Astra nodded mutely, and Zanos sympathized with her confusion. What if these savage rulers were not mad brutes, as they were portrayed in the empire? But on the other hand, what reason did they have to trust them?
“I suppose that’s possible,” he said. “But if Lenardo fled Portia, how does that prove he’s more to be trusted than she is? It could be that she wouldn’t allow him the power he wanted in the empire, so he found it among the savages. I think you are right to wait and see how well these new rulers govern before you throw your lot in with them, Trel. As for Astra and me, we’re moving on. You are welcome to join us.”
Astra stared at Zanos, wide-eyed. Then suddenly she got up, and walked back into the hut without a word.
Trel and Kimma looked at one another, and left with vague words about looking in on the injured.
Zanos followed Astra into the hut, where he found her tuning her lute.
Some instinct warned Zanos not to unpack his flute and join her-she was in some kind of very personal mood, shutting him out more effectively than if she had barred a door against him.
So he just sat down on the mat, listening to Astra play her “thinking song,” as she called it. All the beautiful chords were there-but her spirit was missing.
Finally, he reached over and put his hand on the strings of her lute, stopping the music. She looked at him with questioning eyes.
“You have to tell me what’s bothering you,” he said softly. “I can’t Read you, Astra. “
“I’m waiting for you to tell me what other decisions you’ve made, ” she replied without expression. “When we move on, how long you’ll let us stay here, what we’ll do about Vortius-”
“I don’t understand.”
She pulled the lute free of his hand. “I thought I was supposed to share your life. For the past two days, all I’ve been is your personal Reader! ‘Read this for me!’ ‘Scan over there!’ ‘Monitor Vortius-!’ ‘
“I had to make decisions for our survival.”
“Our survival doesn’t depend on killing Vortius. It depends on our making a sensible plan. Except for your wanting to avenge yourself on Vortius, we have no plans.”
“That’s not true,” he said. “We plan to go to Madura. Or at least I thought we did. You don’t really want to go, do you?”
“Yes, I do! Returning to your homeland is important to you. But do we have to rush right out of one dangerous situation into another?’
“We don’t know that it’s dangerous to go to Madura. “
“After two warnings? Two warnings that some ‘great evil’ is killing Adepts in your homeland, and you still want to rush into the unknown. You’d prepare for weeks for a single bout in the arena, but you won’t make any preparations for this. Why?”
“If you are too frightened to come with me,” he said bleakly, “just say so.”
“Yes, I’m scared!” she shouted, shoving the lute aside with no care for its delicacy. “If you weren’t so stubborn, you’d admit that you’re frightened, too! You want to keep chasing after Vortius so you don’t have to stop and think about the dangers ahead of us. Zanos, you’ve not even recovered from the white lotus yet. We’ve had one ordeal after another since the day of the games, and we need a rest. At least Trel and his people accept us. Can’t we stay, even for a little while? Long enough to figure out what to do next?”
“I know what I’m going to do next,” he stated firmly. “I’m going to find Vortius and kill him. Even if you want no part of it, that is one thing I must do, Astra.”
“Zanos-” Her face twisted, and he searched the depths of her eyes, trying to understand, desperately wishing he could Read the emotions he could see but not interpret. She suddenly shook her head. “We don’t know each other at all! How could we-we don’t even know ourselves!”
“What do you mean?”
Astra stood up and retrieved her sword, hefting the heavy weapon with both hands. “You told me to wear this until ‘something happened.’ Well, it happened yesterday. First Kimma attacked us, and then Trel confronted me. Right then, I was glad to have this thing, even if I’d have made a very poor showing.” Zanos saw her eyes change again, this time showing the cold anger he sometimes saw in a deadly opponent in the arena. “And when that bandit attacked me today,” she went on bitterly, “I needed this sword-I was sorry I wasn’t wearing it! When I saw your knife within reach, I thanked the gods… but after I used it-”
Zanos stood and placed his hands around hers as she tightly gripped the hilt of the sword.
She looked up at him then, and her anger faded. “I didn’t scream because I’d killed that man, ‘ she said, hardly above a whisper. “It was that I realized… I was glad I’d done it! I enjoyed killing him, Zanos! Is that what you want me to be-a killing machine, like you?”
“Astra,” he pleaded, trying to pry the sword loose from her hands, but she wouldn’t relinquish it.
“Is this what I have to be to survive in your world?’ she asked, transferring the sword to one hand, and putting her other arm around him. “Then I’ll become a warrior for you, Zanos. I’ll learn the way of the sword, my husband.”
The next day, the last of the survivors came out of healing sleep. The village showed its gratitude to Zanos and Astra with gifts and the offer of one of the huts for as long as they wanted to stay. A cheer went up when the Reader and the Adept accepted.
Early that afternoon, a man rode into the Settlement carrying the young girl Astra had seen being carried off by the raiders two days before. She had suffered at the hands of her captors, but Astra could read her joy at returning home.
Deela and Kimma helped the girl down from the horse and into one of the huts, while Trel greeted the rescuer and introduced him to Zanos and Astra.
“Without their help, Javik, there would have been no Settlement for you to bring Seela back to,” Trel told him.
Javik-a balding man of about fifty but with the bearing of a fighter-gave the couple a curt smile as he thanked them. “Let’s sit down and break bread,” he said. “There is much I have to tell you.
“The war is over,” Javik explained, “and the Aventines lost. Badly.”
Astra swallowed hard, almost afraid to ask. “How many died?”
“Less than two score… on both sides.”
Trel stared at him. “Forty people? Out of two armies numbering thousands? How can that be?”
“After the ships were stopped at Dragon’s Mouth, they sailed south and set the army ashore to march northward by land. The people of the Black Wolf met the first of them in a brief conventional battle.
That’s where the deaths occurred. Then Wulfston, his Reader, and perhaps a dozen of his minor Adepts arrived on the battlefield. The area was a wide, sandy plain. The Adepts surrounded the Aventines, then used their powers to trap the army in quicksand.”
“Quicksand?” Astra repeated. “How could they do that?”
“Quicksand is just sand and water,” Zanos told her. “Wulfston’s Adepts probably broke through a dam and let the plain be flooded.”
“Oh, no-they kept it completely in control,” Javik said. “They made it rain on the enemy, then moved pools of rainwater wherever they wanted them. The Aventines lost their supplies and weapons, and a lot of the troops sank into the mire, but not one of them was allowed to drown. But they were helpless-no choice but to surrender. And Wulfston not only let them live… he fed them, and then told them to go home!”
Astra was astounded. “A handful of people defeat the largest army in military history-then just tell them to go home? Javik, are you certain?”