They went on through, and Miles glanced at the man in surprise, then realized that Gar had told him the same story he had fed the warders at the door to the torture chamber. But the guards at the outer door were another matter—if Gar were bringing a prisoner to the Protector, he would only have to go upstairs. Why did the guards step aside without even asking? Come to that, why did they fall in behind, following Dirk and Gar? Miles craned his neck up far enough to see the guards’ faces, and felt a shock—he recognized them from the city! Tomlin winked at him, and Miles managed to muster enough poise to wink back.
His stomach felt as though it were being punched with every step Gar took, so he was immensely glad when the giant lowered him into a saddle. “Just hug the horse’s sides with your knees, Miles, don’t try to use your feet in the stirrups—they’ll take a few days more to heal.” Gar turned away to mount a huge, rangy gray. Dirk and the guards swung up on extra mounts; then the man who had been holding the horses swung up onto the last one and followed after. Miles rode amazed. “How did you manage to pull together a strike force like this so quickly?”
“It hasn’t been as quick as we’d have liked,” Dirk said grimly. “We landed two days ago, but it took us most of the first day to work our way out of the forest and into town, then to find a magistrate who was one of our agents. We found him throwing everything vital into a box and calling for his horse; his cell had just received word of your arrest, and the only thing he wasn’t sure about was whether or not you could hold out under torture long enough for all of your agents to get away.”
“We told him we were sure you would,” Gar said, also grimly. “Then we recruited him and started riding for the capital. We ambushed a few Protector’s soldiers on the way, gathered a few more of our impostor magistrates who were just packing up, and changed clothes just before we rode up to the castle. Nobody had any problem with our riding in, and it didn’t take much to knock out the sentries at the dungeon door. It did take two days, though.”
“Amazing speed, and you reached me just in time,” Miles said. “Believe me, I can’t thank you enough!”
“We didn’t quite get there in time,” Dirk muttered.
Miles decided to ignore the man’s guilt—there wasn’t anything more he could do to lighten it. “So the revolution is dead, then?”
“Not at all,” Gar said quickly. “Our agent magistrates have all fled their posts, yes, and they all appointed their clerks to run things while they were gone—and the agents who are magistrates’ wives have developed great-aunts who suddenly took ill and needed to have them go help, so they should all be safe by now. The agent nurses disappeared into the towns and forests as soon as the first was taken prisoner, and so far as we can tell, only a dozen or so have been lost to the Protector’s spies.”
Miles blew out a sigh of relief. “I did hold out long enough, then.”
“Yes, and you seemed to have held them off with talk long enough to keep them from doing much,” Gar said, in tones of surprised admiration.
“More a matter of Renunzio wanting to overawe me, than any good management of mine,” Miles confessed. “So our agents are almost all still with us, and ready to hand if we need them—but what can we do?”
“First give me a tally of your strength,” Gar said. “How many magistrates and reeves have we replaced?”
“Almost half, and most of the rest have married our agents,” Miles answered.
“Very good! How many out of each hundred?”
“Seventy-eight,” Miles said without even stopping to think. “Of the remaining twenty-two, twelve have bands of watchmen and reeve’s guards who will side with us instead of their magistrates and reeves.”
“Your nurses have done well!” Dirk said, almost in awe.
“It has something to do with their knowing more medicine than the Protector’s doctors,” Miles said, appreciating the irony. “They’re ready, though, and even in the Protector’s Army, half his soldiers will probably fight for us, not him.”
Dirk gave a long whistle, and Gar said, in tones of amazement, “You have done fantastically well, Miles!”
Miles fairly glowed with pleasure at their praise. “Only seeing that they did as you told me, my teachers. What do I have them do now, though?”
“What with the number of agents and the watchmen and guardsmen they command, they’re a small army in themselves! Send the word out to have them march on Milton Town.”
“The Protector’s spies will have warned him,” Dirk reminded them, “and he still has some soldiers loyal to him. They’ll be watching the roads.”
“Tell them to travel by night,” Gar said grimly, “and to send their foresters before them. If they find soldiers, they can ambush them and steal their uniforms.”
“Do they have to kill them, then?” Miles asked, his eyes wide.
Gar rode in silence awhile.
“It’s only going to be a few days,” Dirk said, “one way or another.”
Miles felt a chill seize his back. They could lose, they could still lose dreadfully!
But Gar was nodding. “Yes, and our agents can leave them tied up with a few men to guard them. They’ll be stiff as pikes when they’re untied, but they’ll be alive. Take prisoners, Miles—but be aware that it will be a fight trying to take them, and some men will die on each side!”
“As few as possible, then,” Miles said. “How can we claim to be freeing them, if we kill them? I’ll tell my people to keep the survivors alive.”
“As good a way to put it as any, I suppose,” Dirk sighed. He glanced about him as they rode past the last house. “One advantage to a centralized government, at least—no town feels it needs to build a wall. We’re out in the country, gentlemen.”
“Time to send word, then.” Miles turned to the impostor soldiers behind him. “You’ve all heard what we’ve decided?”
“Yes, Chairman,” one of the soldiers said. “All agents march on Milton Town. Travel by night with foresters as scouts, Beware of the Protector’s patrols, overpower them, tie up the survivors, and leave a few men to guard them. I guess that means feed them and water them, too,” he added.
Miles nodded. “A very good summary. Go tell your cells, now!”
“Yes, Chairman!” all five men said, and galloped away into the night.
Miles reined in his horse and sat, stiff and still in the moonlight.
“What’s the matter?” Dirk asked softly.
“It’s begun,” Miles said, almost unable to believe it. “It really has begun!”
“It has, that,” Gar said heavily, “and there’s no stopping it now.”
“But there is!” Miles turned to him. “I could send word out through the network, I could tell them to stop marching, to go back to the lost Cities!”
“You could,” Gar said slowly, “but what would happen then?”
“Why … the clerks would keep administering the towns, and the Protector would realize half his magistrates and reeves were gone. He’d appoint new ones, then send his spies out to…” Miles’s voice trailed off.
“To find your agents, torture them to discover where the rest were, and kill them all,” Dirk finished for him. “Then he’d garrison the Lost Cities, set full-time patrols in the forests and Badlands, and never, ever again would there be a chance to even start a revolution, let alone win one.”
“I wasn’t really thinking of stopping it anyway,” Miles mumbled. “It was just nice to think I could.”
“There comes a point in life when you have to commit yourself,” Gar told him, “or drown in your regrets.” He slapped Miles gently on the shoulder. “Cheer up! There’s every reason to believe we’ll win this one, and without much fighting, either! The Wizard who spoke in the minds of our maniacs was a Wizard in the ways of Peace, Miles, or was trying to be! You’re committed now, it’s win or die, so you blasted well had better do your all-out best to win!”