The Rebellion (52 page)

Powyrs had agreed that the comatose empath might remain aboard the ship, for he was to bring us back to the Land when the Battlegames were over. He thought we were to perform at a bonding of one of the tribal chiefs. Little as we had liked leaving Dragon, she was safer on
The Cutter
than with us.

“In this long sleep, in this fortress of dreams, I live a shadow life and in it dream of one who will come …,” Miky sang softly, and Angina took up the harmony in his deeper voice, at the same time elaborating the melody with tiny bells and empathising it delicately with his Talent.

I rose quietly and slipped away from the fire to crawl into one of the tents. Removing only my sandals, I stretched out fully clothed.

“Greetings, ElspethInnle,” Maruman sent, and I looked up to see him enter the tent. I made a place for him beside me. The red glow of the fire through the tent opening made his fur appear bloody and discolored. He slept at once, but my mind was too active to let me sleep. On impulse, I shaped a probe and let it soar away from the spit and over the dunes like a nightbird.

I did not try to direct its flight but let the music take me where it would.

Here and there, I encountered the silvery shimmer of other minds—small nocturnal creatures foraging. Once, I was drawn to a brighter shimmer and held for a moment by a deep mind that was clearly intelligent and just as clearly nonhuman.

I flew until my mind was calm.

At long last I returned to my body. The fire outside had died, and the music had stopped. I fell asleep.

It seemed only a moment later when someone shook my shoulder.

“Elspeth, wake up,” Miky said. “The Sadorians have come to take us to the Battlegames.”

I opened my eyes, unable to believe it was morning already. Maruman had vanished, but a warmth by my head said he had not been gone long.

“They said to hurry,” Miky urged. “We have to be there before the sun comes up, or the whole thing will be called off.”

I sat up, pulled on boots instead of sandals, and crawled out of the tent. It was still dark, and the air was cool and pleasant. The moon had set, but a few stars still pricked the darkness. Wordlessly, Kella pressed some of the bread and cheese I had purchased the previous day into my hands as Rushton announced to the two Sadorians that we were ready.

We were conducted quietly through the sleeping camp to the road where a host of shaggy kamuli and several other long-legged Sadorians waited. As we mounted the seated beasts and settled ourselves in the wooden contraptions that served as saddles, I farsought Maruman with an attuned probe. He was prowling about the cliffs in search of eggs.

“If there is any trouble, go aboard
The Cutter
with Dragon and Powyrs,” I sent. He did not deign to respond, but I knew he had heard me.

When we were all mounted, one Sadorian perched precariously behind each of us, they made a clicking noise with their tongues and the kamuli rose with a great drunken lurching. They walked with a slow, rolling lope that reminded me horribly of the pitching movement of
The Cutter
. No wonder they were called ships of the desert.

“Oh no,” Fian moaned as the kamuli made their ponderous way up the spit slope toward the cliffs. “We’re headed out into th’ desert.”

“It was the obvious place,” Hannay said mildly. “We’d better start praying to Lud for a cloudy day, or the sun will fry us.”

“The rebels will find it just as hard as us,” Angina pointed out cheerfully.

We had traveled for about an hour into the trackless desert, and the sky was empty of stars when the Sadorians pulled their beasts to a halt. I looked around, but there was nothing on all sides but featureless dunes. Were these Battlegames to take place here in the middle of nowhere where there was no shelter and no water? If so, where were the rebels and the Sadorians? I looked up at the sky again. In the east, there was a lightness that heralded the dawn.

One of the Sadorians rode up to Rushton and said something I couldn’t hear. Then he pointed.

I could see nothing but sand dunes.

“He said the place where the games will be held is there,” Ruston said loudly, sounding puzzled.

The Sadorians clicked their tongues and the kamuli continued.

“I can smell flowers,” Kella said, and a moment later, we found ourselves riding along a long, narrow crack in the
ground. Past its edges, we could see that it opened up into a great cave under the earth. It was too dim to see much, but I could smell greenery and flowers, and at the very bottom of the hidden chasm, I could see the glimmer of water.

“This mun be one of their isis pools,” Fian said in sudden excitement.

“So this is where their goddess weeps her tears,” Kella said dreamily. “No wonder they can spend so much time out here.”

“You’d never find it if you didn’t know exactly how to get to it,” Daffyd murmured.

Miky described the valley to Dameon as the Sadorians turned the kamuli onto a narrow track that wended its way downward. Powyrs had said there were a number of isis pools in the desert, and I had imagined wells. I wondered if they were all like this. Clearly, the wave of earth and rock almost covering the chasm protected it from the sun but let in enough light to allow growth. The combination of heat and water produced humidity that generated a luxuriant growth of plant life. The air became increasingly moist as we descended.

By the time we reached the bottom, sunrise was only moments away. From a distance, Jakoby emerged from what I had taken as a mass of greenery but now saw were row upon row of Sadorian men and women.

We dismounted, and she brought us to Bram, who sat cross-legged on a raised dais under a gigantic drooping tree with coiling, pale green leaves and long, creamy pods. The overguardian of the Temple sat at his feet. The rebels stood in a cluster to one side, and the ranks of Sadorians were arrayed behind them.

Malik and his chosen nine stood ramrod straight in two disciplined lines facing Bram. Jakoby indicated that we were
to take our place alongside them. The rebel I stood beside was almost twice my height, his muscular arms scarred. I knew those looking at us must see the contest between us as absurdly unequal.

Jakoby took her place at Bram’s side and looked expectantly at the sky. She stood that way until we saw the sun rise through the crack where the sky was visible, casting pink and orange rays that stained the few straggles of cloud. I realized they had been literally waiting for sunrise to begin the Battlegames.

“Are you prepared?” Jakoby asked, and I jumped at the loudness of her voice in the still dawn.

“I am,” Malik intoned.

“We are,” Rushton said.

Jakoby looked to Bram, who inclined his head, then clapped her hands. The little hooded overguardian rose and offered the dice—two small cubes with a different number of markings on each face. Bram leaned forward with a grunt to take them up and mumbled a few inaudible words before flinging them high.

All eyes turned up to watch the two gleaming cubes whirl in the air, and then down to see what number of marks they offered to the sky.

“Six,” Bram said. “The Pit, then.”

Wordlessly, the overguardian gathered the dice and passed them back to Bram. He threw them again, and this time they fell showing four marks between them.

“Each leader will choose four from among his number to contend in the first Battlegame,” Jakoby announced in a ringing voice.

“Choose,” Bram said.

There was a momentary hiatus; then Rushton took a half
step forward. “Is it permitted for me to speak?”

The old Sadorian lifted straggling white brows at him. “I told you last night this is not a battle that can be won with words.”

“I only wanted to ask how you expect us to choose well without knowing more about this Pit.”

“I will answer your question with another. How do warriors face lack of knowledge in a battle?”

Rushton bowed and returned to face us, beckoning us to gather close.

“You must choose for diversity,” Miryum advised him.

“Maybe we can take some sort of clue from the name,” Dameon suggested.

“The Pit,” Angina murmured.

“I suppose it will be in the ground. Another of these rifts. Therefore, climbing may be needed, or lifting.” Rushton swept his eyes over us. “Hannay is strongest physically.”

“Powyrs told me th’ Sadorians sometimes use pits to catch fangcats,” Fian said. “There may be beasts, therefore.”

Rushton nodded. “Freya,” he said at last. He did not look at me and, hurt, I did not suggest myself.

“Maybe th’ pit is worked by some mechanics,” Fian continued.

Rushton frowned for a long moment. “Yes. You, then, Fian. And Miryum, because she is a powerful coercer as well as strong physically.”

Neither he nor Miryum looked at me, although they both knew I also possessed coercive abilities. But neither of them knew how strong I was, because I had always tried to downplay my powers.

Sweat beaded Rushton’s lip as the four Misfits were led away with Malik’s rebels. I guessed it had been hard for him not to name himself. I felt a surge of admiration for the
strength of his will. Malik had not named himself either, but it seemed to cost him nothing.

“They are permitted to choose a single implement each from the armament,” Jakoby explained. She pointed as she spoke, and we watched as the eight contestants vanished into a small gray tent billowing in the freshening dawn breeze that swirled through the gap in the earth and stirred the heavy air.

“How can they choose without knowing what they need?” Angina asked Rushton indignantly. “This is madness.”

“Perhaps not,” Miky disagreed with her twin. “After all, Malik is in the same position, as you said.”

It was growing steadily hotter, and I shuddered to think of what the surface temperature must be. Looking up, I saw that the roof of the cavern was moss covered and wondered how often there were rockfalls.

The eight returned. The rebels had chosen between them a double-edged sword, a huge axe, a long knife with a frill of jagged spikes about its tip, and a net. The Misfits had taken a coil of rope, a wide flat shield, a tapered stave of wood, and a knife.

Bram clapped his hands again, and we were led toward another pit—almost a miniature copy of the rift we were standing in and, like the larger chasm, invisible until you were almost upon it.

When we were standing on the edge, I saw that a cage had been set into the rift, neatly dividing it. Inside the cage were two bears. The larger was lumbering slowly back and forth, while the smaller sat in a corner of the cage, its paws clasped around the bars.

“Let the first Battlegame commence,” Jakoby’s voice rang out.

The Sadorian servitors immediately lowered the Misfits
into one end of the pit by rope and the rebels into the other.

“I do not like the look of this,” Miky murmured uneasily.

“Shh,” Angina hissed. “Watch.”

The servitors shifted to other ropes, and the cage was hoisted up, removing all dividers. The bears seemed more bewildered than angry at this turn of events. They appeared not to have noticed the people at either end of the chasm.

For a long moment, no one moved; then the smaller bear noticed the Misfits. It stood up and lumbered toward them, growling slightly.

Without hesitation, Freya stepped forward in front of the others, her face serene.

“She is empathising it,” Miky murmured, her face absorbed.

Without warning, two of the servitors at the sides of the pit lifted long, thin pipes to their lips and blew.

Both bears started violently as the darts found their mark. The larger gave a tremendous roar of fury and reared up onto its hind legs, clutching at its back.

Both Misfits and rebels in the pit froze.

I could tell from the dawning despair on Freya’s face that she had lost touch with the bear. That she could not regain a hold suggested that the darts had been drugged.

The larger bear turned to stare at Freya, its eyes red with fury. With a low growl, it advanced on her. The smaller bear seemed confused, staring from its companion to the girl and back.

Hannay and Fian stepped forward to stand on either side of Freya, lifting stick and shield to fend off the beast. Freya did not move. Her eyes were fixed on the smaller bear.

“She is sending calmness and compassion,” Dameon murmured.

The smaller bear stared back at her, plucking fretfully at
the dart lodged in its fur, and even the larger beast seemed to hesitate.

It shook its head slightly.

“She’s getting to them,” Miky whispered.

On the other side of the pit, there was a sudden and unprovoked movement. The rebel with the sword ran forward and drove the blade deeply into the smaller bear’s side.

I watched in impotent horror as the bear fell without a cry and lay utterly still.

Freya shrieked horribly and fell into a faint, for her mind had been linked empathically to the bear’s. If Freya had been a farseeker or a coercer, she would be dead.

I reached out my mind, seeking the bear’s life force, but there was nothing. Thoughts swirled out from the larger beast, revealing that the smaller bear had been its cub.

I felt Kella trembling violently at my elbow.

The female bear approached her cub’s body and prodded at it. Then she put back her head and howled with such anguish that it rent my heart in two. While she was thus distracted, the four rebels moved forward in a solid phalanx.

I poised my mind to drive them back, then realized I must not interfere for fear of a forfeit.

I looked to the Misfits in the pit. Hannay had dragged the unconscious Freya to one side, and Miryum had slipped past the grief-stricken bear, raising her knife to the rebels. She was trying to keep them away from the bear!

The creature looked up from its cub’s corpse, focusing on the coercer’s back. It rose slowly, eyes blood-red, and growled with chilling hatred.

Fian ran around to its side, waving his shield to draw the bear’s attention from Miryum. I wondered in horror what he was trying to do.

All at once, it snarled and shambled toward Fian, raising massive paws to strike. Even from a distance, I could see the wicked sharpness of its talons. Fian leapt out of the way as the bear swiped at him, and Miryum jumped to one side, leaving three rebels face to face with the enraged creature.