By dawn, I think we were resigned to what should have been obvious from the start. We were bound together. One might dominate over the other for a time, but neither of us would ever willingly surrender to the other. Our loyalties conflicted, but at least Soldier’s Boy could take comfort in the fact that I did not wish to see the end of his people and their way of life.
I had no such consolation to fall back on. In this, I felt he was more my father’s son than I was. He saw his plan as a military necessity, the lone remaining solution to driving the intruders away from the ancestral trees. My sole weapon to hold him back was that without me, he could not reach Lisana. That seemed a feeble weapon to me, but it was all I had. So we sat together, two men confined to one body, each possessing an ability the other desperately wanted.
He dared to try to bribe me. “Don’t fight me. All I ask is that you don’t try to fight me. And in return, I will see that when we negotiate the peace, it will be the Burvelle family who is named as being in charge of trade with the Specks. Eh? Think on that. It will be a rich monopoly for the family.”
I was silent, insulted that he would even offer a trade for Epiny, Spink, Amzil, and the children’s lives. Trying to bribe me to accommodate his treason.
He felt my fury and shame rose in him. Shame is not a good emotion for a man to feel. It makes him angry as often as it makes him sorry. Soldier’s Boy was both. “I was only trying to make you see that I don’t intend you to have such pain. Yaril is my little sister, too, you know. I’d like to see our family prosper.”
“I will not found my family’s fortune on the blood of our own. And have you forgotten that Epiny is my cousin? Also our family, and as close as a sister to me. And Spink is like my brother. Or does not that matter?”
I felt him harden his heart. “I will do what I must do.”
“As will I,” I told him stubbornly.
Silence fell between us, but he did not try to banish me.
As the thin gray light of winter poked its fingers in through the small cracks round the shuttered windows, he rose. A wakeful feeder started to stir, but he made an impatient gesture at the woman and she lay back on her pallet, obedient as a hound. Soldier’s Boy could walk quietly for such a massive man. He found an immense wrap, large as a blanket, draped it around his shoulders, and went outside to meet the day.
There had been snow and wind in the night, but the storm seemed to have blown itself away and the day was warming. The snow would not last. A light breeze still stirred the higher branches of the trees outside Lisana’s lodge. Drops of water fell in sudden disturbed spatters when the wind gusted. In the distance, a crow cawed and another answered him.
To my gaze, the area outside the lodge had changed. Soldier’s Boy gave it no attention, but I disliked it mightily. The placid dignity of the forest was gone. Winter had visited. A thin crust of icy snow clung to the tops of the low-growing bushes and frosted the moss in the untrodden areas. It lay only where it had drifted down between the higher branches, making an uneven pattern on the forest floor, a negative template of the canopy overhead. But amid that loveliness, paths had been worn through the moss and ferns, and branches broken back to permit easy passage down the trail to the stream. To either side of Lisana’s lodge other less sturdy lodges had been built. The newer shelters looked raw amid the ancient forest. As always happens near human habitation, the litter of occupation was in evidence here. The smell of wood smoke and cooking was in the air. Soldier’s Boy walked a short distance to an offal pit behind the lodges, relieved himself, and then made his way to the stream. Overhead, a squirrel scolded and then another. He paused and looked up to see what was disturbing them.
Something landed in the higher branches of the trees. Something heavy, for it disturbed a lot of raindrops, and as they fell, they disturbed others below them, resulting in a cascade of droplets to the forest floor. Soldier’s Boy stared up, trying to make out what it was. With a sinking heart, I was sure I already knew.
“Orandula.” I spoke quietly in the back of his mind. “The old death god. The god of balances.”
He had craned back his neck to peer up into the treetops. I saw a brief flash of black and white plumage through the branches. Another shower of drops fell as whatever it was shifted position. Soldier’s Boy dodged the falling water.
“Why is the god of death also the god of balances?”
“I don’t know why he’s the god of anything,” I replied sourly. “Don’t talk to him.”
“I don’t intend to.”
The god dropped abruptly from the trees. Wings wide, he landed heavily near the stream bank. He waddled toward the moving water, only a bird, and dipped his head on his long snaky neck to drink. Soldier’s Boy turned and walked back toward Lisana’s lodge. My heart misgave me.
I was not quite to the door of the lodge when the summoning came. I don’t know what I had expected it to be. I didn’t think it would be what it was, a simple impulse to stand a few moments longer in the early light of a winter day. The wind stirred the trees, a bird called, and the loosened raindrops pattered down. In response, I stepped sideways, hopped, turned, and came back to the path. It felt wonderful.
I heard something else then, something that was and was not a part of the ordinary sounds of the forest. It was a deep, soft rhythm. I could not perceive the source of it, but I found myself stepping easily to its beat. As its tempo increased, so did my pleasure in it. I had forgotten what a joy it was to dance. Or perhaps I had never before felt the joy of dancing. It didn’t matter. Had I thought my body large and ungainly? A foolish notion. None of that mattered. There was a dance inside me, making itself known to me. It was a dance that was made for me, or perhaps I had been made for the dance. It was a dance that I wanted to dance forever, to the end of my life.
Around me, other dancers were emerging from the lodges. I scarcely noticed them. I was scarcely aware that I shared a body with Soldier’s Boy. Did he move the feet or did I? It did not matter. I was caught up in my dance, and how fine it was to be dancing on such a wonderful morning. I swayed, I turned, and I had taken a dozen steps down the path when I heard an agonized call from behind me.
“No! No! Do not give in to it. Refuse the dance! Do not go to Kinrove’s dance. Refuse. Still your body, plant your feet on the earth. Do not enter the dance!”
Her words were an icy shower down my back. Soldier’s Boy jerked and twitched and then, by a great effort of will, broke free of the dance. He did as she had told him. He planted my feet on the earth and willed my body to stillness. It was more difficult than it sounds. The dance shimmered around me. It told me that I danced even when I did not. My breath was the dance, my beating heart was the dance, the morning wind was the dance, even the stray raindrops that tapped down on my face were the dance. The summoning spoke so sweetly; it was all I needed, it said, all I had ever wanted to do. Had not I longed for a simpler life, a life free of worries and tasks? All I had to do was come, come to the dance.
I do not know how Soldier’s Boy resisted. I could not. I wanted to dance, but he leaned forward, over my belly, his hands on my thighs, and stared at my feet, commanding them to be still. I heard Olikea still shouting. Someone rushed past me, capering in wild joy. Another went less willingly, shouting angrily, but dancing away all the same. Distantly I was aware of the croaker bird cawing. It was an avian laughter, and as the bird flew off, it faded into the distance until it sounded like a man chortling. Or choking.
For most of that morning, the dance tugged at me. I had never guessed that the summoning was so insistent or that it lasted so long. Some who had held firm against it at first gave way to it later in the morning, and went cavorting down the path. Olikea continued to shout her warning at intervals. Soldier’s Boy spared her a glance once, to see that she had actually lashed herself to a tree and clung to it as she shouted.
I had known summer days on the prairie when the chirring of insects was a constant, morn to night, so that after a time one could not hear them. Then, abruptly, they cease, and one remembers what silence truly is.
It was like that when the summoning stopped. For a long moment, not just my ears, but my lungs and belly felt abruptly empty. Soldier’s Boy staggered where he stood, and groaned as my legs tingled and burned from my long inactivity. He straightened up. His head spun for a few long moments, and I feared that he would fall. He took deep steadying breaths and suddenly the world was solid again. I knew that he was completely back to himself when the first hunger pang assailed me. It was nearly noon, and Soldier’s Boy had neither eaten nor drunk since the night before. “Olikea!” he called, desperate for his feeder.
She didn’t answer. Soldier’s Boy looked around me, more cognizant now. Several of his feeders sprawled on the earth where they had fallen. Resisting the summons had taken all their strength. Olikea, still bound to the tree, sagged against her bonds, weeping. She gripped the trunk of the tree as a child would cling to its mother. “No,” she was sobbing. “No, no, no. Not again. Not again!”
Soldier’s Boy went to her as quickly as he could manage. It was startling to me to find out how weak he could feel after a single morning’s fast. Obviously my body had changed in many ways under Soldier’s Boy’s ownership. His hands were gentle as he set them on her shoulders, kinder far than he had been the night before. “It’s all right, Olikea. I’m here. I didn’t give in to the dance.”
She let go of the tree only to clasp her hands over her mouth. She rocked back and forth in agony. “Likari!” she managed to say at last. “Likari has gone! I tried to catch him but he tore himself free of me and danced away. And I, I could not unfasten the knots. A great bird followed him, squawking and cawing, as if it, too, must answer the summons. Oh, Likari, Likari, why did not I bind you last night? I did not think the summons would come so soon. Always, I have heard that the feeders were not called. I thought we were safe. Oh, Likari, I thought you were safe! Being a feeder is supposed to make one safe from the summons to dance!”
Soldier’s Boy was struck dumb with horror, as was I. A terrible hollowing began inside us, a dawning of loss that emptied us both and then filled that gap with guilt. Likari, my little feeder, snatched away from me by the very summons Soldier’s Boy had urged. And the bird that had followed him? Orandula, the god of balances, keeping his promise or his threat. Was he taking Likari’s life or his death to pay my debt? The result was the same, whichever he called it. The boy was gone from us. What a fool Soldier’s Boy had been!
Dasie had warned him. Even without Dasie, Olikea’s story of her mother’s snatching should have been enough to make him see the danger. He had not only permitted Kinrove to send this summoning against his own kin group, he had encouraged, no, demanded it. He looked around at the other feeders who were only now rising from the ground. Soldier’s Boy knew them by name. Four were gone: Eldi, Hurstan, Nofore, and Ebt. How many others had been stolen from our kin-clan? How many others mourned as Olikea mourned now? As he mourned now?
Olikea had collapsed against her bonds. She had used a long wrap to tie herself, something that she had snatched up as she left the lodge that morning. It was woven of very soft yarn, and she had pulled and strained against it until the knot had become a single solid ball of fiber. Soldier’s Boy could not get it undone any more than she could.
“Someone bring a knife!” he shouted over my shoulder, unreasonably angered that no one had already done so. He tried to care that the other feeders were probably as disoriented and perhaps devastated as we were. He couldn’t. Likari was gone and it was his own fault. “I’ll follow him. I’ll bring him back,” Soldier’s Boy promised her limp form. Olikea had sagged down as far as the ties permitted her to, and now was staring off into the distance, her face slack. “Olikea. Listen to me. I’ll go after him, I’ll bring him back. It will be all right. By tonight, he’ll be back at the hearth with us.”
Sempayli came and with a bronze blade sawed through the stubborn fabric. Soldier’s Boy was glad to see this feeder remained to him. When the fabric parted, Olikea’s weight carried her down to sprawl on the ground. She didn’t move. “Carry her back into the lodge,” he commanded Sempayli, and the man scooped her up as if she weighed nothing. Soldier’s Boy followed them in and watched as Sempayli put her on my bed. “Sempayli, food and water,” he commanded his man tersely and then sat down beside Olikea’s still form.
“Olikea. Did you hear what I said?”
Only her mouth moved. It was as if the rest of her face were dead. “You can’t bring him back. He went to the dance. He ran to it, he wanted to go. You can’t get him back. He’ll dance himself to death before the winter is out. Didn’t you see his face, didn’t you see the magic burning inside him like a torch? It will consume him from within. Likari. Likari.”
Soldier’s Boy said the stupid words, the same ones I would have said in his place. “But I didn’t think you even cared for him that much.”
She suddenly became even more still. I thought for a moment that his words had killed her. Then her face hardened. She pushed against the bed, sitting up. “What good is it to love anything?” she asked me harshly. “It just goes away.”
He stared at her. Soldier’s Boy was as thunderstruck as I was. Always, I had thought her cold toward her son. We had shared the knowledge that her fondness was only an attraction to the power of a Great Man. She’d seemed a heartless woman, one Soldier’s Boy could deal with only by being as detached as she was. Now she was revealed as broken; she had been broken for a long time. The brokenness was what had made her prickly and harsh.
Soldier’s Boy stood up and spoke sharply to his other feeders. “Bring me food to eat now. And warm clothes and sturdy boots. I’m going after Likari.”
None of them moved. Their eyes shifted, each to another, but no one spoke or sprang to their tasks. “What is it?” Soldier’s Boy demanded sharply.
Sempayli was stirring a pot over the fire. Even he did not turn at Soldier’s Boy’s command.
“They know it is useless. Just as I do. You say you are one of us, you have even marked yourself as one of us, but on these deep things you still think like a Jhernian. You still talk like a Jhernian.”
It was the last thing Soldier’s Boy wanted to hear right now. I felt the rage rise in him that Olikea could insult him so. Then, with admirable control, he forced the rage down and in a controlled voice asked, “Then tell me clearly what it is that I don’t understand.”
“He won’t want to come back.”
“I’ll talk to him.”
“He won’t hear you. You were there, when Dasie came to Kinrove’s encampment. Why do you think she came with warriors and cold iron? Don’t you understand that until she broke Kinrove’s dance, none of the dancers would have wanted to leave? Even after she had broken it and the dancers had come to their senses, even then some preferred to stay. Didn’t you feel the entrancement of the dance? If I had not shouted to you, if you had given in to it, you would still feel the dance running through you.”
“But I did hear you shout. And when you shouted, I knew that in my heart, I didn’t want to go.”
“And that means that the magic was not summoning you to the dance, but only inviting you. And so you could say no. But Likari was summoned. He went because he had to, and so he wanted to go, because once the dance had touched him, he could think of nothing else. Don’t you think that others have tried to keep those they loved from the dance? They have run after them, and carried them back and tied them. It did no good. Still they danced, and they heard nothing from their lovers or their children, and they saw nothing and they would not eat and they would not sleep until they were released to go to the dance.”
Tears had started fresh down her cheeks before she was halfway through her speech. They continued to run as she spoke, and her voice hoarsened. On her last words, her throat choked her to stillness. She stood, silent and empty. Even the tears slowed and then ceased, as if nothing were left inside her.
“I will go to Kinrove and tell him he must release Likari to me.”
“I thought you might feel that way.”
Soldier’s Boy knew who was there before he turned. He had felt the unpleasant tingle of iron against my senses. I knew an iron bearer must be somewhere close, perhaps just outside Lisana’s lodge. Dasie stood in the doorway, a dour look on her face. Yet just for an instant, I thought I glimpsed a gleam of satisfaction in her eyes. Rage rose in Soldier’s Boy, and again he forced it down. He tried for a reasonable tone. “I did not expect that Kinrove would call my feeders with his summoning.”
She raised her eyebrows. “I, too, am surprised at that. But perhaps we should not be. You have not given him many reasons to love you. Perhaps he considered it a sort of justice, to take from you what you had not expected to lose in this gamble.”
“Gamble?”
“Our war against the intruders.” She came into the lodge and advanced to my chair by the hearth. With a grunt of satisfaction, she ensconced herself, uninvited. Her feeders remained standing at the door. Outside, her iron bearer waited. Had she expected Soldier’s Boy to be angry enough that she needed a guard?
“I want the boy back.” Soldier’s Boy spoke bluntly.
Dasie laughed. It wasn’t a cruel laugh; rather, it was the laugh of someone who sees a child finally realize the consequences of his own foolishness. “Don’t you think we all wanted those we loved back? Well, at least you have the power to get him back.”
“You mean, if I go to Kinrove, he’ll give him up?”
“Oh, I very much doubt that.” She motioned irritably at my feeders, and, with the exception of Olikea, it was as if they wakened from a spell. They sprang into motion, adding wood to the fire and beginning the preparation of food. She settled more comfortably in my chair. “As I said, you’ve given him no reason to love you. Perhaps taking something you cared about from you brought him a special satisfaction. I think perhaps you know that he has no children. Seeing you enjoy that young boy as if he were your own—well. Perhaps he thought you deserved to feel the same lack that he does.”
“You knew he would call Likari.”
She cocked her head at me. “I suspected he would try. I had no idea if the boy would be vulnerable or not.”
“You chose not to warn me.” Soldier’s Boy stated it flatly and waited for her response.
“That is correct.” My feeders brought her a platter of food. She looked it over consideringly and picked up a slice of smoked fish. A similar platter was conveyed to me. Soldier’s Boy ignored it, awaiting her response. It finally came, after she had licked her fingers.
“I thought perhaps you should have a higher stake in stopping the dance. And in driving the intruders from our territory.”
“You don’t trust me,” Soldier’s Boy said bluntly. “Likari is a hostage. If I don’t do as you say, you’ll see that he dies.”
She ate another slice of the fish with evident relish. “Now there’s a Jhernian concept. A hostage. Yes, you could see it that way. But it isn’t that you must do what I say. Only that you must succeed in doing what you said you’d do. What you have always been meant to do. If you succeed in driving the intruders away, Kinrove’s dance will no longer be needed. The boy will come back to you. But if you do not—” She picked at the fish, and then took a handful of nuts instead. She seemed to feel no need to finish her sentence.
It had been a hard morning. Soldier’s Boy was hungry and the food at my elbow smelled wonderful. He hated that he could even think of eating at a moment like this, and yet my body clamored at him relentlessly. He refused to look at the platter but could not stop smelling the tempting aromas. The magic nagged to be fed. Soldier’s Boy saw Dasie’s gaze move from my face to the platter and back again. She knew. She knew how he resisted the food and it amused her.
This time, when Soldier’s Boy’s wrath rose, he did not contain it. “Leave,” he commanded her. “Leave now.” A sudden cold wind whirled past the lodge and swept in through the open door.
Dasie looked startled. One of the feeders gave a low cry of fear. I felt the sudden depletion of magic from my body but Soldier’s Boy appeared not to care. The wind grew stronger, colder.
Anger and fear mingled in Dasie’s face. Great Ones did not usually threaten one another with magic so openly. “I have my iron bearer!” she warned him.
“Yes,” he agreed. “You do. And who is thinking like a Gernian now, Dasie?” The sweep of wind came inside the lodge, tugging at her garments. “Leave now!” he told her again. The feeders had retreated to the back of the lodge. Dasie’s attendants glanced about uncomfortably. Her iron bearer entered abruptly, carrying his sword as if it were a gun. It was obvious that he judged its power to be in its touch rather than its edge. He advanced on me, his face grim with determination. Soldier’s Boy set his teeth and spent more magic. Despite the iron, the wind still blew, but it cost him dearly.
“We will leave!” Dasie declared abruptly. “I have no reason to remain here.” She rose with a grunt and strode toward the door. Her iron bearer moved hastily out of her path, putting a safe distance between his weapon and his Great One. Dasie swept out of Lisana’s lodge and her feeders flowed after her. The wind seemed to follow her, pushing her along. After she was gone, one of my feeders scuttled to the threshold and closed the door behind her. We were plunged into dimness and silence. It felt breathless.
For a moment, the food still beckoned. Angrily he refused to heed it. How could the magic be so selfish? His heart had a hole torn in it. Likari was gone. Olikea was, I realized, in a state similar to battle shock. Walking wounded, I thought. She gave the appearance of functioning, but was not.
With an almost physical wrench, I felt Soldier’s Boy wrest my attention to him. “I want to think like a Gernian right now.” His thought to me was harsh. “Make me see clearly. What must I do right now?”
I didn’t need to pause to think. The training of years slid into place like a bolt sliding home in its socket. I hastily rummaged his memories of the last few weeks, orienting myself to his situation. Grudgingly, he allowed this. I was a bit surprised to find that, as a military man, I approved of most of what he had done. As a Gernian, it horrified me.
He’d organized his troops just as if they were a cavalla force. He’d established a rudimentary chain of command. He’d made an attempt at teaching basic drill, but had to give it up. His “troops” could not understand the use of it and simply did not cooperate. They had no tradition of military obedience, and little concept of a graduated hierarchy, and he’d had no time to establish one. He’d had to be content with training them to change locations swiftly when he ordered it. Hardest for them to learn was that they themselves did not decide how to place themselves; they had to wait for his commands. It had not been easy. His troops had flocked mostly to Dasie’s call and came from all the kin-clans. They were supposedly three hundred strong. The reality was that they came and went at their own whim. He’d had as few as one hundred turn out when he called. It was a great weakness and would be disastrous if he attempted an attack on Gettys. But I didn’t intend to support him in that. My own fear was closer to home.
“You need to consolidate your own force,” I told him. “You thought your common enemy was the Gernians. Perhaps it is, but neither Kinrove nor Dasie are truly on your side. They both use you, and each has what amounts to a personal guard, a component of your general force that is absolutely true to them. They will care nothing if you are destroyed in the process of serving them. They may even think it to their benefit if you are.
“The majority of the troops you have been training come from Dasie’s kin-clan. In any sort of a pinch, they will look to her for leadership and also to protect her. There are few warriors that belong to you. Even those from Olikea’s kin-clan do not feel a strong loyalty to you; some may still regard you as an outsider, for you have done little to change that perception. You need at least a small body of men who are yours first. You have very little time to establish it. Sempayli seems to put you first. Tell him to stop being one of your feeders and become your lieutenant.”
“But—”
“Quiet. Let me finish.” I had no time for his doubts or objections. His flaw seemed clear to me. “You’ve been thinking like a soldier, or at best a sergeant. You have to become the general, not a lackey for those others. Once you seize command of the full force, neither Dasie nor Kinrove will know how to take it back from you. Taking the loyalty of the troops and making them obey you are necessities if you are to survive and win Likari back.”
He raised a wall of obstinacy between us, then just as swiftly dropped it. “What do you suggest?” he asked stiffly, making it clear that all choices remained with him. Good. He’d have to build on that to develop the honest arrogance of full command.
“I suggest that you look to your own kin-clan first. Care for them, and they’ll care for you. Send Sempayli to the main village to find out who has been summoned. Get a tally of who has been lost to them. Send someone to Firada, to tell her Likari is gone. Ask her to come and comfort her sister. Send word to their father, Kilikurra. He will want to know his grandson has been summoned. Let your concern be known to your kin-clan. Announce your loss of Likari and let them know that you, too, grieve. Shared loss will bond them to you.”
I felt heartless to exploit tragedy this way. When had I become so shallow? It was, I suddenly thought, a tactic my father would have used. I felt Soldier’s Boy seize my suggestion and run off with it. My sole thought had been to guard his back and Olikea’s against the machinations of Dasie and Kinrove. He leapt forward with it and I suddenly realized my deadly error.
“I will let them know that I suffer alongside them. But I must not let that blossom into resentment toward Kinrove. We will sorrow together, but when it starts to fester into hatred for Kinrove’s magic, I will point that hatred toward the intruders instead. I will say to my warriors, as well as my kin-clan, that there is only one way to have our loved ones returned to us, only one path to resuming our lives of peace and safety. To go back to the days when Kinrove’s dance was not needed, we must muster every man who can stand as a warrior, and together fall upon Gettys and annihilate it!”
“No!” I bellowed the word, furious at myself as well as at him, but he suppressed my anger to a sigh. He spoke fiercely at me, arguing over and against my thoughts, trying to mute me with his own desperate logic.
“Care you nothing for the people who took you in when your own tried to kill you and you had to flee? Why do you think you owe the Gernians anything at all? Do you not fear for what will certainly befall Lisana’s tree? I know you recognized the need to protect our ancestor trees. You even went to Colonel Haren to try to persuade him to stop the road. Have you forgotten his arrogance and disrespect for you? I know it is hard for you, Nevare. In some ways, it is hard for me. But you cannot go back and be a Gernian. Even if I ceded the body to you and you returned to Gettys, they would kill you. Why not let go of your foolish loyalty to a folk who spurned you? Let us live where we are loved. But to do so, we must protect the ones who do accept us and care for us. The People must rise up against the intruders and drive them all out. There is no other way. Many will die, but better that many die and the conflict is finally ended than for the deaths and fighting to linger for generations. I hate what we must do, but there is no other path to peace. I know you want as few to die as possible. My way wins that for both of us. And so you must help me.”
“No.” My refusal was dull and deadened. I could refuse to help him, but I could not stop him.
“I need you, Nevare. Don’t fail the People. You know our war is righteous. Think of Olikea, deprived first of her mother and now of her son. That is the doing of the intruders. Shall we let it happen, over and over, generation after generation? We have to stop it.”
“That was Kinrove’s doing.”
“The intruders created Kinrove. Without their depredations, the magic would not have needed him. It all goes back to the intruders. There is only one way to end all of this. We tried to drive them away with the dance. They would not go. So now we must kill them.”
“Epiny,” I said quietly. “Spink. Sem. Kara. Baby Dia. Ebrooks. Kesey. Tiber.” I pushed my emotions at him. My thought was a whispered plea as I added, “Amzil. What about Amzil? I feel for her what you feel for Lisana. Can you be numb to my feelings for her? Despite all, she said she loved me. Would you wish death on her and her children?”
“Olikea!” he countered. “Likari.” And balancing lives on a scale, as if he were Orandula himself, he said, “We both love Lisana. And she loves us. If the intruders are not stopped, we lose her forever, and we lose forever itself.”
I knew what he meant by losing forever. If the road were not stopped, the Valley of the Ancestor Trees would be destroyed. There would be no tree for him when this body died, and hence no second life with Lisana.
“The price is too high,” I said quietly.
“It is,” he agreed. “No matter which side pays it, the price is too high. But there is no bargaining with fate. Deaths must be paid to buy us peace. Balance it, Nevare. A quick massacre, followed by generations of peace, or the continued erosion of years of gradual killing, the complete destruction of a people and their ancestral wisdom. How can it be difficult to choose? Our attack will be like a surgery, a severing of diseased flesh so that the healthy part can go on living. It is what we must do.”
Then he turned away from me. It was not silencing me so much as it was him refusing to allow himself to hear. There was no point to my speaking. Instead, I was a silent witness to all he did that day. My father would have been proud of him. He was efficient and relentless. The only emotions he allowed to show were the ones that were useful to his cause.
He took my suggestions. In the days that followed, I watched him as he silently implemented his plan. He conferred that day with Sempayli, treating him more like a lieutenant and less like a feeder. At first the young man seemed confused by the change, but before their review of the troops was over, he had begun to offer bits of advice and suggestions. He knew the warriors better than Soldier’s Boy did, and before the day was done, he quietly offered to help sort them into those who truly wished to annihilate the intruders and those who merely hoped to win glory and perhaps plunder. Soldier’s Boy consented to that, and further charged him to select a dozen men to be his personal guard, based solely on skills with weaponry rather than on which kin-clan they belonged to. He also listened to Sempayli when the young man suggested that the troops would respond better to being treated as if they were hunting parties rather than troops marching in formation. I was uncertain of the wisdom of that, for it would create many individual leaders rather than a chain of command, but Soldier’s Boy didn’t consult with me on that and I no longer cared to offer him my thoughts on anything. He might be a traitor but I was not.
When he needed information from me, I refused him, but it was a useless show. I had little success at keeping my barriers raised against him. He could not absorb me, but he raided my memories as he wished for information and military tactics and knowledge. I gained some knowledge of his forces. They were not impressive, but I knew they were not to be dismissed, either. They would not fight us as Gernians fought, nor as the Plainsmen had. As the days passed, Sempayli’s suggestions bore fruit. It was tedious to have a variety of leaders reporting directly to Soldier’s Boy, but he endured it, and began to set small competitions among them, ones that built endurance or emphasized stealth or marksmanship.
I was surprised to discover he had a small mounted force. I had seen the horses that Dasie had used the night she had taken Kinrove down. Now my suspicions were confirmed. They were cavalla animals, some bartered for but most stolen. Some of them were old animals and none of them were in the best condition. The tack they had was very well worn and often in poor repair. Keeping horses was not a Speck tradition, and the forest did not offer good grazing, especially in winter. Soldier’s Boy took it upon himself to intervene in their care and grooming. That was when I discovered to my shock that Clove was among them. Evidently the day I’d turned him loose in the forest, he had not found his way home. The huge beast knew me immediately and came to Soldier’s Boy for comfort. I was glad he gave it, ordering that all the horses be moved to the coarse meadows near the beaches where they could actually graze rather than being forced to browse on whatever they could reach. When he announced that he would take Clove for his own mount, the current owner offered no resistance. I suspected that very few of the mounted Specks enjoyed their new vocations; the dense forest and often steep paths were not conducive to breeding horsemen. Soldier’s Boy wanted to begin some mounted drills, but the open space required simply didn’t exist near Lisana’s lodge. Finding proper grazing was difficult enough; the salt marshes gave them grass, but only of the coarsest sort. With reluctance, he had to give up his hope of a mounted force that could spearhead a swift attack.
As I had suggested, he showed special attention to those warriors who had come from Olikea’s kin-clan, taking time to meet separately with each one of them and to ask gravely if any of their family or dear ones had been summoned to Kinrove’s dance. Every one of them, of course, had lost someone to the magic. Soldier’s Boy made that pain the mirror of his own, and spoke earnestly to them of how their only hope of regaining their lost kin was to give their utmost to drive the intruders from our territories. He urged them, too, to recruit others from among our kin-clan, brothers and cousins and uncles, in the hope of winning our struggle and being reunited with all our lost kin in peace and joy. He rallied his troops with stirring speeches in which he reminded them of all the wrongs the Gernians had done them, and promised them that they would right those wrongs. Over and over, he reminded them that if they fought well in the upcoming battle, they would drive away the Gernians, save their ancestral trees, and put an end to the need for Kinrove’s dance. Every one of them would be a hero to his people. His efforts at making the struggle against the Gernians even more personal succeeded. The force drawn from our kin-clan doubled and then tripled in less than a week.
Such a drawing off could not escape Jodoli’s notice. “How do I smooth his feathers?” Soldier’s Boy asked of me late one evening as the rest of the lodge slumbered around us. I tried to hold myself aloof from his questions, but at such times, when we were alone in his mind, I felt like a prisoner tormented during questioning. I could not escape him, and if I would not surrender what he wanted, he would resort to picking through my memories. He concentrated most heavily on what my father had taught me. That wrung the most guilt and pain from me, for it seemed a double defection that I betrayed my father as well as my own people when I used my father’s hard-won knowledge of strategy and tactics against them.
“How do I win Jodoli over to me?” he asked me again. Olikea slept heavy and warm against me. Her sorrow had left her limp and exhausted. She moved once, making a small sound like a baby’s half sob, and was still. She smelled of tears. He sighed heavily. “I don’t like to do this to you.” I felt him begin to plumb our shared past, drilling through my memories in search of advice that might apply. I gave in.
“You have two options,” I told him. “Either you make your cause his. Or you make it appear to him that you have come over to share his concerns. Either one will work, if you do it well.”
I could feel him thinking that through. Threads of a plan started to weave together in his mind. I almost felt him smile. “And if I did it well enough, would that be how I win you over, too?”
“I will never be a traitor to my people,” I told him fervently.
“Perhaps all I need to do is show you which people are truly your own,” he replied mildly. “Perhaps if I think long enough and in enough detail, I will get you to face what the Gernians did to you. How your fiancée mocked you and your father disowned you. How no one wished to let you serve your king. How your ‘own people’ decided not just to hang you, but to slice you to quivering meat before they ended your days. And then I might remind you of who took you in and fed you and cared for you. I might ask you which women treated you as a man, and which people respected you and the magic you held. I might ask you—”
“I could remind you that Spink and Epiny risked all to rescue me. And that Amzil was willing to sacrifice herself however she must to help me get past the guards.”
“She was willing to do that, but not to lie with you,” he pointed out snidely.
“Olikea was willing to lie with you, but not love you,” I retorted.
“What sort of a man, what sort of a soldier, cares so much about being loved and so little for duty to a people loyal to him?”
I had no answer to his words. They struck strangely deep in me. “Leave me alone,” I retorted savagely.
“As you wish,” he conceded and did.
When he did not need my advice, he ignored me. At those times, I felt as if I were coming loose from time as well as space. I seemed not to sleep but from time to time to lose awareness of myself as a separate entity. I felt like a tiny piece of driftwood spinning slowly in a backwater of his mind. The currents moved me but I had no influence on them. His words about which people were truly my own ate at me like acid; I felt that my core self grew smaller whenever I considered them. Buel Hitch’s words from long ago came back to haunt me. Why was it a virtue to remain loyal to a people simply because I had been born into their midst? Why could I not simply turn my back on the Gernians as they had turned against me, and become a Speck with my whole heart? At such times, I think that only my small circle of kin and friends at Gettys kept me Gernian.
As from a distance, I watched Soldier’s Boy court Olikea’s kin-clan, trying to gain their acceptance and trust. And when the time came, he did not invite Jodoli to his lodge, but instead sought him out on the kin-clan’s own grounds. Olikea’s and Firada’s father quickly welcomed him in. Kilikurra had been the first Speck to speak to me, and I think he felt a measure of honor in having been the first to recognize a Great One come among them. He was a man of middle years, with black lips, mismatched eyes, and streaky gray hair. I now thought of how he had lost the mother of his daughters to Kinrove’s dance, and saw his fresh grief at the loss of his grandson. He and Soldier’s Boy spoke long and quietly together, and Soldier’s Boy made him an ally in his drive to regain the boy. It was heartbreaking how easily the man was won over by Soldier’s Boy’s promises of doing all he could to get Likari back. Soldier’s Boy did not try to conceal the grief he felt at the boy’s absence and his concern for his well-being. I don’t think that even he could detect the line between what he actually felt and how useful it was in swaying the Specks to his cause.
Yet others of Olikea’s kin-clan were not as swift to welcome Soldier’s Boy wholeheartedly. I suspect that Jodoli did not encourage the people of his kin-clan to trust the interloper. Soldier’s Boy’s presence had greatly modified the attitude of the extended family group toward Jodoli. Both he and Firada had been relieved when Soldier’s Boy had taken up residence in Lisana’s old lodge, well away from the village where they traditionally wintered. They had been happy to characterize him as a Great One with no attached kin-clan, a sort of renegade mage. Jodoli had begun to solidify his standing with the kin-clan, and now here came Soldier’s Boy, threatening it once more.
What could have been a confrontation was defused when Soldier’s Boy instead sought Jodoli’s advice on the summoning, sharing his concern for Likari. At first Soldier’s Boy only asked questions and listened solemnly to every answer, even when Jodoli tediously overtrod ground well known to both of them. Firada had a soft spot for her nephew, and as the evening passed into night, the consultation changed into a family discussion. Jodoli’s home was twice the size of Lisana’s old lodge and lush with the acquisitions of a man who had been a Great One for years. These comforts Soldier’s Boy openly admired, stroking Jodoli’s pride. Yet when the night deepened about the lodge and we all drew closer to the hearth, the great lodge seemed a small place where the dancing firelight illumined a circle of faces wearied by sorrow. The feeders had been sent off to their homes. Only this “family” remained, the two women and their father, and Jodoli and Soldier’s Boy.
I should not have been surprised to discover that Jodoli was as fond of the boy as anyone was, and as shocked and offended that Kinrove had let the summoning take a feeder. It was a painful discussion for all involved, as Soldier’s Boy asked difficult questions about how long the boy might be expected to dance. He bluntly asked how long other youths called to the dance had lived, and the answer chilled us all. Two seasons. If Likari were not freed from the dance by summer, he would almost certainly die of it.
“Two seasons in which to save him. That isn’t much time,” Soldier’s Boy said anxiously.
“Two seasons to save him from death,” Firada corrected him. “Two seasons only if you are content to bring him home crippled and broken. The dance is arduous and unrelenting, Nevare. It breaks bodies, for the magic cares little for what it demands of our flesh. In two seasons, Likari will look like a little old man. His body will be stunted, for he will not grow properly on that regimen. And his mind will have been consumed by the magic. This we have seen in those Dasie freed from the dance. The adults who were returned have regained some of their connections to home and family and kin-clan. But the younger ones were completely seduced by the dance. I have heard of at least five rescued dancers who have since decided to return. They do not know what else to do with their lives. Of those who have remained, they are very young in mind; they have not grown in knowledge or manners since they were taken. They know nothing but the dance and the infusion of purpose that the magic put in them. Likari, I think, will be more susceptible to that than most. If we wait two seasons to try to take him back, well. By then it would be more of a kindness not to, to let him spend out his life there.”
Olikea had been strangely quiet. She blinked then, freeing tears that rolled down her cheeks. She did not breathe harshly or gulp. These flowing tears that spilled silently were a frequent phenomenon now, as if she wept deep inside and only her tears reached the surface. She still tended me, but she was most often silent. She appeared lost and childlike, as if she had been transported back to the days when her mother had vanished. I realized then that the view she had given me of Speck family life had been skewed to her own perspective. She had kept Likari at arm’s length all his life, fearing that she might lose him. Yet when she did lose him, even that distance had not been enough to protect her.
Soldier’s Boy reached out and put his hand on her shoulder. Although I knew his heart remained with Lisana, he and Olikea remained occasional lovers and she always shared his bed. Offering him that physical release was a part of her being his feeder; she did not expect romance or passion beyond the physical sort. Since Likari had been lost, it seemed to me that they coupled more often, as if seeking a comfort they could not quite find. Perhaps she tried for another child to replace the one she had lost. Perhaps he touched her so gently only because he wished to strengthen his bond with her and hence her kin-clan. In any case, I envied them what they had, the uncomplicated physical enjoyment of each other. Sometimes I shamed myself by pretending it was Amzil that my hands caressed, Amzil’s mouth reaching eagerly for mine. It was a sour pretense that only left me feeling more desolately lonely than ever. At all times, there remained a bristly affection between them, and the shared loss of Likari had only strengthened it. She slept against his belly rather than his back these days, and when she cried out in her sleep, he often held her. Now he immediately reassured her.
“It will not be two seasons, Olikea. I hope it will not be much more than two days. This I have decided. Tonight we send word to Kinrove and Dasie. I will take the force that we have, and we will attack Gettys. We will make the cold and the snows our allies.”
He looked around at their disbelieving faces and smiled grimly. “Fire will be our primary weapon. This is the plan. I will take our forces back to the western side of the mountains. We will go prepared to endure the cold and snows, but only for a short time. We will quick-walk down to Gettys in the darkness of the deepest cold of the night. Some will hide in the town around the fort. Others will help me dispatch the sentry on the gate. Quietly. Then we will enter. I will make maps of the key places to set the fires. At my signal, the town fires will be set, also. As soon as the archers outside the walls see the flames rise, they will let fly with their arrows, to start fires on the upper walls and watchtowers where the soldiers cannot easily douse them. I only wish that we had more than a dozen of the basket arrows.
“It will be crucial that we free the prison laborers. They have no love for their wardens and their release will add to the confusion. With luck, they may turn and attack those who have treated them so cruelly. We will set many fires, too many for them to fight. When the soldiers flee the flames into the street, we will have a chance to kill many of them while they are panicked and unarmed. That state will not last long, but while it does, we will take advantage of it.
“When they begin to rally, we will fall back. As we move through the town, we will kill any in our path. We will quick-walk our retreat, vanishing into the night. We will wait, giving them time to battle the fires and exhaust themselves. Then, when they think the crisis is over, we will quick-walk again into their midst, to kill again. If we have time, we will set more fires.”
He fell silent. No one spoke, staring at him.
“If once is not enough, we will return three days later. We must be prepared to keep a guard on the road to the west. No courier must ride out to report what is happening. Gettys must simply disappear. After we have killed all of them, every structure there must be burned completely to the ground. Completely. When the supply wagons come next spring, they must find nothing there, not a wall, not a bone. Nothing.”
He said it as calmly as my father would speak of clearing a field of stones or of doing the autumn slaughter. Those around him nodded, heartened by his speech, as if there were no human deaths involved at all.
Jodoli spoke hesitantly. “But what of your previous proposal? That we would negotiate with them, perhaps with a treaty that appealed to their greed?”
“Later,” he said coldly. “I have decided that will come later. When they decide to try to rebuild Gettys. Then will be the time to confront them. For now, the plan is simply to kill. And when Gettys is destroyed, Kinrove will have no further need for his dancers. They will be free.”
Olikea took a breath and spoke hesitantly. “Can you truly do it so quickly? Can you bring Likari back to us?”
I felt the doubt that he dared not bare to them. Aloud, he spoke with confidence. “I can. I will.”
I feared that he was right.