The next morning, Tenthé found himself thinking about his decision to allow Leo to accompany the Envoy. He concluded that, although it was a cold choice, it wasn’t a bad one, overall.
But then, his dominator self always believed it was right. Even after the reconciliation with his dominator persona, his feelings were still bleak, but at certain times that’s just the way you had to be. When there were hard goals to meet, people were tools to be used… and upon occasion, used up.
Thinking his thoughts, Tenthé followed as the others started out, moving down the trail at a speed set by the burros. They plodded along, traveling until sun-down. It was a quiet group. No-one wanted to talk with the Magister, and the kids weren’t great conversationalists. On and off, Tenthé and Elishua discussed what else they could be doing, but, without information, it was nothing more than an excuse to break the silence.
The following days passed much the same. After a sixday, the trail markers indicated they still had a long way to go. They actually said how far, but the numbers were far out of Tenthé’s league.
And, as with their outward trip, they didn’t run into any other travelers. It was worrisome.
Another sixday passed with the usual annoyances, when Tenthé noticed a commotion ahead. Clouds of various flying things were circling and diving. Other than that, he couldn’t make out much, it was still too far off. He noted the irregularity and kept his burro plodding along.
He’d fallen back into old training, scan continuously, evaluate, repeat. It was a habit he had picked up in the campaigns of the first Pool and had served him well over the years.
As the afternoon wore on, the group came across the aftermath of a battle. Bodies lay all about, with a myriad of creatures feeding on them. Some of the fauna and mobile flora moved away as they approached, while the rest kept dining as they warily watched the riders approach.
Everyone halted a few paces away from the feast.
“Horde,” Elishua said, stating the obvious.
“What’s all that?” the Magister asked as she pointed at some shallow depressions in the ground among the bodies.
“Don’t know,” Tenthé replied. He swung down from the burro and carefully approached one of the hollows. From their state, the dead weren’t likely to mind, but some of the feeders were dangerous and there might be traps.
The kids leaped down and ran about, scaring the wildlife. A few of the beasts lunged at them and discovered it was a bad idea when they were casually ripped apart. Taking note, the rest of the scavengers decided to be elsewhere, and scattered. Most didn’t go far.
Elishua joined Tenthé while the Magister stayed on her burro, keeping watch. The whole crew had become a bit paranoid. Tenthé and Elisha walked over the ground, examining the spears, knives, and cudgels scattered about. The kids weren’t much help as they scurried back and forth, disturbing anything that caught their fancy.
Elishua knelt by one of the bodies, which was missing its head. Close by were a couple of possible matches. Turning the body over, she found most of the warrior’s weapons still in his belt. She looked at the strings and feathers tied onto various objects.
“Hmmm,” she said. “That’s odd. Usually, each tribe keeps to its own territory. But, from what I see here, these warriors are from a different one than those back at Angel City.”
Tenthé had been examining some scratches on the road, probably writing. He motioned for Elishua to come over, and once she had a look, muttered something to Tenthé before they both turned and walked back to the burros. Curious, the kids circled around to join them.
“I’m pretty sure I know what happened,” Tenthé said. “The warriors had buried themselves in the sand, but something they couldn’t handle found them. Leo and the Envoy came by later and continued on.”
“Yeah,” Elishua responded, “But why are they,” she waved her hands toward the bodies, “here in the first place?”
“Not sure. I guess it was an ambush. Explains a lot.”
“Does that mean there are going to be more? Where there’s one ambush, it’s very likely there will be others.”
“I guess. Magister Grenville,” he called out. “Do you have anything to say?”
The Magister didn’t answer immediately. Now that he knew a bit about how she thought, he could sense her sorting through the things she knew, deciding what and what not to tell them.
Eventually, she came to a decision. “I guess there’s no harm. As best as I can determine, there’s a tribe of the Horde at the City Proper, but stuck outside. And somehow, the City is doing okay. I don’t have much more than that, since this only became clear recently. And, I… I just can’t say anything more.”
Elishua looked at her. “You know, we could have guessed most of that on our own.”
The Magister returned her stare. “Well, that’s just how it works.”
“Uh-huh. Tenthé, what now?”
“Um, I would bet that when these guys didn’t report in, it set off something. We’ll have to be careful anyway, but any patrols will be extra alert, now.”
“What about Leo and the Envoy?”
“I dunno. They’re on their own, but there’s another problem. The Horde is pretty good about detecting stealth and a group like us is hard to hide.”
Unexpectedly, the Magister directed, “Let the burros go. A surprising number of them exist in the Wilds, they appear to be well suited for life, here. There’s a herd near, over that way. It’ll be tough, but most of them will survive. For a while, anyway. I’m not so good at seeing the future of burros.”
Tenthé and Elishua looked at each other. The burros were a problem. Tenthé didn’t care, the beasts were a means to an end. At this point in the trip, they were only needed for riding, since everybody was keeping what was left of their supplies in their Pockets.
Might as well let them go.
After everyone agreed, there wasn’t much to do except remove the bridles and blankets, then see what the cantankerous animals would do.
Oddly enough, the burros and mules appeared to have figured out what was going on and were trotting toward the nearby low hills.
“Hmph. Stupid burros,” Elishua grumbled as she watched the mini-herd trot off into the distance, moving much faster than when they had been ridden.
Tenthé agreed. He squinted his eyes. The burros and mules were surprisingly hard to see. They blended in so well, it was possible that they might have their own version of stealth. For no good reason, he wished them luck and turned back to face the group.
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“From now on we’ll have to be hyper careful,” he repeated, just to make sure the message was understood. Especially by the kids.
Surprisingly, An responded. “If we have to sneak, Yu sucks at it and I’m not much better. Put us in front. As you know, we love a good fight.”
Elishua mused, “That’s not the worst idea I’ve ever heard. If we see a lot of Horde coming, we should have enough time to hide, but if they’re going to ambush us, Yu and An can spring the trap, then we’ll ambush them… uh… back. You know what I mean.”
“Yeah! There’s around nothing for kilopaces. I can go full out. I like it.” Tenthé opined.
“You’re crazy!” the Magister yelled unexpectedly. “You can’t fight the whole Horde; they live for this kind of thing. We’ll be slaughtered!
Everyone stared at the Magister.
“Hm. Is that the prophet speaking, or the little old lady?” Yu asked.
“I told you, I don’t get to pick what I see! Sometimes more, sometimes nothing. The power takes me where it likes. We could all be killed!”
“So, tell me,” Elishua demanded. “In what you have seen, how many times is Tenthé there? Lots? none? Or just some of the time?”
“Um, now that you mention it… he, or something like him, is in…” with this, she clapped her hands over her mouth, then mumbled through them, “Wait! I didn’t say anything! Nope, nothing! Shitity-shit!”
She moved her hands to block her ears and hummed to herself with her eyes closed. It was particularly ineffectual at making them forget what she’d said.
“Well, there you go. Everything’s fine! Tenthé makes it, so mayhem it is!” Elishua decreed.
“Um, we didn’t really talk about doing anything else,” An observed.
Tenthé’d had enough.
“Talk-talk-talk, blah blah, yap, yap, yap,” he yelled. “There! Done! I don’t like any of the other ideas, so I vote for the first one. Passed! Good! My choice wins!” and he shoved An, who bounced down the road.
“Now, get going! We’re all depending on you,” Tenthé yelled after the tumbling An.
Yu ran after, needlessly helped An get up, and the two hurried on. Faintly, they could be heard talking. “We’re just walking, walking… going to the city. So happy ‘cause it’s such a nice day. Didn’t see the massacre back there, nothing to do with us. Doo-be-doo-be-doo!” And so on.
A number of paces behind, Elishua and Tenthé followed shielded and in stealth. When they got far enough away, Magister Grenville felt herself being grabbed by a force and pulled along. Tenthé had included her in the protection.
The shield he’d cast wasn’t like anything she’d ever seen before. Her attempts to poke through it had absolutely no effect. She kept trying, testing its strength, since her life depended on how good it was. Eventually, she decided it would do. Her own was alright, but it took power she didn’t want to waste if she didn’t have to.
That settled, she mused how fortunate it was that whatever had made her learn how to ride a burro had also insisted she get into shape for walking, although she was a little stiff after all this time in the saddle.
Her abilities were capricious, but a feeling was settling in. Her part in this escapade was nearly over. She’d done what she could, and going forward, there were a dwindling number of possible futures. Some were very grim, but now, it was out of her hands. The outcome rested on the shoulders of the small group ahead of her, with most of it on the smallest shoulders of them all.
To be truthful, she was excited to find out which future was going to happen.
As the kids trucked down the road, it didn’t take long before they triggered their anticipated incident. One moment, they were walking along, and the next, they were sent flying through the air when the ground under them erupted with warriors. Many of the Horde watched as the two soared up, then down, where they smashed into the dirt.
To their obvious amazement, instead of a terminal splat, the kids rebounded a couple of times, whooping and laughing at each bounce. The instant they came down for good, the kids jumped up and rushed the nearest warrior. They plowed into the much bigger figure and bowled him over. They didn’t quit and ran at the next, but it took no time until a pair of warriors had each kid by an arm, obviously trying to tear them apart. Yu and An kept a running dialog, taunting the warriors about their feeble attempts to dismember them.
One of the warriors rushed up to the action and demanded, in highly accented standard, “Who are you? What are you doing here? How can you be so strong?”
He then turned and yelled at the warriors holding the kids. “What is wrong with you? You call yourself Horde? PULL!”
Tenthé guessed the yeller was a Word, since he looked kind of like the other one he’d fought in the cavern. After a quick debate over his options, he moved behind the warrior in question and announced, “I challenge you to a fight for… well, just because.”
Obviously, it was possible to scare a warrior since the Word jumped at least a pace into the air before he whirled and swung at Tenthé. Physics won and Tenthé went flying. He really was only a ten-year-old kid.
He landed, slid to a stop, got up, and laughed.
That would teach him! Every now and then, his humility got a refresher. Not the moment for reflection though, since the Word was right there, smashing away with a cudgel.
But, this time, Tenthé was braced, both magically and physically. He reached up and crushed the cudgel to splinters. The Word slammed out a spell that spiraled around Tenthé and careened off to hit another warrior, turning him into dust. Seeing magic items about the Word’s person, Tenthé jumped up and landed a tremendous punch on the Word’s chin, and while the warrior was dazed, stripped him of his clothes and amulets, and then drained his magic reservoir. Before the Word came to, he had the Magister float the Word into the air.
At this indignity, the other warriors sprang into action, half of them attacking Tenthé while the other half grabbed the Word’s arms to pull him back to the ground. They’d forgotten the kids, who had acquired cudgels and were in the process of reducing one of the warriors to a pulp.
Although it was many against a few, Tenthé was enjoying himself and it wasn’t going well for the Horde. Suddenly, a spell shot in from nowhere and another warrior was blasted into insensibility, or more likely, death. Elishua had joined the fight.
That was too much. As one, the warriors dropped to their knees. They weren’t stupid and could see that without their Word to counter magic, they were at a disadvantage fighting this demon and however many stealthed Magisters.
“What do you want?” the Word growled from his upside-down position in the air.
“Well,” Tenthé began. “What I’d like to know is: who are you guys? And why are you here?”
When the Word didn’t answer, Tenthé added, “It’s not like it’s a secret. I’ll find out, anyway. I would just be nice to know sooner, rather than later.”
With this, he manifested a spark. This appeared to be a winning argument, since the Word decided to answer.
“We’re the,” and the Word said something that Tenthé didn’t know. It sounded as if a cat mating with a hedgehog. “That’s obvious from our…” the Word reached down, well, up, and, when he realized he wasn’t wearing anything, pointed at the stuff on the belt of one of the other warriors.
“Um, look at his feathers and leather bands on his weapons. Those show our tribe. We’re the…” and once again he said whatever Tenthé couldn’t understand.
“So, you’re not the same tribe that’s at Angel City, uh… the city over that way?” Tenthé pointed in the direction they had come from.
“Mentor, no! They’re the Hssst!” The name sounded like the noise a steaming kettle would make.
This one Tenthé could manage. “Uh, don’t the, uh, Hssst usually… I mean, isn’t this the Hssst territory?”
The other warriors forgot to be angry and giggled at how he said the name. Tenthé didn’t care. It wasn’t him kneeling.
The Word was also struggling not to laugh. “There’s a cht sound after the Hhh. What you said is pretty rude.”
Tenthé was intrigued. “You could die at any time, but you’re laughing. How come?”
“When I was a girl in my city, I was always afraid. After the Mentor converted me to Horde, then everything became clear. No-one can bother at me now and get away with it! As Horde, we live our lives! Each one of us knows we’re never alone and never weak. We work to make sure we become stronger, and the way to do that is to pitch ourselves against powerful enemies. There is nothing wrong with failure, but I admit we may have made a slight error in attacking you.”
“The other Word I fought bragged a lot more than you.” Tenthé stated.
“We’re not the same! Everyone is different. My guess is he thought there was a good chance he’d win and had no reason to be nice.”
“Yeah. Well. I take offense when someone attacks me. I’m not that nice either.”
The Word realized what was going to happen. “Losing to a superior opponent isn’t a shame,” he declared.
At this, all the warriors surged to their feet. Tenthé made it quick and looked over the bodies as they dissolved into smoke. In a very short time, there was no evidence they’d ever existed.
The kids took their positions once again, and led the group down the road. They still had a quite a distance to go before they reached the city. For once, no-one felt the need to discuss what had just happened.