"Perhaps it's your healing treatment. The native energies of Rath must be very different from those of your home world."
Belbe helped him stand.
"Good thing we fell on an empty house," he said quietly.
For reasons she did not entirely understand, Belbe leaned forward and pressed her lips to Ertai's. He was so startled by this unexpected action he failed to respond in kind. Belbe drew back, expressionless.
"Did I do it incorrectly?"
"I don't know," he said. "I wasn't prepared-"
"Prepare yourself then," she said. "It may happen again." In awkward silence they made their way out of the ruined house.
The unpaved street was covered with sickly yellow moss and gray lichen, and clogged with blocks, fallen pediments, bricks, and shards of pottery. Belbe and Ertai picked their way through the ruins to the next street. This wide path was clear of debris, and the thick dust had been stirred recently by a large crowd of people.
"The hostages came this way," Belbe said.
"Must be hundreds of them."
"Thousands. Lord Greven is not one for half measures."
They walked down the broad, empty road. Ruddy light from the rising column of lava painted the ruins in shades of pink.
Ertai looked at Belbe. "May I ask you a question?"
She put her arms behind her head and stretched her healing limbs. "Of course."
"Do you ever ask yourself if you're on the right side or not?"
She looked at her feet. "Of the road?"
"No, in this struggle."
"No."
"Why not?"
"The right side is the side that succeeds," she said simply. "This is the basic truth my masters taught me."
"They could be wrong."
"It is possible but not likely. Time will tell."
"I used to think I knew right from wrong," Ertai said. "That was before I began my advanced studies in magic. Then I learned that power is power, regardless of its origin. Any species can be used to kill or cure, and if that's so, how can any of it be good or evil? It simply is. I think people are like that, too. We simply are."
"I will ask you a question," she said. He agreed. "Do you regret coming here? Do you miss your comrades on Weatherlight?"
He stopped, feet stirring little gouts of fine dust. "They left me here," Ertai said. "I was angry at them for that. Now, in an odd way, I think they did me a favor."
Amid the ruins, the sanguinary light of the lava column, the still, humid air at the bottom of the crater, Belbe had a strange, new experience. A more worldly woman could have told her she was feeling affection for the first time. As it was, she had to figure it out herself.
The hostages filled the stockades with resignation. Each family staked out a place in the dusty enclosures and waited for word they could go home again. Soldiers stood atop the low rubble walls, eyeing their quiescent charges.
Belbe and Ertai arrived to find Greven seated on a broken monolith. Dorian il-Dal was with him, a picnic lunch spread out on a cloth between them. When they saw Belbe approaching, both men rose and bowed.
"Greetings, Excellency! You are looking well today. Why didn't you let us know you were coming? I would have prepared a repast for you as well." Dorian said effusively.
"It's of no matter," she replied. "I do not eat."
"Are the hostages here?" Ertai asked impatiently.
"Six thousand of them," confirmed Greven.
"Five thousand, nine hundred eighty-eight, to be exact," said Dorian. He held up several loose scrolls. "I have the tallies here if Your Excellency would care to see."
She ignored the proffered scrolls and walked to the mouth of the Dal stockade. Moggs grunted and sidled away from Belbe. Guards on the wall snapped to attention.
Dorian, Ertai, and Greven came up behind her.
"What does Your Excellency require?" asked the chamberlain.
"A better view, first." She looked left and right, judged the far wall to be straighter, and sprang from a flat-footed stance to the top of the seven-foot-high structure.
Belbe looked out over the dusty arena, jammed with almost two thousand Dal. With designed thoroughness she catalogued the crowd: one thousand, five hundred and thirtythree adults, four hundred and sixty-one children. Most of the adults were elderly or female. She started counting crutches in the crowd and stopped when she passed one hundred and fifty. Distaste rose in her throat. She turned to the trio of men waiting below her.
"Who chose these people?" she shouted.
"Why, I did, Excellency, with Lord Greven's help," Dorian replied.
"Why take these particular people-women, children, the aged?"
"Come down, Excellency. I'd rather not have this conversation yelled from the stockade wall," Greven said, his face hardening.
She did come down, landing inches in front of the towering warrior. "Explain your choices, Chamberlain."
Dorian's lip trembled. "The-the Dread Lord and I discussed it. We agreed these would make the most effective hostages."
"Go on."
Greven stepped up. "Our goal is to keep peace inside the Stronghold. We chose people who have strong bonds with those not chosen. Dal men will think twice about rising against us if they know we have their mothers, fathers, wives, and children in our power."
"I think you've erred, Commander," Belbe said. "Now we're as much hostages as those people beyond the wall!"
Ertai spoke up. "What do you mean?"
"If any harm comes to these people, it will foment rebellion rather than quell it." She was angry, and she didn't know how to handle the emotions stirred up by the plight of the hostages. "Why didn't you round up young males instead? They're the potential allies of Eladamri, not these helpless folk."
"In matters of civil unrest, there are no innocent bystanders," Greven said.
"Be at ease, Excellency!" Dorian pleaded. "No one wishes harm to these people. When Lord Crovax returns triumphant, all will be well."
"And if Crovax loses?" asked Ertai.
The silence that followed was suffocating.
CHAPTER 10
The Skyshroud Expeditionary Force remained on the field for two days, burning its dead and building temporary defenses out of turf, rocks, and the wreckage of the army's equipment. Everyone expected the rebels to attack and wipe them out, but they didn't. Cavalry patrols were sent out to locate Eladamri's band, but they returned in a few hours and reported finding no sign of the enemy.
The rebels didn't leave behind a single scrap; every thrown spear, every bent sword, every broken helmet was scavenged from the field of battle. Nor were any rebel dead left behind. The plain around the burned Rathi camp had been trampled flat by men, elves, moggs, and kerls, but no other evidence of Eladamri's force remained.
Crovax withdrew to his makeshift quarters-a pile of scorched sod with a square of canvas for a roof-and brooded over his defeat. Organization and defense of the Rathi position fell to Nasser. Aside from grunting approvals to Nasser's suggestions, Crovax did not speak for two whole days. Late in the afternoon on the second day after the battle, he emerged from his hut. Nasser had been lingering outside, waiting for his commander to appear.
"My lord," said Nasser when Crovax stood unblinking in the late day sun. "What are your orders?"
"Any sign of the enemy?" asked Crovax quietly.
"None, my lord."
"Break camp. We will march." Crovax turned to go back inside.
"Very good, my lord. Where to?"
"The Stronghold."
The army had been waiting for just such an order, and in less than an hour they were ready to march. The cavalry fanned out to watch for rebels, and the infantry column, much reduced in length, shouldered their weapons and started off.