41

“I AM FOR this,” I told Rushton, for a swift probing had told me there were horses in a corral just behind a clump of trees.

For a moment, our eyes met.

“Yes,” he said. “But, Elspeth, we have to do more than win this with speed and grace. We won the last game, I am sure, but we have to show some aggression. It sounds as if these Sadorians value that in the rebels, and we’re losing because of it.”

“I’ll try,” I said.

When Rushton named me to Bram, Malik named himself.

We were brought to the small herd of beasts I had farsensed and bade to choose our mounts. Malik immediately selected a huge gray gelding with intelligent eyes. He had clearly chosen the most powerful beast, but a race among horses sometimes had more to do with endurance than strength. I paused for a moment and swung myself into the corral to walk among the other horses.

I beastspoke at random, asking who was stronger and faster than all the rest. Suddenly I found myself face to face with the little mare Faraf, whom I had aided at the city gate the day I arrived at Sutrium.

“Greetings, ElspethInnle,” she sent. “It seems our paths are twined. As you see/discover, my escape did not bring me to the freerunning barud.”

“You were captured?”

“Yes, and sold to these. As funaga go, they are not bad/evil. Yet I dream of the freerunning.”

“Choose,” Malik snarled impatiently.

Ignoring him, I explained my need to the mare.

“The other/funaga has taken the strongest among us. But you had better choose me, for I am small and not strong,” she advised.

“Why? Will the strong/wise other let us win? My need is very great.”

“He would if I ask it, Innle, for he knows what you are. But they will feed us a garrug/a leaf that some call prickleberry. It causes a madness that infects/burns the brain. Better to ride a weak mad horse than a strong one.”

I bit my lip to keep a smile of triumph from my mouth as I led Faraf out.

Malik looked down at the slender mare incredulously, but a servitor merely offered us a choice of saddles. The rebel chose a great solid armored thing with sharp metal spurs. On Faraf’s advice, I took one that was light and deep-seated. I chose the simplest bridle but removed the metal bit. When we were brought back to the isis pool, a space had been cleared, and Jakoby explained what Faraf had already told me. We would get onto the horses, and they would be fed the prickleberry, which would madden them temporarily. We would sit on them until the drug took effect. When one of us was unseated, the game would be ended.

“This weed will not kill the horses as it did the bear?” I asked, trying to recall what I knew of prickleberry.

Jakoby’s brows lifted. “The bear did not die from the garrug. Its heart was weak and burst under the strain of battle.”

The shadows were long now, and I prayed this game would end the day. If we won, it would leave both sides equal, and perhaps that was the best way to win this fight.

“Courage,” Faraf sent as I mounted her. The saddle felt stiff and hard against my backside, and the metal stirrups pressed my feet uncomfortably. A servitor brought a nosebag, and as Faraf ate, a thought came to me of how we might further impress the rebels.

“Faraf/littlesistermind, if you will let me into your thoughts/open to me, I can block the effect of this leaf so that it will not madden you.”

“I will open, but already it begins to affect me.”

This was true, for her whole body was already twitching. I sent a probe into her mind and examined the effect of the prickleberry. It moved swiftly, but I was faster, blocking nerve paths and sending it by innocent trails to the bowel, where it would be voided. Still, some of the drug remained in her system, so I took control of her nerves and immobilized her completely.

Gradually, the trembling faded, and she stood quietly.

Malik’s horse, meanwhile, was pacing about, shuddering and shying at nothing. The rebel’s face was pale, and he held the rein cruelly tight, ready to saw on the horse’s mouth the minute it tried anything.

Without warning, the animal gave a shrill whinnying shriek and reared up.

The sound tore at me, and I tried to get to Malik’s horse to ease him off. But the drug had taken hold, and his mind was inaccessible. The horse plunged and bucked violently, but the rebel kept his seat. He was a superb rider.

He gave me a look of patent fury, and I read his intention a moment before he kicked his horse into a maddened run—straight at me!

I could do nothing to move Faraf out of the way, because I had shut down her nerves. As Malik thundered past, the saddle spikes cut her neck and my leg deeply.

The horse bucked in a circle as Malik fought to bring him around. Then he charged again.

“Stop!” I screamed as this time the metal spur tore open the little mare’s flank. I was trying frantically to restore her motor responses, but the drug was preventing me.

Again Malik fought his mount to turn it, and as he bore down on me, I saw that he meant to kill me if he could or to cut Faraf to pieces under me. The spikes missed, but he dug the horse with his heels and it kicked out, catching Faraf on the side of her head.

Blood streamed down her face, and she staggered sideways in a hideous parody of the first time I had seen her. He turned again.

“No!” I screamed, and threw my leg over her to slide to the ground. “I forfeit!”

There was a roaring sound in my ears, and my leg felt oddly numb, but I turned to slide my arms around the mare’s bloody neck.

“I am sorry, ElspethInnle. I have failed you,” she sent humbly.

“Never,” I whispered, looking into her eyes. I kissed her soft nose and limped with her back to the pens. I did not look at Malik, who had jumped clear of his horse.

“There is nothing to be said since this game was forfeited,” Bram said when we were all assembled again.

“Ye did th’ right thing,” Fian whispered angrily when I returned to them. Freya nodded and squeezed my arm. But I was not comforted. If only I had possessed the presence of mind, I might have coerced Malik, but fear for Faraf had stopped me thinking clearly.

I dared not look at Rushton.

Bram rose to throw again. The fifth game was named “Song,” and the number of players from each team was two. We could not lose, and yet it was now impossible for us to win.

“A song! This is a joke,” Malik snarled.

“I told you, the Battlegames test many qualities. Proceed, unless you would forfeit,” Bram said tranquilly.

The two red-faced rebels Malik chose sang a bawdy battle song, probably the only one they knew.

In contrast, Miky and Angina’s song dealt not with the glory of war but with the tragedy of it. It was an old song that told of two boys—brothers separated at birth and sent to war against each other. Only when one had killed the other did they understand what had come to pass. The song was supposedly a dirge, sung by the surviving man over his brother’s body.

I had heard the song before, but never like this—never with such rending sorrow. Empathised, it became something greater and deeper than a song about two brothers. It became a song about all wars. I wept for the pity of two brothers, lost to each other until it was too late. But I also wept for my own brother, Jes; for Jik, Matthew, and Dragon; for the gypsy Caldeko; and for the nameless rebel who had broken his back on the pole. For all the victims of hatred and war.

And I was not alone. Kella and Freya and Dameon wept, but many of the Sadorians wept, too. Even some of the rebels wiped their eyes surreptitiously as Miky sang the final words: “Will there ever be a time when war does not kill the babes and the dreams of the world?”

When the final notes faded, the sun set in a dazzling golden haze, and it seemed to me that the radiant sky itself paid homage to their voices. Malik stood dry-eyed and contemptuous as Bram rose to speak, dabbing at his eyes.

“The rebel song offered humor, and this is a fine thing to bolster a warrior’s courage,” he said. “But the Misfit song is greater, for it reaches into the very soul of a warrior and causes him to question himself.”

“What does it matter that a song brings tears to the eyes of the weak and the womanish? Will it win a battle?” Malik demanded.

“A song will not wield a sword of metal, my friend,” Bram said softly. “But it can put a sword into the heart that will never rust or blunt. It can cause warriors to fight when good sense bids them surrender, raise an army, or quell the tears of a babe.”

He rose and lifted his arms.

“The sun has gone, and the Battlegames are ended.”

“Who won, then?” Malik demanded.

Bram cast a cool eye on the rebel.

“Impatience is not the least of your faults, Malik. It is a kind of greed, and someday it may see you undone.”

He cast his eyes about to take in rebels, Sadorians, and Misfits alike.

“I have been asked to judge these Battlegames. I tell you now that this is not merely a matter of tallying points but of examining how each game was played. Sometimes this makes the judging difficult, for what seems a simple victory may be deemed less of one in light of our purpose.”

My heart swelled in sudden hope.

“In this case, however, the judging is a simple matter,” he went on. “The games were staged to determine who were the greater warriors and whether the Misfits and their unusual powers were worthy of alliance. The answer is that the rebels are clearly far more fitted to warfare than the Misfits. They have shaped their souls for aggression and quicken to violence as a gravid mare quickens with new life. The rebel legions, if they are truly represented by these men, are made for battle. No instinct of mercy would restrain them, no compassion stay their hand, no love of beauty keep them from destruction. The Battlegames have shown them to be swift, decisive, ruthless, and resourceful. They are filled with the warrior’s desire to dominate and subdue.

“As for the Misfits, if they are truly represented by these before me, they are no warriors. They care too much for life and for one another. They are not stirred by the glories of war, and the shedding of lifeblood brings them sorrow, whether it be of beast or human, friend or foe. All their instincts are for defense, and so their great powers are all but useless in the cause of war. They are not cowardly or weak, but their minds appear incapable of allowing their great powers to serve them as weapons.

“Witness that they used the incredible ability that they call empathy to its greatest effect in a song, rather than to turn their enemies’ hearts to terror. They will never have the rebels’ single-mindedness of purpose, nor, therefore, their driving force, because they cannot see things in terms of simple goals.”

He turned in the dead silence wrought by his oratory and faced the rebels. “We here in Sador value the earth above all life—humans and beasts alike are short-lived and unimportant. This you know. We have thought that Landfolk valued their own lives too much, regarding themselves as the chosen of their Lud. But these Misfits seem to value all life, and this is strange for us to contemplate. But think you this: You rebels opposed alliance with the Misfits, because you thought them monsters and inhuman. Ask yourselves now which team has this day shown the keenest humanity and which has shown itself to be more monstrous.”

The old man paused; then he said in a voice drained of all vitality, “I declare the rebels the victors of the Battlegames.”

The rebels cheered, but there was a puzzled, halfhearted edge to the sound. Malik’s face was thunderous as he moved to join the other rebel leaders and receive their congratulations.

Rushton turned to us, looking much older in that moment than I had ever seen him.

“The old man’s judging was fair,” he said.

I stepped forward to tell him that if I must be like Malik to be a warrior, then I would not be a warrior, but my leg buckled under me. As I fell forward, Rushton opened his arms to catch me, but I slipped through them into the abyss.

I dreamed I was bound to the Zebkrahn machine and my legs were on fire.

I dreamed of the Agyllian healer, Nerat, telling me she would teach my body to heal itself.

I dreamed of a red-haired woman drowning in an ocean of blood, of Swallow raising a sword to salute me, of Ariel searching for me down long tunnels.

I dreamed of Maruman telling me I would lead the beasts to freedom, and of walking on the deck of The Cutter, watching the ship fish dance.

I dreamed of Rushton waiting at the doors of Obernewtyn and of Freya in his arms.

I dreamed of a shining river that called my name.

“Do not go into the stream, ElspethInnle.”

“Atthis!” I sent. “At last you speak to me.”

“I have spoken often through the yelloweyes and the dreaming-woman you call Maryonfutureteller.”

“Why did you never speak to me?”

“Because the H’rayka would hear. He flies the dreamtrails. He listens to hear what I will say so that he may thwart me/us/you.”

“Can he not hear us now?”

“He would not dare come so close to the death/dreaming river for fear that it would swallow him. And so it might, for you are perilously close. You must come back from the edge now. I am holding you, but my strength fades.”

“I like it here. There is no pain, and it sings to me.”

“It is not yet your time to hear this song.”

“Then why am I here?”

“A bloodpath in your leg was severed during this testing called Battlegames. You bled near to death. They have stopped this, but you are too close to the stream. Your body has learned to heal itself, but it cannot do so when you are so close to the stream. You must draw back if you would live.”

I felt a great wrenching pull to return, but I fought it. I was not sure I wanted to live.

“What you feel is the spiritcall of one who would have you live, ElspethInnle. Go back and let yourself heal, for the world has need of you. Go back, or the H’rayka wins. Go back, or the beasts will never be free.”

I felt the pulling again and wondered whose spirit held me so tightly. Curious, I let myself be drawn away from the stream by it.

“Who are you?” I called, but there was nothing, only a roaring sound in my ears. There was a long rushing darkness, and then I opened my eyes.

A monster peered at me. I screamed and fled back to the darkness.

I opened my eyes and Kella smiled at me.

I opened my eyes and Dameon touched my cheek.

I opened my eyes.

I was lying in bed in a dark, cold room. Beside me sat the hooded overguardian.

“You are in the Earthtemple, Elspeth Gordie,” said the voice from within the hood. “You have slept long.”