Betrayals (33 page)

“We’ll have to have a talk with the others,” Jovvi said, she and Tamrissa both knowing that the last of his words had been addressed to them. “In fact, we’ll probably do best having a general meeting. If you’ll put this one back to sleep, we can see about arranging it right now.”

Lorand nodded and put the convoy leader back to sleep as requested, then he followed Tamrissa and Jovvi as they went to speak to Rion and Valiant. It would have felt better to go back and sit down, but Lorand had the feeling that none of them were going to be sitting around relaxing for quite some time….

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Our proposed meeting was delayed when it began to rain hard again. Most of the newly awakened—which meant almost all of the former prisoners—were having trouble getting around, and there wasn’t anything like a tarpaulin big enough to make a reasonably dry meeting area. Lorand finally came up with the idea of rearranging the entire camp, since the guardsmen and drivers—our new prisoners—had to be sheltered from the weather along with everyone else. Leaving those particular prisoners to drown wouldn’t have bothered too many people, but if you’re going to kill someone it ought to be on purpose, not by accident.

So we moved all the wagons around until they were backed into a semicircle, as close a one as we could manage, and used the single tarpaulin over our sleeping prisoners. Everyone attending the meeting clustered around the opening in the back of their respective wagons, and we five stood in the open space in the middle. Or at least Rion, Valiant, and I stood. Jovvi and Lorand sat on wooden crates we’d found in the supply wagon, and Rion thickened the air above us to keep us dry.

“All right, people, we have two decisions that need makin’ right now,” Valiant said loudly enough for everyone to hear. He had the loudest voice among us, so he was the natural choice to run the meeting. “We know there’s pursuit comin’ from Gan Garee, and because of a spy in our midst, they know where this place is. We have to leave as soon as possible and find a safer place to rest for a while, so that’s the first of your decisions. Who’s comin’ with us, and who’s goin’ back to give them a second chance to make the slavery work this time?”

A lot of voices spoke at the same time, much of it in protest, and then one voice rose above the rest.

“You’re just trying to frighten us!” that voice, coming from a thin, balding man, insisted. “We have nothing but the claims of a group of strangers to say that that was what the officials were doing, and nothing at all to show that our being here isn’t a mistake. I say we all have to go back and ask someone to straighten out the mistake.”

“All right, let’s say it was a mistake,” Valiant granted, but not in a gentle, friendly tone. “Someone somewhere made a big mistake, and if you go back they’ll fall all over themselves fixin’ it. But on the other hand—What do you plan to do if it wasn’t a mistake, and they tell you to drink what they give you and then lie down like a good slave?”

“That can’t happen,” the man persisted, his own tone completely inflexible. “This is the capital and our government we’re talking about, not some group of rabble. It has to be a mistake, and if we go back they’ll straighten it out.”

“In other words, you’re not capable of imaginin’ anythin’ that doesn’t fit into the idea you’ve already made up your mind about,” Valiant told him very flatly, without the least bit of gentleness. “In that event I suppose you should go back, and they’ll make sure you don’t pass on that very dangerous trait to any children. Is there anyone else foolish enough to go along with this man? If there is, I suggest you all get together in the same wagon.”

“He isn’t foolish, and there are too many of us for just one wagon,” a woman said stiffly, a woman who looked young but had an air of command about her. “We aren’t just anyone, we’re important, so they aren’t about to just ignore what was done to us. The empire needs us, and just because some fool made a stupid error is no reason not to let his superiors correct it. They’ll be very relieved when we get back safely, and we’ll be comfortable while the rest of you run and hide like mindless animals.”

“Ah, so it’s a mistake because you’re important,” Valiant said, looking at her in the same way he’d looked at the man. “If you really were all that important, you would have noticed by now that the ‘stupid mistake’ happened to an awful lot of people. But you aren’t important, not really, not to the nobility in Gan Garee. What you are is a High talent, and they’re afraid of Highs, so they deliberately got rid of you. If that’s what you want to go back to, be my guest. Just don’t try lyin’ to yourself out where I can hear it. I spent too long a time there not to know the truth.”

The woman clamped her lips together stubbornly, the thin man beside her showing the same expression, but some of the others were looking less certain. Three of them, a woman and two men, had been whispering together, and now the woman stepped forward.

“They won’t need quite as many wagons as they think,” she said, only glancing at the stubborn two. “Some of us have been talking over what you said, and it might have been a mistake if only a few of us were Highs. But with every one of us the same, it can’t possibly be the fault of one ignorant underling. Our being here is deliberate, and we’re not about to give them a second chance at us.”

Quite a few mutters of agreement came after her words, and the first couple looked offended and affronted. They seemed to be the sort who had to be right all the time, no matter how ridiculous a stance they’d taken. They glared around at some of the others, apparently trying to get people to back down and change their minds, but the tactic didn’t work.

“Now I’m hearin’ some common sense,” Valiant said after the second woman had finished speaking, giving her a supporting smile as well. “At one time or another everyone steps into it accidentally, but only a damn’ fool does it on purpose. But here with us, you two and anyone else has the right to be as big a bunch of fools as you like, so I suggest you get goin’ back to Gan Garee right now. How many wagons will you be needin’?”

“I’ll let you know as soon as I see how many are going to be smart and return with us,” the woman said, her tone still stiff as she turned to look around at everyone. “I need a show of hands, please, to get an accurate count.”

The thin man beside her raised his hand deliberately, but he turned out to be the only one who did. Some avoided meeting the woman’s gaze and some stared straight at her, but no one else raised a hand.

“Looks like there are fewer fools here than either of us thought,” Valiant drawled, not quite showing his amusement. “Since there are only two of you, you can have one wagon. And since we’ll be discussin’ things we don’t want passed on to the guardsmen who’ll be greetin’ you soon, you’d better take the wagon and leave now.”

“But how are we supposed to handle a wagon this size all alone?” the thin man complained, righteous anger mixed in with dismay. “I’ve never driven myself anywhere in my life, and Galeen here certainly can’t manage it. You’ll have to send someone with us to do the driving.”

“If any of these people were foolish enough to let me send them anywhere, they’d already be goin’ with you,” Valiant pointed out. “If you don’t think you can handle a wagon, you can take the coach some of us came here in. Or you can have a couple of the saddle horses those guardsmen were usin’. Just make up your minds and get goin’, so the rest of us can finish this meetin’ and get on our own way.”

“A coach would be just as bad as a wagon, and I can’t ride a horse,” the woman, Galeen, announced very flatly and angrily. “You’re doing all you can to keep us here, and I, for one, resent it furiously. You have no right to—”

“Stop right there,” Valiant interrupted, even more flatly than she’d spoken. “I’ve given you all sorts of options to let you leave us, but you’ve found somethin’ wrong with all of them. That means you know how stupid your idea of goin’ back is, but you refuse to admit it. We have no time to deal with spiteful little children, so either grow up and start actin’ responsibly, or walk away and let us do it alone. Whichever, it has to be done now.”

Once again the woman’s lips tightened, but this time she said nothing. The anger in her eyes had been joined by disturbance that looked out of place, as though no one had ever made her be responsible for her own actions before. The thin man glanced at her in uncertainty, but when she failed to return that glance he shifted his gaze to the bottom of the wagon he stood in and didn’t say another word.

“I’m goin’ to assume that that topic of goin’ back to Gan Garee is now closed,” Valiant said after a moment. “If I’m wrong and someone has decided to take a wagon or a horse anyway, just say so … No one? All right, then we can go on to the next topic. Do any of you want to go back to your own homes instead?”

That brought out a large number of surprised exclamations, as none of them seemed to have thought that going home would be possible. A lot of rapid conversation was exchanged in low voices, and then the second woman who had spoken earlier stepped forward again.

“Going home won’t be like going back to Gan Garee at all,” she said. “My friends and I know we’ll be safe at home, even if they try to come after us. Our families will see to it that we are, and everyone ought to know what we’ve just found out the hard way. If we spread the word, there shouldn’t be any other unsuspecting Highs being piled into wagons.”

“That’s a good idea,” Valiant said, adding his own nod to the large number of signs of agreement coming from the others. “We do need to start spreadin’ the word, somethin’ they’ve been workin’ real hard to keep from happenin’. So how many are goin’ home?”

This time there were quite a number of hands raised, with a few extra added when people looked around to see how many there already were. At least half of the nearly sixty people seemed to be ready to go home, so Lorand stood up.

“The best thing you people can do from here is to continue on to the Rolris Fork, which is just a few hours ahead,” he said in a voice loud enough to carry. “You’ll take the southwest fork, that’s the left-hand one, and a few hours after that you’ll come to the Wenstad Road. At that point you’ll see signs pointing the way to various parts of the empire, and you just have to follow the direction of the signs. But not those of you who live to the east. That sign just sends you back in this direction, so head north instead and wait for the next major road before you go east.”

“And now’s the time to get started,” Valiant said over the babble of discussion that arose from that bit of information. “You’ll have five of the wagons at least, so if the people from one particular area outnumber the others, that’s the area which will have the extra wagon. If two extra wagons are needed, then you’ll have that instead. Let’s get it movin’.”

I suppose they would have stood around talking about it until the guardsmen from Gan Garee rode in, but Valiant refused to allow that. He pointed to four wagons, designating them in turn as north, east, south, and west, and as an afterthought pointed to a fifth and called it Gan Garee. There was a lot of moving around as people went from the wagon they were in to the one they needed to be in, and once the confusion was over Valiant inspected how the numbers had settled out.

“Well, it looks like the north wins,” he observed, since there were twice as many people in that one wagon. “They get the extra, and you others can make do with one. The three of you from Gan Garee itself need to think about what you’ll do, either get dropped off by the wagon headin’ east, or go elsewhere with some of the others. But whatever decision you make, do it while the wagons are on the road. The rest of us can’t leave until you do.”

That statement stopped most of the protests that were being made over the way he all but pushed them out of camp physically, but it wasn’t the end of all argument. The woman Galeen and her male friend hadn’t moved to any of the designated wagons, silently insisting that they would stay with the rest of us. I wasn’t terribly happy about that, but Valiant went further by refusing to allow it.

“You two aren’t stayin’ with us,” he said in cold, commanding tones that brooked no contradiction. “We won’t have time to look after and train small children, so get into one of the wagons that are goin’ in another direction. And don’t try arguin’, because it won’t do you any good.”

“Going home without the High positions we meant to earn will make us laughingstocks,” Galeen snarled while the man with her looked ready to cry. “If arguing with you won’t do any good, let’s try this.”

I knew it immediately when she reached for the power, confirming my guess that she was probably a user of Fire magic. She was also rather strong, in point of fact stronger than Beldara Lant, who had been so smugly certain of her superiority. But just as I was stronger than Beldara, I also had no trouble matching and bettering Galeen. The curtain of flames which tried to sweep over and through the five of us stopped dead when I interposed my ability between it and us, and then one large, definite section of the flame curtain died because of the touch of water. Galeen paled when these things happened, and Valiant gave her a smile without any humor in it whatsoever.

“In case we haven’t mentioned it before, we’re the five people who should now be Seated on the Fivefold Throne,” he drawled. “That means we’re stronger than everyone here, so flexin’ your power won’t do you any good either. Get into the proper wagon now.”

Galeen swallowed hard, but nothing in the way of words came from her as she did as she was told. Amusingly enough it was the wagon heading south that she went to, the part of the empire that Valiant himself came from. Her male companion, though, scurried to the wagon heading east, looking as though he hoped to make it before Galeen noticed. He did, and once some of the provisions had been hastily transferred to each of the departing wagons, they did finally depart.

“All right, now for the last major decision,” Valiant announced once the creaking of the last wagon had died away.

“We learned from the leader of this convoy that there’s a depot ahead, a place where kidnapped Highs are taken. It’s come to us that we know some of the people who must have been sent there, since I’m talkin’ about people who survived the competitions we were just in but who didn’t win. But even if we didn’t know any of them, we’d still have to do somethin’ about our kind of people bein’ made into slaves. That wagon right there is the one you should be in if you don’t want to join us in doin’ somethin’ about that depot.”