted with the iron blades that could end all his magic as well as his life and physically unable to defend his own person, he could barely sit up and was gasping in shock at his own predicament. His eyes darted wildly, taking in the situation, but he gave no orders. Perhaps he had no breath to spare.
Outside, the wild clatter of hooves continued as more and more horsemen arrived. More stunning than the sound of horses being drawn to a halt outside the pavilion was the event that followed it. The music, the ever-present din that had pressed against my ears and body since we arrived at the encampment, rattled to a halt and then ceased. There were shouts of confusion outside and cries of fear and anger. Suddenly the tent flap was torn away and one of Dasie’s lieutenants shouted to her, “We have halted the dance, Great One! We are already in the process of finding those stolen from our kin-clan. Are you in command inside the pavilion?”
“I am!” Dasie called back to him. “Proceed as we planned. Fight only if anyone resists you. Even then, refrain from killing if it is possible. Enough of the People have already been killed for this dance. I do not wish the blood of my own people to be on my hands.”
As the young man strode away, Dasie spoke to those of us still inside. Her voice shook at first, but as she went on, she seemed to gain strength. “As you have heard, I do not wish to harm anyone. All I want, at this moment, is to free those stolen from their lives to dance for Kinrove. If everyone does as we say, all will go well. None of the People will be injured. Resist, and Kinrove may die. I do not want to be pushed to that extreme! So, all of you, please move over and stand near the tables of food. Go now. Go. Yes, I mean all of you, feeders included. Your Great Ones will have to manage for themselves for a short time.”
I watched her through Soldier’s Boy’s eyes. I could see that the iron bothered her; it bothered Soldier’s Boy even more, for the heavy blade hovered not a handspan from his heart and the man who held it was flinty-eyed and smiling. Yet, “Go. Obey her,” he told Olikea, and when Likari clung to him, whimpering, he shook the boy free and said harshly, “Take him with you.” Olikea seized her son by the shoulder and steered him away. The boy looked back over his shoulder, agony in his eyes. Soldier’s Boy couldn’t as much as nod to the boy. The presence of the iron was a crawling sensation, as if stinging ants swarmed over his entire body.
I assessed our chances. “If he lunges at you, move to the right, drop to the ground, and roll. It may buy you a few moments. He doesn’t hold that weapon as if he knows how to use it.”
I offered him the thoughts and felt his irritated response: “I see no advantage to being stabbed while rolling about on the ground as opposed to sitting in a chair. Be quiet. Don’t distract me now.” He was focusing every bit of his self-discipline to remain still and not react to the stinging of the iron. He had begun to sweat. He’d used magic to defend himself and already his body was clamoring for food to replenish it. He pushed his hunger aside.
I took his advice, mostly because I had no other ideas to offer. Dasie had risen from her throne. She stalked the room, her feeders to either side of her. She took short, savage puffs from a pipe, and puffed the smoke from her lips in explosive little bursts. I think she listened, as I did, to the confusion of sounds from outside. There were shouts of joy and also wild weeping and a clamor of questions as her men sorted through the dancers looking for their stolen loved ones. She walked over to me and stood behind the shoulder of the man who held the sword. Her eyes were not kind. Earlier she had urged Kinrove to kill me. I had no reason to think she had changed her mind. She had said she did not wish to shed blood. I wondered if her forbearance would extend to not shedding my blood.
Kinrove suddenly spoke. His hands were still and his words seemed to lack power. “You. You are not of Dasie’s kin-clan. You are Clam Grounds clan. Why are you here, obeying her orders?”
He asked his question of the young man who menaced him with a sword. I could not see the warrior’s face but his voice was steady and calm as he replied, “I am here to fetch my sisters home to our kin-clan. I would follow any Great One who offered me the opportunity to do that.”
Dasie abruptly turned aside from me and strode up to Kinrove, stopping well away from the iron. “I have tried to tell you and you would not listen. Do you think it is only my kin-clan who are heartsick for their stolen ones? No. Our weariness of your futile magic extends through many kin-clans. When we leave, our relatives go with us. I do not think you will have enough dancers left to protect your pavilion, let alone work your great magic. If you are wise, after we depart, you will let the others go back to their homes. Perhaps with that act you can buy yourself some goodwill from those your magic has so long betrayed. Perhaps once you have freed those you enslaved, you will no longer need to use the magic of the People to shield yourself from the People’s anger.”
“I, a betrayer? What of yourself, Dasie? Do not you and your magic belong to your kin-clan? Yet here you are, with a mongrel horde of followers, rising up against the People. By what authority do you do this? Your kin-clan gave birth to you. They have poured their resources into making you great. You should care first for their interests rather than making this grand grab for power you are not capable of wielding.”
She laughed. “You think that is what this is about, Kinrove? You think that I seek to tear you from your dais and take your place? I care nothing for the power you wield. I do not want to be what you are. My care is for the People, and not just the folk of my own kin-clan, but all who have been forced into slavery by your dance.”
“Again, you fool, it is not I who have called them to dance but the magic! Will you defy the magic?”
“I will defy your magic! Each one of the folk that I rescue will be given a little necklace of iron chain to wear. You will not be able to summon them back! Show him, Tread.”
At her command, one of the warriors menacing Kinrove lowered his sword. With his free hand, he pulled the collar of his leather shirt open to reveal the little iron chain he wore around his neck. “Your magic cannot command me, Kinrove,” he said quietly.
Kinrove’s eyes seemed to bulge from their sockets and his face grew red. “You, a Great One of the People, will pollute us with iron? Do you know what you do, bringing that foul metal among us? Do you know how you will cripple your own magic as well as all magic to follow you?”
Dasie lifted her arms and slid back the sleeves of her robe to expose her pale arms. The folds of flesh on her arms hung slack and empty. “I know what iron costs me! For the past month, I’ve lived with iron! I’ve known its burn every day. And I know what magic costs. I’ve consumed nearly all I had simply to come here and take back from you what belongs to every member of the People. If you manage to kill me before I depart here, it will still have been worth it, Kinrove. I would not mind dying if my kin-clan remember me as the Great One who chose to use her magic to free them from you! Even if I had to use iron to do it.”
“You think you’ve freed our people?” Kinrove dragged himself upright, closer to the menacing blades. He drew in a deep breath with difficulty. I think only his anger gave him the strength to go on. Before my very eyes, he seemed to be diminishing. “You are selfish and stupid, then. You’ve killed our people. You disrupted the dance. Without the onslaught of the magic, the intruders will find their wills again. Do you think they will wait until spring to attack our trees, to come into our forest to try to find us and destroy us? No. By this time tomorrow, their iron will be biting into our trees. Our ancestors will be falling, and the invasion of our forest will have begun!”
“The winter will hold them at bay!” Dasie asserted. “That is why I chose to act now. The cold and the snows will immobilize them. We have time, not much time, but some. Time to rally ourselves, time to take up arms and move against them in a way they will understand. How many years have our people danced, and danced in vain? The intruders haven’t left. And they won’t, Kinrove, not while all we do is dance fear and discouragement at them. The fear and discouragement, they have lived with and battled. It has not made them leave. They will leave only when they know that if they stay, they will die. That is the dance they will understand.”
Kinrove’s voice thickened, and I was surprised to see the glitter of tears in his eyes. “You have killed us all, Dasie. You do not know the Jhernians. They are like stinging ants or angry wasps. You can kill one or you can kill a dozen. You can kill a hundred. But so long as the hive exists, more will come. And they will be angry. I sent them a magic they did not understand, and for years that held them back. If you go to kill them with weapons, yes, that will be a war they will understand. And it is a war they are very, very good at waging.”
Dasie scarcely seemed to be paying attention to him. I think the demands of her body had temporarily overwhelmed her. I could not even imagine how much magic she had burned to accomplish this. I do know that Soldier’s Boy watched her with avid envy as she walked over to the food tables. She took food from the dishes there and ate, without discrimination or grace, but with only the drive to replenish herself. It reminded me of a horse drinking after a long day’s ride. She made a brusque gesture at one of her feeders, and he quickly filled a pipe for her. He held it for her, and from time to time she took it from him, pulling long draws from the pipe in between mouthfuls of food. For a time, an odd silence held in the pavilion. From outside the pavilion, we could hear chaotic voices, shouted commands, and occasional cries of joy.
Soldier’s Boy kept as still as a small animal hiding in deep grass. He glanced over at Jodoli. Sweat was running down the sides of his face and he looked ill. His eyes were glassy and his mouth hung open. He looked back at Kinrove, who was weeping openly now.
Dasie turned away from the table at last. She looked around at us all. In her two hands, she held a round of dark brown bread. “What should I do with you?” she asked Kinrove. “I do not wish to kill you. I think that if you will agree to leave off this mad dance, you could still be of great use to your kin-clan. And even more use to me, if you would help me. But I don’t know if I can trust you. I thought of making you swallow a little pellet of iron, or shooting some into your body. I’ve heard that can destroy a Great One’s magic completely. I don’t wish to do that to you. Or to Jodoli. But I have to be sure that neither of you are plotting against me behind my back. If you will not help me, I at least need to know that you will not hinder me.”
“You have destroyed my dance.” Kinrove drew a deep, shuddering breath. “My dance is broken. I will need whatever magic I can rebuild to save my own kin-clan. You have condemned the People. I will not have the power to save them. But I will do what I can to keep at least my kin-clan safe.” He struggled for another breath. Almost reflexively, he glanced toward his feeder, Galea. She stood, hands clasped before her, her face tensed in an agony of fear for him. He took another breath. “Dasie, I will not hinder you,” he said quietly. “I will not permit any of my kin-clan to hinder you. By the magic, I swear this.”
“Put your swords away,” she said quietly to the men who surrounded him, and they sheathed their weapons. She glanced at Galea. “You may tend to your Great One,” she told her, and the woman snatched a bowl of food from the table and raced to his side. Other feeders followed her, surrounding Kinrove, wiping the sweat from his brow with cool, damp cloths, offering water, wine, and delicacies, and all the while exclaiming with dismay at how his magic had been drained by the iron.
Dasie had turned her attention to Jodoli. “And you?” she asked him severely. “Will you try to stop me from what I must do?”
Jodoli was not without his pride nor did he lack intelligence. His head had sunk forward onto his chest. Sweat ran freely down the sides of his face and his robe was drenched with it. He rolled his head back on his shoulders and looked up at her as she stood over him. His eyes were horribly bloodshot. “Can you believe,” he wheezed out, “anything a man says when a sword is at his chest?”
She stared at him. Then she made a curt gesture, and her warrior moved the tip of his blade away from Jodoli’s chest. Jodoli’s breathing eased but he still said nothing to her.
Dasie did not have the stomach for it. She gestured angrily at the feeders and servers who huddled still along the wall. “Come to him! Bring him water and food.” Then she turned back to Jodoli. “I ask you, by the magic, to tell me the truth; do you intend to hinder me in any way?”
“What could I do to stop you?” he demanded of her. “I have seen far more of the Jhernians than you have. Like Kinrove, I think what you do is madness. You will stir up the hornets’ nest and all of us will be stung. I think I will do what Kinrove does; I will do all I can to protect my own kin-clan, and hope that the rest of the People can care for themselves.”
Despite being at her mercy, he spoke to her as if she were a small, selfish child. His disdain was not lost on her. “When I have driven the intruders away,” she said to him through gritted teeth, “then I will send for you. And you will come to me and thank me and beg me to forgive you for how wrong you were. I think you may be surprised, when I put out the call for warriors ready to defend our lands, how many of your folk will answer that call. Many of us are sick and weary with waiting and waiting and waiting for someone to drive them away.”
I thought he would be wise and keep silent. Firada was at his side now. She held a cup to his lips and Soldier’s Boy watched enviously as he drank deeply. When he lifted his face from the cup, he drew three deep breaths. Dasie had started to turn away when he spoke to her. “They have always come to our lands, Dasie. The intruders are not newcomers here. Go to the elders if you do not believe me. Dream-walk to the oldest of your kin-clan and ask. Always they came, at high summer, to trade with us. In times past, before they built their Gettys Fort, we let them come into the mountains and some even journeyed as far as the Trading Place. How else do you think they came to know of it? It was only when they tried to build their road through our Vale of Ancestors that we had to stop them. If you kill the intruders, even if you kill every one of them at Gettys Fort, do you truly believe no more will come? Can you be so childish, so simple as to believe that killing them will drive them away forever?”
Anger froze her face into a grimace. She leaned forward to glare down at him. “I will kill as many as I can kill. And if more come, then I will fight them, and I will kill them. And if others come behind them, then I will kill those others. How many can there be? Eventually, they will stop coming. Or I will have killed them all.” She lifted her gaze from Jodoli and turned it on me. “It isn’t that hard to kill them. I’ll show you. I’ll start with this one.”
She stalked toward me like a heavy-bodied cat intent on prey. The iron sword pointed at my chest still held Soldier’s Boy immobile, not with its threat so much as by virtue of the metal. Sweat ran in trickles down my back and side. He felt light-headed, dizzy, and nauseous, and yet Soldier’s Boy focused on marshaling his magic against the iron. His reserves were dwindling dangerously. Both Olikea and Likari had ventured out from the line of servers and feeders still herded up against the wall. Olikea looked both angry and frightened. As Dasie strode toward me, Likari broke away from his mother with a shout and ran to stand between the advancing mage and me. He looked at the iron sword, sensing the terrible toll it was taking on me, and then spun back to face the oncoming woman, panting with terror.
She scarcely spared him a glance. “Out of my way, boy.”
“No. Stop! He is our Great One! I am his feeder. I cannot allow you to kill him. You will have to kill me first!”
He didn’t speak it as a threat, but merely as a statement of what all knew to be true. Any feeder would lay down his life to protect his Great One.
She stopped. “Step away from him, lad. He has deceived you. He is not of the People and he doesn’t deserve your loyalty, let alone your death.”
“You are wrong.” Soldier’s Boy panted out the words.
“Be silent!”
He ignored her command. “Kill me, and you go against the very magic that made you what you are.” He did not speak the words smoothly, but gasped them out, a few at a time. I could taste blood at the back of his throat. He could not resist the iron much longer. “You throw aside a tool, a weapon, crafted by the magic. If you kill me and then go to do battle with the intruders, you will lead your warriors to slaughter. They will fall, by the dozens, by the hundreds. The intruders will be angered against you, and they will bring thousands against you. Without Kinrove’s dance to hold them back, they will flood up like water rising from an angry river and fill your forest with death.”
“Be silent!”
“You threaten us with iron! Where did you learn that? Do you think they will not shoot iron into your body and destroy your magic? Do you think that the People will survive when the Plainsfolk did not? The intruders defeated the Plainspeople with iron and with bullets, and if you wage war in the same way they did, then you will meet the same fate.”
Her fury built with every word he gasped out. She swelled like an angry cat as she stood before us. She seemed to be groping for words or perhaps for the surge of will to murder him.
He spoke quietly, a whisper now, fading with his strength. “But I know how to drive the intruders back. That’s why the magic made me. It takes a stag to know how to defeat another stag in a battle of clashing antlers. No matter how brave or strong, a seal cannot fight that way.” He drew a breath and swallowed with effort. “I know how to turn their own ways against them. Kinrove’s dance cannot stop them.” He paused, drew breath. “You cannot kill enough of them to stop them.” He panted, drew a deep breath. The world was black around the edges. “But I know how. Don’t kill the only Great One who knows—” His words spiraled away and his head wobbled on his neck. Blackness closed in around us. I could not see, and the sounds I heard came from far away. My hands and feet tingled and were gone. Soldier’s Boy was unconscious, and I was cut adrift from my body’s information in a floating blackness.
That shrill keening was probably Likari. A woman was shouting, and possibly it was Olikea, but it might have been Dasie ordering Soldier’s Boy to tell whatever secret he knew. I could still feel the iron; it was dangerously close to us. I wanted to flee this body, go to Lisana for help, dream-walk to Epiny, do something, but both his magic and his physical strength were so depleted that I was trapped there. Trapped and aware, while he was blissfully unconscious of the imminent death that hovered. I waited, torn between anticipation and dread, for the iron blade to rush into my chest. I didn’t want death; but in the moments before he had collapsed, Soldier’s Boy had threatened me with the only thing that seemed worse right now: complete dishonor. He had offered to become a traitor for Dasie, to turn my knowledge of my own people against them.
Time changes when one is deprived of one’s senses, but not one’s consciousness. I felt as if I spent years in that hellish suspension, torn between hoping he’d die and fearing he’d live and condemn me to be a traitor. Hours passed, or perhaps days. In a desperate bid for my honor, I tried to take my body back, but had no idea of how to do so. I could not feel my hands, my feet, could not open my eyes. I could not feel my heart beating or time my own breathing. A terrible thought came to me; perhaps he had died, but not taken me with him. Perhaps his part of my mind was gone and my body already stilled and starting to stiffen, and I’d been left behind in the unlife that wasn’t a death, either. If I’d had a mouth or lungs, I would have screamed. Instead, I did something that surprised me; I prayed.
Not to the good god, but to the god of death and the god of balances. I prayed to the god who had demanded of me either a death or a life. “Come and take me now!” I begged him. “Take this, death or life as it may be, and be satisfied. I give it to you freely.”
There was no response, and in my boundless darkness, I wondered if I had just committed a blasphemy against the good god, and if this was what it meant to be godless.
How much time I passed in that state, I will never know. I do know that, before Soldier’s Boy awoke again, I sensed him there with me. He coalesced around me, and for one brief moment, I thought I’d be able to take him into myself and become whole again, on my terms. I was very still, afraid that if I roused him in any way, he would resist the process. Slowly I began to sense my body again. My head ached and whirled. I could see nothing and sound was just a formless roar around me, like the surf I had listened to earlier that day. My hands and feet tingled strangely. I felt my fingers twitch against the fabric of my robe, and that rasp of flesh against thread was, after my deprivation, the most heady sensation I’d ever felt. I pressed my hand against the weave, treasuring the contact, but in that moment, Soldier’s Boy became aware of me. By a means I could not sense, he wrested control away from me.
“You have no right!” I railed at him as we floated together as prisoners within the body. “I was born to this body and it belongs to me! You would use it to turn me into a traitor to my own people. How can you do that? I do not understand you. How can you be so dishonorable, so false?”
His response shocked me. “Do you think that I don’t recall my boyhood in the Midlands? Do you think I was not born into this body as surely as you were? You cannot think I came suddenly into being when Lisana made me hers? No. I was always a part of you. She peeled that part of me free of you, and gave me my own life, my own will, my own experiences, my own separate education. But she did not create me from nothing. Do you think I don’t recall Father and his ‘discipline’ and endless requirements? Locked from the instant I drew breath into being his ‘soldier son,’ separated from all else so that he might convince me it was the only thing I could be. How could anyone forget that? How do you manage to forget it? Why are you still his puppet, still the obedient little soldier that your people made you be? You say you do not understand me, because I look at what was done to me and resent it. I cannot understand you, because it seems all you long for is to return to that servitude. You would be the game piece of a king who has never seen your face, no matter what injustice or abomination you must commit in his name.”
For a moment, I was speechless, shocked at the bitterness and anger in his voice. Stunned, too, that he could accuse me of longing to be a puppet and a tool of tyranny. A moment later I marshaled my own indignation. “What of you? How are you different? If Dasie takes you at your word, you will be killing people who only ever offered you kindness. How can Spink or Epiny deserve your anger? How can the prisoners deserve to be attacked by you and driven back west? What righteousness is there in that?”
“The Specks were here first! And their forest stood long before your fort. This land is theirs. The intruders must be driven out. I but side with the people who were here first.”
“Then perhaps I should side with the Kidona. Did not they have the foothills before the Specks ever ventured down into them? Were not the Specks the ‘intruders’ then into the Kidona lands? How far back shall we go, Soldier’s Boy, to decide who is right here?”
“He’s waking up. Quick, water, but not too much!”
The voice was Olikea’s, right by my ear. I was suddenly aware that I was lying on my back, and my head was cradled in the softness of her lap. I could feel her warmth, and smell the good smell of her body. A moment later, my head was lifted and I felt liquid lap against my lips. Soldier’s Boy parted them, and moisture came into my mouth, and with it, sweetness. My body became a single surge of hunger, of thirst. Mindless, Soldier’s Boy sucked at the liquid and a moment later recognized it as fruit juice. He drained the cup, gasped, and then forced a word from my lips. “More.”
“Slowly. Go slowly.” Those words were to me. Then, “Refill the cup. Quickly!” That command was given to someone else, probably Likari. He’d opened my eyes, but shapes and colors seemed to whirl and blend rather than resolve themselves into sensible images. He closed them again. The cup came back, and with it my sense of smell. It was a thick apple juice, spiced and warmed, and this time he drank it more slowly. It helped but my whole body was still in distress. Things simply felt wrong inside me, far beyond the horrible hunger that chewed at me. I’d come as close to dying as a man could and still step back from the brink, I decided.
“Can he speak yet?” The voice that demanded an answer to that question belonged to Dasie.
“You nearly killed him. Can you expect him to speak so soon after such damage? Look at him! The skin hangs from the bones of his face. It will take me weeks to rebuild him to where he can eat with pleasure, let alone wield any power.”
Soldier’s Boy coughed and then cleared his throat. It took all his will to drag in his breath, and something more than mere willpower to send it out as words. “I can speak.” He opened his eyes again. Light and darkness swam and mingled, shadows formed and suddenly Dasie’s face was looming over his. He shut his eyes and turned away from her, sickened by the memory of iron.
“You said the magic made you for a reason. That because you have been one of the intruders, you know how to drive the intruders out. You said it was not by Kinrove’s dance, nor by my fighting a war as they fight them. But what else is there? Tell me, now, unless it was all just a trick to keep me from killing you.”
The liquid Soldier’s Boy had swallowed seemed to have fled my mouth. Likari hastened back with another cup. I could smell it and Soldier’s Boy could not keep my eyes from being drawn to it. But Dasie’s outstretched palm denied the boy access to me. Soldier’s Boy could not think of anything at that moment except the cup of lifesaving moisture, just out of reach.
“Speak!” she commanded Soldier’s Boy and I felt a feeble spark of his temper.
He tried to clear his throat and could not. He rasped out the words “If…a trick…stupid to…abandon now.”
Anger flared in her eyes. She had pushed him too far. “Then I’ll just kill you now.”
He coughed. His throat was thick, as if he’d been ill for weeks. “That’s your…answer for everything. Kill it. Better kill me then. You don’t have patience. For strategy.”
“What strategy?”
He shook his head. He could barely lift his hand but he pointed a trembling finger at the cup Likari held. His lips remained closed.
Dasie gave a snort of disdain. “Very well. Your ‘strategy’ seems to be that you will keep silent until I allow you food and drink. I shall. Because I know that at any time I need to do so I can kill you. You will keep. Right now, I have other things to attend to.”
She straightened up and looked around. In that moment, she looked to me more like an officer assessing a situation than a Speck mage. She spoke to her feeders. “Bring me fresh food and drink. I have need of it. Necessary as the iron is, it still leaches strength from me to be around it. Have all of the swords put safely away, except for two. I wish a man with a sword to remain here, at an appropriate distance from Kinrove. He should be aware of the iron while taking no harm from it. The same for Intruder Mage here. He”—and she gestured toward Jodoli—“may leave as soon as his feeders have him ready to travel. I go now to speak to all the dancers. Those of our kin-clan will travel to our winter grounds with us. Others who have saviors among our warriors may go with them. But I want everyone enslaved by the magic and forced to dance to know that they are now free, and that if they require help to return to their own kin-clans, we will give it.”
Olikea held a piece of soft bread to my mouth. It had been dipped in oil and honey. As Soldier’s Boy chewed, my body rejoiced at the sweetness. Strength from it came into me.
A young warrior had been standing by one of her feeders as Dasie spoke, obviously waiting to report to her. The moment her words paused, he made an obeisance to her and then said, “Great One, we have already given that news to every dancer. We have told them they are free to go, and that if they need help, we will give it. But some of them—”
“Some of them will stay with me. And dance again. Because they have felt what they are doing and know what they are doing is within the design of the magic.”
The interrupted warrior made another brief obeisance. “Even so, Great One,” he said in confirmation of Kinrove’s words.
“You have twisted their minds!” Dasie accused him.
“The magic has spoken to them,” Kinrove countered. He still rested on his dais. Several of his feeders stood near him, offering food and drink. He handed a cup back to one of them, drew a shuddering breath, and spoke. “The dance is the work of the magic, Dasie. How can you think it comes from me? The magic has always spoken to me in dance, that is true. When I was younger and less filled with the magic, I danced myself, danced until my feet bled, because that was when the magic spoke most clearly to me.” He accepted a cup from one of his feeders, drained it, and handed it back. He spoke more strongly. “To each of us, the magic comes in its own way. My dance is not something I created to enslave our people. The magic gave me the dance as a way to hold the intruders at bay. And it has worked.”
“The dance must not be stopped.” I had not known that Soldier’s Boy was going to speak. I was as startled as Dasie was. Firada had Jodoli on his feet and they had begun to help him out of the pavilion. At my words, he froze and looked at me strangely. I gave an emptied cup back to Olikea. Likari was trying to hand me a piece of fruit. Soldier’s Boy made a small gesture with my hand, bidding him wait. He drew a deep breath and tried to put strength into his words. “The dance protects us. That shield must not be dropped now. It will take time for me to prepare my war.”
Even that brief run of words had tired Soldier’s Boy. Olikea handed him a cool glass; it was not water, but a very pale golden wine. He drank from it and felt some energy come back. I alone knew of Soldier’s Boy’s hidden flash of anger at what Dasie had done to him. She had drained him of the magic he had so painstakingly built up. Drained it to no good ends when it was what they all would need most in the weeks to come! But he let nothing of that show on his face as he gave the glass back to Olikea. All eyes were still on him. He knew the power of his silence and was not quick to end it, despite the anger kindling in Dasie’s eyes. He tipped the glass again, draining the last of it, and handed it back to Olikea. “I need meat,” he said quietly. “And the mushrooms that have the orange circles inside the stems. And dried cirras berries. Fresh would be better, but I do not think anyone will have those.”
“I will get them,” Olikea replied in a low voice, and rose from her place beside him.
“You seek to rebuild your magic reserves,” Dasie accused him.
“As should you. As should Kinrove and Jodoli. It will take all the magic that we can muster if we are to prevail against the intruders. But the first magic that we will require is that Kinrove reconstructs his dance. The intruders are resilient beyond your imagining. Even a day or so without fear and sadness, and they will rekindle their ambitions to cut the trees and build their road. The magic I did before I left there will occupy them for a time. And the winter snows will slow them. But I know them, Dasie. Without fear and sadness to weigh them down, they will push onward, in any weather, to achieve their aims. You need Kinrove’s magic to keep them corralled like herd beasts. It will be greatly to our advantage if they are huddled within their town and fort when we move against them.”
“No!” I shouted within him. I could feel his thoughts forming. Something Epiny had said long ago drifted through his thoughts. “Fire fears no magic.” He smiled. “No!” I cried out again, but it was not my voice he heard.
“Like corralled beasts,” Dasie said slowly. She licked her lips as if she were thinking of a favorite food. She took a slow breath. “You do have a strategy. Don’t you?”
He let the smile reach his lips and widen. “I do,” he confirmed. The memory of the coppersmith’s tent drifted through his mind. “But you will need me for it to work. And I will need my magic. Even more, you will need what I have that is not magic. You will need the knowledge I have that can work in places where iron makes magic fail.”
She was silent for a time. Her feeders, her warriors waited on her words. Inside Soldier’s Boy, my agony burned me. Traitor, traitor, traitor. Kill him now, I begged her. Do not listen to him. Just kill him and let it be done.
“You shall have it. For now. You shall have your magic, and I will have my iron always near you, at the ready. If I think you have lied to me, at any time, I can kill you. Remember that.” She glanced at her own feeders. “Bring his feeders food. Whatever he wishes.” Her gaze moved to Kinrove. “You. I will leave with you whatever dancers wish to remain. Use them as they wish to be used. But any who wish to leave, I will allow to leave. I go to speak to them now. When I return, we will take counsel together, we three.” She smiled. “The intruders will be banished from our lands. Or they will die.”