Instinctively, Jenna’s hand rose to comfort him, but a gesture from Gulda stopped her.
‘I’m the judge of what’s well done and what’s not, Athyr,’ Gulda said, her voice stern. ‘According to those I’ve managed to speak to, it could have been much worse. Your tactics were good and you got your people out in good order when they could easily have panicked and spread themselves all over the mountains.’
‘With a pinch of awareness I could have avoided it all,’ Athyr said.
‘With a pinch of awareness, we’d none of us be here today,’ Gulda said, suddenly angry. ‘We’d have smelt the presence of Sumeral at His very wakening, and crushed Him and His creatures before He could leach so deep again into the world.’
Athyr began to protest. ‘Loman managed to… ’
Gulda cut him short. ‘Loman was lucky,’ she said, still angry. ‘Perhaps because of his awareness, or perhaps because the Alphraan chose him to make a point. Or perhaps because the Alphraan attacking camp three were less absorbed by their own rightness.’
She leaned back in her chair and waved the end of her stick in a series of small circles.
‘Round and round it goes, Athyr,’ she said. ‘We don’t know what happened, do we? We’re probing these… people. Probing to learn about them. And any probe gets blunted in use. Correct, carver?’
Athyr rounded on her. ‘They’re not tools out there,’ he said, pointing towards the door. ‘They’re people. Some of them are my kin. A lot of them are my friends, and all of them are amp;mdashwere amp;mdashmy responsibility.’
Gulda leaned forward and rested her chin on her hands folded over the top of her stick. She spoke slowly, her voice soft, but very powerfuclass="underline" ‘They’re both people and tools, soldier. Don’t think otherwise. You shape them, sharpen and hone them, care for them, and then when need arises, you use them. You use them as you’ve prepared them amp;mdashas they’ve prepared themselves amp;mdashto be used, and you use them thus before someone else smashes them.’
Athyr’s eyes narrowed. ‘You blunt a tool when you use it,’ he said savagely.
‘Then you re-sharpen it,’ Gulda snapped, reflecting his manner back at him.
‘But it’s changed, isn’t it?’ Athyr said, barely holding his ground against Gulda’s response, but before he could continue, she waved her hand around the small assembly. ‘We change all the time, Athyr,’ she said, less harshly. ‘And we’ve all been damaged, blunted, by what happened. You because you could do little or nothing to stop what was happening and realize now that your very arrival may have worsened matters. Loman and Jenna because they saw what you didn’t see, but didn’t tell you. Yrain, who conceived this idea. And me who agreed with it and underestimated the power, the control, and the will, of the Alphraan.’
She turned her head and looked at Tirilen. ‘And Tirilen. Who should be tending the routine mishaps of village life and sees clearer than she wants to what might soon be coming. Who can tell what pain she carries?’
Tirilen met her gaze steadfastly, and Gulda turned away.
‘I can’t stop you amp;mdashany of you amp;mdashreproaching your-selves,’ she continued. ‘But you must use your feelings of guilt as goads, not shackles. Any encounter that you survive has lessons in it that must be learned. And you start by being carvers. By looking at things as they are.’
No one spoke.
She continued. ‘Now you’re all at least a little rested, I want to go through everything that happened, in as much detail as you can manage. When we’ve done that we’ll talk to the signallers and everyone else from the two camps.’
‘Everyone?’ Loman said.
‘Everyone,’ Gulda confirmed. ‘We’re not the only ones who’ve been damaged by yesterday’s exploits, Loman, and we’re not the only ones who have to learn from it. None of you were controlled by the Alphraan. We have to speak to those who were.’ Abruptly, she changed direction. ‘What’s morale like now?’ she asked.
‘I don’t know,’ Loman said bluntly. ‘I’ve spent most of the night with Athyr and the others just organizing quarters for all these extra people.’
‘It’s uncertain,’ Tybek volunteered. ‘But those who aren’t still shocked are angry, and seem to be getting angrier.’
Both Loman and Gulda looked at him sharply. ‘No,’ Tybek said, anticipating their question. ‘I don’t think it’s the Alphraan doing it. That was very sudden… unreal somehow. This is colder, deeper. I have it myself. It’s Orthlundyn, all right.’
Gulda frowned. ‘That’s understandable,’ she said. ‘But it might prove to be just another problem.’ She shook her head to dismiss the concern and then pointed at Athyr. ‘The facts first,’ she said.
Athyr’s tale proved to be short. Like Loman, he had sensed some wrongness as he rode with the reserve patrol towards camp six, but unlike Loman he had not identified it. When they neared the camp, they saw a large crowd milling around and fighting, but when Athyr called a halt so that he could decide what to do, some of the patrol continued galloping and rode at full speed towards the camp.
‘Whatever fighting had been going on there before stopped almost immediately and the entire camp turned on the riders,’ Athyr said.
‘And you?’ Gulda asked.
‘For a moment I was just stunned at what had hap-pened,’ Athyr admitted. ‘But I felt the rhythm of the riding trying to drive me forward too, and I understood what it was. Especially when it just faded away. I think they were showing us what they could do to all of us if they wished,’ he added bitterly.
Gulda nodded. ‘Go on,’ she said.
‘I sent a signal back, straight away,’ Athyr said. ‘I didn’t want anyone else charging along, making whatever mistake I’d made. I knew I’d have to deal with the problem on my own.’
A gust of wind shook the tent impatiently and a frayed fringe of raindrops splattered noisily on to the sodden grass outside.
Athyr’s listeners sat silent.
‘I had to stand off,’ he said reluctantly. ‘Even though we were out of range, some of them were slinging at us.’ He looked straight at Gulda. ‘You were right to forbid all weapons,’ he said.
Gulda did not reply.
‘All I could think of was to try and exhaust them,’ Athyr continued. ‘We split into six groups, and took turns at riding within range to draw their fire.’
‘Risky,’ said Loman.
Athyr shrugged. ‘Yes and no,’ he said. ‘We took some knocks.’ He rubbed his arm ruefully. ‘But there was no co-ordination in their fire, and we didn’t stand still, I can assure you.’
‘And it worked?’ Gulda asked.
‘Eventually,’ Athyr said, though his voice held reser-vations. ‘After about an hour, they stopped bothering to attack us, and started wandering about, looking confused. I dismounted and walked towards them very slowly, but all of a sudden they were demented again and I’d to run for my life, rocks bouncing all around me.’
He leaned forward and held up his hand, fingers extended. It was shaking slightly. ‘Five times that happened,’ he said, his voice hoarse again. ‘Five times. I’ve never been so frightened in all my life as on that fifth walk. By then I’d three groups ready to move to divert any fire, and a fourth group ready to dash in to try and reach me, but as I got closer and closer… ’ He shook his head and left the sentence unfinished. ‘Anyway, nothing happened. It was over, they’d had their fun… made their point… whatever. And we were free to pick up our dead and injured and leave.’
His mouth curled viciously.
Gulda looked puzzled. ‘Why didn’t they mount up and attack you?’ she asked.
Athyr looked surprised. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘All the horses were badly frightened when we finally got in, but… I don’t know. It never occurred to me. They just formed up along some natural… perimeter… and stayed there.’
Gulda nodded. ‘It’s interesting,’ she said. ‘I’ve spo-ken to some of the people from the camp. They said that some were affected and some weren’t, just like at camp three. But when the riders appeared, everyone seemed to be affected. They’ve all got different memories of what they thought they were doing, but their antago-nism towards the riders was less than it had been to each other.’