I wonder if it’s possible to explain in words how I had grown to feel about being a perpetual victim. I’d been kidnapped and beaten on that world, attacked, embarrassed, shamed, denied and forced to act against my will. I’d been too close to death and also too far from it, and all the fury and frustration from all of those things surfaced in me right then, driving away the fear any sane person would have felt, and leaving behind nothing but refusal. The virenjj snarled again, baring their fangs and preparing to move in, and I raised up on my knees and clenched my fists, determined to go down fighting.
They’d rejected my denial, but glee and eagerness for them to come closer was harder for them to ignore. They felt the emotions clearly and hesitated, not understanding why I felt that way. They were familiar with traps and beasts who hunted them, but I didn’t smell like a trap, just like a victim. One of those in the forefront cried out with a high-pitched howl, rejecting my suggestion, and began launching himself toward Aesnil and me.
The terror Aesnil had been putting out all along crescendoed then, and I shunted it through to the attacking beast in one great wallop, hitting it harder than with a physical blow, then added my own strength of projection and sent it toward the other eight. The one who had begun its attack howled hideously and twisted in the air, maddened by the terror and no longer aware of its original intent, spitting and screaming in all directions. The rest of the pack screamed and clawed at the frenzied one, filled with heavy fear and swirling confusion. They none of them understood what was going on, and their uncertainty was my cue to press harder.
Deeper uncertainty and fearful mistrust soon had each member of the pack striking out in all directions, back-biting and being back-bitten as the madness spread among them. Hate and envy laced into their minds, turning their screams and howls deafening, drenching me with sweat as I struggled with the effort of reaching them all. Nine of them there were, each requiring a special balance to their madness, each swirling about the trees, slashing and tearing at its fellows. My breathing came even faster than theirs did, dizziness fighting to overwhelm my struggle, and then, distantly, I became aware of Aesnil pulling at my arm and shoulder, whispering urgently that we had to run. It was hard understanding why we had to run, harder yet to pull my mind away from the nine I was so closely linked to, but Aesnil was insisting and I couldn’t think clearly. I let her pull me to my feet and away from the bedlam, back toward the road, then felt her shock when she realized the two seetarr were nowhere in sight. To my vague surprise the shock faded immediately and then we were running, down the road and away from death and savagery.
I was able to keep going until all sounds of pain and fury were lost behind us, but after that I just had to stop. I stumbled and pulled at the grip Aesnil still had on me, almost throwing the two of us down, forcing her to slow and pull at me again. Instead of increasing my pace as she wanted, I went to my knees, holding up one hand to show that I was done. Mentally and physically I had nothing left, and all the wishing in the world couldn’t change that.
“Terril, you must continue to run with me,” Aesnil panted, pulling ineffectually at my arm. “We may not yet be safe from those beasts, and we must try to find the seetarr. Without them and the food they carry, we will never reach Vediaster!”
“I . . . cannot,” I gasped, looking up at her sweat-stained face and greasy, disarranged hair. “I cannot go . . . another step . . . though all the beasts . . . in the world . . . come behind me. Should you feel it possible that . . . the seetarr may be caught . . . you must go on . . . without me.”
“Leave you?” she demanded, her pretty face twisting in outrage “Here, where you may fall prey to the first beast to chance across you? Where you might die from lack of a companion? Never would I do such a thing, never!”
I hadn’t the breath or strength to argue with her, and I didn’t even know if she was right or wrong. I hung my head, wanting nothing more than to collapse the rest of the way to the road surface, and only then did I become aware of the sound. It sounded something like calm thunder with pebbles in it, quickly growing louder, and Aesnil twisted her head around to look down the road toward the curve. That was the direction the sound was coming from, and she identified it long before I would have.
“Riders!” she gasped, paling under the flush our running had put in her cheeks. “We must hide or they will see us!”
I felt the same clutch at my heart that she undoubtedly did and tried to get to my feet again, but it was absolutely impossible, not even with Aesnil pulling at my arm. I shook my head even as I leaned on my left hand, the road pebbles cutting into my palm, trying to make Aesnil understand that more running was beyond me. She continued tugging at me for another minute, casting wild glances back at the curve, and then the first riders appeared around it, moving at a considerably faster pace than we had when coming up. Aesnil made a low sound of misery and let go of my arm, threw one last frantic glance at the riders, then ran for the shelter of the trees.
The l’lendaa coming up the road seemed surprised to see us, but surprise rarely keeps a Rimilian warrior from acting. While most of the seven or eight riders began slowing down, one of them leaned forward on his seetar and sent the beast flashing forward into the woods, clearly after Aesnil. I tried to put up a wall of repulsion in the mind of his seetar, hoping to make it shy away from the chase, but I couldn’t even detect its mind, let alone influence it. It moved faster than anything that large had a right to move, and a brief moment later Aesnil’s scream came, showing the chase was ended. By then the others had reached me and were dismounting, and I didn’t have the heart even to look at them.
“It is a wenda,” came a startled male voice, a voice I had never heard before. “What does a wenda do here, all alone and unprotected?”
“Two wendaa,” said a second voice, and I could hear the approach of another set of seetar hooves. “Never has a l’lenda grown hair the length of that second one.”
“Two wendaa, dressed like members of the Chama’s guard,” said the first. “Where might they have come from, and where might they be going?”
“It seems clear their destination was the Chama’s palace,” the second one answered. “For what other reason would they dress themselves so?”
The man looking at me so intently was as blond and blue-eyed as all Rimilians were, but he was also a total stranger. He wore a plain brown haddin and swordbelt just as the others did, but they were all strangers. It took me a short while to understand that we were caught but not caught, and by then the last rider had arrived and had put. She looked furious and afraid, but her eyes darted from one face to the next, her slight confusion showing that the men were strangers to her as well. The man holding my face looked up at Aesnil with the same sort of inspection he had given me, then he shifted his attention to the last man who was then dismounting.
“This one is four-banded,” he said, indicating me with a short movement of his head. “What of the little bird who attempted flight?”
“She is five-banded,” answered the other with a grin, looking down at Aesnil. “Had she not been, I might not have returned so soon. ”
All the men laughed at that, causing Aesnil to flinch and back a step, and the one before me snorted.
“You show fear at a mere jest, girl,” he said, the sternness in his tone capturing Aesnil’s attention immediately. “Were we the sort to do other than jest upon the matter, you would suffer far more than slight discomfort. What do you do on this road unprotected, with your sister so near to collapse that she was unable to follow you? Do you seek your deaths?”