Treason

Chapter 7 -- Ensel

I wasn't bleeding anymore, but I was still in pain, and more painful was the memory of the hatred of the soldiers. I knew only a few of them, but those had always been kind to me, and some of them had been friends since I was a child. Now they delighted in my pain, wanted me to suffer, and still it was plain that to them, nothing I went through could equal the punishment I deserved. Their loathing stung, worse because I didn't deserve it and yet had no hope of proving my innocence.

So I lay in darkness in the dead stone cell where they at last let me rest until my death the next day. My wounds were healing quickly enough, leaving me exhausted, but soon enough I would be whole. Father had given me a night and morning of life before I died. I determined to use the time, not preparing for death, but trying to think of a way to escape.

I admit my thinking wasn't good. I had come too recently from Schwartz, and still found myself as maddeningly disdainful of normal concerns as they were. No one had fed me since I came to Mueller, but I wasn't hungry. No one had offered me water, but I felt no thirst. And since I could ignore pain as it subsided, what was there to remind me that I had to act quickly, act immediately if I was to save my own life?

Save it for what?

My purpose in Schwartz had been to come warn my Family. The warning was a little late, and no one wanted messages from me now anyway. Worse, they had locked me, in a prison of dead stone, so I couldn't even speak to the rock and sink into the soil and, escape.

I could kill myself, of course, but my natural aversion to that was abetted by the fact that I could not bear to be guilty of adding that much pain to the earth. Rock bears enough murders without the scream of the self-murderer's death.

There was a patter of light footsteps outside the door of my cell. The bar lifted, and the door, with difficulty, swung out.

"Lanik," said a voice in the darkness. I knew the voice at once, could not believe that I was hearing it. And then. Saranna was holding me and weeping. "Lanik, they even put out your eyes."

"They're growing back," I answered. "It's so good to be home."

"Oh, Lanik, we've been so afraid for you!"

She spoke to me as if I had never been away, as if nothing had changed. Her hands fit exactly on my back, in places where ancient habit said that hands that size belonged. She held me with a pressure that I had last felt yesterday (had last felt a year ago) and her breath, her skin as her cheek brushed mine, the scent of her, even the wild wisps of hair tickling my nose--

I held tightly to her because for a moment she took away the nightmare of the last few days and months and years, and I was Ensel Mueller's son Lanik, heir to the throne and a happy young min. Damned happy. Damned.

"Why did you come?" I asked.

"You have friends, Lanik. Some of us believe you."

"Then you must be insane. There's nothing believable about my story."

"I have known you long enough to know when you tell the truth. I don't want you drawn and quartered tomorrow. Come with me."

"You don't think you can get me out of this prison, do you?"

"I can with help."

She held my hand and led me through the corridors. She squeezed once when we reached steps going up, twice when the steps went down. We were as soundless as feet can be, and I, for one, didn't breathe. It was easier that way. My eyes were healing well; already they had their round shape; but it would take time for the nerves to heal properly, for vision to be fully restored. It was frightening to be blind and moving, like that dark night crawling along wet slick branches in Nkumai. That night I never knew what lay ahead. Nor did I this night-- but tonight someone held my hand and led the way. Tonight I trusted my life not to my instincts, but to a woman whom I had~ always thought of as being a little flighty. Loyal, of course, and wonderfully exuberant in making love, but not dependable. I was wrong, obviously. We met no one on the way.

We stopped.

"What are we waiting for?"

"Quiet," she said, and I was quiet. After a few minutes I could hear the distant shuffle of footsteps. An old man, I decided from the sound. And then he was close and I felt arms going around me and an iron grip holding me and hot tears on my neck.

"Father," I whispered.

"Lanik, my son, my son," he said, and I wasn't afraid anymore.

"You believe me."

"You're my single hope." Always the old bastard regarded me as his hope, as if he had first claim on my loyalty before even myself. Well, he did.

"Four much smaller hopes tomorrow," answered.

He only held me tighter. "There are times when an honest ruler has to abdicate, and this is that time. They won't cut you up. I knew you'd never betray me, not permanently, anyway."

"Not even temporarily," I said. "But now let's get moving before somebody notices that you're holding court down here."

"We can't go yet," Father said. "We have to wait.

"Why?"

"Changing of the guard at dawn," he said. "We hope they'll be distracted."

"The guard? You're afraid of the guard? Can't you just hide me and command them to let you through?"

Saranna answered. "It's not that simple. Your father doesn't command the guard."

"Well, who the hell does?" I whispered.

"Ruva," said Father.

I raised my voice. "The Turd rules in your palace!"

"Quiet. Yes, she does, she and Dinte. They were plotting it before you left the palace, and once you were gone they made their move. I could have blocked them, I suppose, but I couldn't afford to kill my only heir, as I thought, and so I went along, pretending I didn't notice how my prerogatives were usurped, how my friends' offices became sinecures and the real power seemed to gather in much younger hands."

"My mother tried to warn the court," Saranna said.

"I had to sign her death warrant."

"Why did you sign it?" I asked.

"For the reason I signed yours," said my father. "She escaped and is living in exile in the north. In Brian, I believe. Her agents smuggled out half the fortune. It stopped when Ruva found the leak."

"I see," I said.

"When we heard you were commanding the Nkumai invaders, I was overjoyed. I used my influence, such as I have, to put our stupidest commanders, including Dinte, in the key positions. I opened the doors to the enemy. Thinking, of course, that you were coming to liberate me and the people from that ass I had the misfortune to many and that child your mother claimed was also mine."

"It wasn't me."

"I knew it couldn't be you when we heard how the armies were destroying everything. You're too wise for that. I knew it was a fraud. But then there were so many witnesses." He sighed. "I betrayed my own Family, thinking I was opening the door for my son to save me from my wife and our monstrous little whelp Dinte. Now the enemy ravages from Schmidt to Jones and it's only a matter of time before they cross the river and take this city. They'll surely do it soon. The rains will make the river impassable in a few more weeks." Suddenly he wept again. "I dreamed of your homecoming, Lanik. Dreamed that you'd come in triumph and lead these people into battle. You could have led my army to defeat the Nkumai. They must have known it. That's why they destroyed the people's love for you. Now we can only run."

"Good enough," I said. "Let's start running."

"The changing of the guard," Saranna whispered.

"No," I said. "Dinte and Ruva are surely watching you. They probably left me unguarded just so you'd try this and get yourselves killed. You'd better go back upstairs, both of you, and pretend you had nothing to do with this."

"Not this time," Saranna said.

"We have to leave with you," Father said. "Things are intolerable here. We have a few hundred loyal men that I've already assigned to duty in the north. They're expecting us. They'll rally to us."

"To you, you mean. Not a soul alive would rally to me. But we're not going to wait for the changing of the guard."

"Then we'll be caught. Every gate is watched closely."

I could see the flicker of Saranna's torch now. My vision was returning. "I'll create a diversion. The postern gate."

"It's heavily guarded."

"I know. Take me near there, but keep me out of sight. I can see faintly, and I should have full vision soon, but in the meantune I couldn't defend myself against a gnat. Once I'm there, you two be ready to spring for the water gate. I'll join you there."

"'Blind?"

"I know the way blindfolded. And by then no one will be looking for me.',

"What kind of diversion can you creater, Father asked doubtfully.

In answer I opened my shirt and showed them my chest. "Do you remember what grew here when you sent me away, Father?"

He remembered.

"It will never grow back. The Schwartzes cured me, as I told you. If they could manage that, don't you think they could teach me other things as well?"

Saranna's hand brushed down my chest, like the dream I had lived through a hundred nights on the Singer ship.

"Let's go," I said.

They led me up the stairs and ramps and corridors that would take us to the postern gate. They left me in the window well over the palace door, where, if I could have seen, I would have scanned the courtyard before the postern gate in the palace walls. As it was I could see shapes, dimly; though torches were only bright sparks of light, I could see the flames dance.

There was so much dead rock around that I was hampered, but I soon found the voice of the rock. Much was new; the soil, unlike the sand, had too much life in it. It was a barrier, not a channel. But at last I found the voice of the living rock. I explained my purpose, I asked for help, and the rock complied.

I couldn't really see it happen. I could only hear the grinding of dead stones as the earth heaved under them and cast them from their piles onto the ground. There were shouts as the men from the postern gate ran to the breach in the wall. The earth kept heaving, and some were thrown to the ground. Others foolishly ran too close to where the walls were dancing, where great blocks of stone toppled from their place and crashed into the earth.

I lowered myself from the window and walked the other way, toward the water gate. Saranna and Father and four soldiers leading seven horses waited in the shelter of a wall.

"What did you do?" Father asked, in awe. "It was like an earthquake."

"It was an earthquake," I said. "Just a little one. Big ones take a committee." Then I strode toward the gate. In the gathering light of predawn I could see again, though things were blurry, and with relief I noticed that the gate was unguarded-- the soldiers had run off to the breach in the wall.

Unguarded, and so we passed through, Father and Saranna first, and then the soldiers. Which is why I was last and still unarmed when Dinte emerged from the shadows.

I saw the glint of torchlight reflected in steel. "How unequal we are," I said. "A mark of your courage."

"I wanted to have no doubt of the outcome," he said.

"Then you should have picked a different target," I answered. It was a simple thing to make sweat and oil seep out of his hands, so the hilt became slippery.

He trembled; he couldn't hold the sword; it slipped out of his hand, and he looked at it there on the ground, horror in his eyes. He tried to pick it up. It slid again from his fingers. He rubbed his palms frantically on his tunic, leaving dark stains. Did he think he could dry his hands that easily? He tried again to pick up the sword, this time with both hands. He cradled it, then tried to lunge at me; I easily slapped it out of his hands. And this time it was I who picked it up.

It would have been pure justice if I killed him, but he was screaming for help and he was my father's son, so I merely slit his throat from ear to ear and left him silent and bleeding on the ground. He'd regenerate and recover, as I had from the same wound more than a year ago. But at least he'd know that next time when he came for me, held have to bring some friends.

I passed through the gate, still holding the sword, and mounted the horse they held for me. I said nothing of my reason for delay. If Father had heard Dinte's voice, if he guessed what had happened inside the gate, he said nothing about it.

We rode north all day, and at night came to a military outpost that had once guarded Mueller's northern frontier in the old days, when Epson had been powerful and Mueller a peaceful farming Family with some strange breeding practices. The outpost was run down, but a quick count made me estimate three hundred or more horses, which meant there'd be as many men at least.

"Are you sure they're friends?" I asked.

"If not, we haven't much hope anyway," Father answered.

"Either way, it would be better if you had this sword, and not I."

I handed it to him. He looked at it and nodded. "Dinte's."

"He'll recover," I said.

"Too bad," Saranna said gruffly.

"Maybe he'll do us a favor and die on his own," I said. But I was sure the wound was one he could recover from.

Then we were at the outpost gates and the soldiers let us in and cheered Father, and he explained (very roughly) that it was an imposter and not I leading the Nkumai. I don't know how many believed him. But they were courageous men and loyal to Father; most cheered and none protested.

"You're brave," he told them, "brave and worthy, but three hundred men are not enough." He ordered them to go back to their homes and bring as many loyal men as they could find. Wisely, he urged them not to mention that I was with him. Let them rally to the king, not to someone most would surely think of as a traitor.

As the three hundred soldiers rode out to bring an army to us, we changed horses for the fifth time that day and rode on north into the darkness.

"You must have been planning this for months," I said.

"We weren't planning on you," Father said, "but we knew that sometime soon I'd have a crisis with my dear younger son and would have to be free to call on the loyal troops. We planned for contingencies."

Dissent had already set for the second time that night when we finally stopped at a farmhouse well off the road. The house was right at the bank of the Sweet River. The wind was cool out of the eastern hills that led to Ku Kuei. The fire in the hearth was hot and fierce, and the host forced us to eat soup before held let us go to bed.

The bodyguards slept on the ground floor. And when the host showed me to my room, Saranna was already on my bed, waiting for me.

"I know youre tired," she said. "But it's been a year."

As she undressed me I looked out the window onto the rolling wheat-covered hills to the east, where the sun rose out of Ku Kuei, and I felt the breeze playing across my body while Saranna tickled me (nothing forgotten, not even now), and I smelled the reek of horseflesh in my own clothes and the fresh whitewash the host had used a week ago, and it was good to be home.

After three weeks it was clear that ours would be an unnoteworthy rebellion. We had eight thousand soldiers, loyal to the core and some of the finest fighters in the kingdom. But Father's treasury fed them and armed them to no avail: Rumors came, which soon were verified, and we knew our cause was lost. Dinte had signed a treaty with the Nkumai. Now there were 120,000 men against our tiny army. Father and I might have been better generals, but there are limits to what a general can do.

What hurt us worst, however, was the fact that the Nkumai, apparently from the day I was captured, had put their duplicate Lanik into cold storage and started publicly declaring that I had indeed been with them, but had been captured by Mueller forces and was now a defector with my father's army. And as soon as they started that story going, they ended the policy of wasting the land, claiming that the destruction had been entirely my idea and they were grateful to be able to quit.

It did nothing to make me popular or my story of twin believable, and troops weren't exactly flocking to my banner. We tried to conceal the fact that I was with Father, but some stories can't be kept secret.

So there we were with eight thousand men, a full treasury, and not one choice except to run away. Of course the Nkumai and dear Dinte chose that moment to join forces on the north side of the Mueller River and head straight for us.

"We'll die heroically," said Harkint, who still didn't trust me.

"I'd rather live," I said.

"We know your preferences," he answered coldly.

"I'd rather all of us lived. Because it won't take long with Dinte in command before people start clamoring to have Father back."

"It wouldn't take long now, if you weren't with us," said another soldier, and a murmur of assent came from the others gathered in the large room of the house. Father frowned at him, but the soldier was right. I was Father's chief liability. Lose me, and he'd be able to raise more of an army. Maybe ten, fifteen thousand more. Still not enough.

"I have a plan," I said. "And it will work."

The next morning we set out along the Sweet River. We made no secret of our direction and we traveled at a leisurely pace. The river ran southwest, and anyone with half a brain could guess we were heading for Mueller-on-the-Sea, the great port on the Rebel River delta where the fresh water spewed out into the saltwater Sleeve. Strategically it was vital, and the fleet, if we could reach it first, would take us to Huntington, where the troops would still be loyal to Father and, not having seen the devastation, might not hate me as much. There we could wait and prepare an invasion.

This meant, of course, that Dinte and the Nkumai would race, us for the fleet and get there first. I had no objection. After all, even if we got to Huntington safely we would be permanently in exile; with the Nkumai getting both our iron and their own, there would be no resisting them. So when we reached the point where we had to leave the river no matter where we were going, since the river jogged to the west, I ordered our army to begin a doubletime race, not southwest for Mueller-on-the-Sea, but southeast for the Great Bend of the Mueller River, where we would be free to go eastward, gathering strength among the recently conquered and none-too-docile populations of Bird, Jones, Robles, and Hunter. It wasn't the world's likeliest or safest plan, but it was the best I could think of at the time.

We didn't bother galloping-- we went at the wagons' best pace, which was still a good deal better, with each wagon lightly loaded, than Nkumai's army of former tree climbers could make on foot. I could only hope that the enemy had got far enough westward, in the wrong direction, so that we could reach the bend before them. If we did, they'd never overtake us heading east, and we'd live to fight another day.

And if they did reach us, I had still another plan, but it was for the time when we had nothing left to lose.

As we rode southeast, there was little for me to do. Father knew his men and no one was eager to take orders from me. Instead I thought, and the subject that most often came to mind was the imposter, the all-too-true Lanik who was now out of a job.

It was an interesting speculation, what his life had been like. His creation had been bad enough for me-- but for him, the first stirrings of consciousness began with someone who looked exactly like him trying to bash in his brains with a rock. And then what had the Nkumai put him through, believing he was me, before they finally caught on to what was happening? If I had been haunted by him before, in dreams, now he haunted my waking hours as I pictured the hatred they must have taught to him. You're a monster to the men of Mueller, they must have told him. They'll kill you if they ever know who you are. But if you work with us, we'll install you on the throne and you can show them that you are someone to regard, with fear if not respect.

Had he actually led their armies? Perhaps. Were my memories transferred to him along withmy body? If so, he would be a match for me on any battlefield, since he'd know my moves before I made them. Surely they'd keep him with them for that purpose if no other.

Whatever role he had actually played before, he was once again betrayed, unceremoniously dropped from any important role. Perhaps they've already killed him, I thought. Or perhaps he's feeling as hopeless as I, knowing that there is no one more hated than he in all the West, and yet truly deserving none of the hatred at all.

I thought of Mwabao Mawa and wanted to strangle her.

No murder, I told myself. No killing. I have heard the song of the earth, and that is stronger than hate.

At such times I would ride off from the army, several kilometers ahead, and he on the soil and speak to the living rock. Since I feared that I couldn't control myself, I let the rock control me, restore me, bring me peace.

"They've set the Cramers free and they're taking Mueller slaves," one soldier who joined our army told us in horror. The reaction was electric-- many of our soldiers had families in West Mueller, where the Cramers might be creating havoc with no one to defend our people. I was not surprised that our numbers began diminishing as soldiers slipped off to head southwest. I was even less surprised when most of our scouts failed to return. Still, we had to try to hold our army: I insisted that Father stop asking for volunteers for scouting missions.

We were only thirty kilometers from the Great Bend when the most important information of all came from someone we had never thought to see again."

"Homarnoch," Father whispered as he saw the man madly driving a wagon along the road we had just come down. "Homarnoch! Here!" he cried, and the old doctor was soon beside us. We called a rest; the soldiers stopped on the road.

"No use," Homamoch said. "I've killed a brace of horses coming to tell you. The Nkumai didn't take your bait. They only sent Dinte and his force to Mueller-by-the-Sea, and when you turned southeast the rest of them were ahead of you all the way. Not five kilometers off they're waiting for you. They've been at the Great Bend for days."

Father called his commanders and gave them orders to have our men prepare for a much faster march.

"We'll fight them and win," Harkint insisted.

"We'll escape and survive," Father answered, and Harkint went off in a rage.

While the preparations were going on, Homarnoch told us how and why he had come. "They were going to take everything-- all our work for thousands of years. I wouldn't have that. Not those tree-dwelling apes."

I didn't bother telling him that those tree-dwelling apes had given faster-than-light travel to the rest of the universe.

"So I poisoned the rads," Homarnoch said.

Father was shocked. "Killed them!"

"They were five tons worth of iron on the hoof, Ensel, and I couldn't let the inkers have that. So I poisoned them. Not even their fingenails'll be worth a gram of iron in trade."

I said nothing, but remembered a time when I had had five legs and an extra nose and still believed I was a man.

"I also got the library. The essential records. The theory. It's all in that wagon, " he said, "and I burned the rest. With Dinte's men in charge of the city, nobody even thought to keep me in."

"A master stroke," Father said. Homarnoch beamed with pride.

"'Having the books with us doesn't answer the real question, " I said. "What do we do now?"

"Harkint wants to attack," Father said with a wry smile.

"Harkint's a heroic ass," I answered. "But I can see why he wants to do it. There's nowhere else to go. Dinte's men are between us and the sea, and there's nothing in the north but Epson. They won't be inclined to provoke Nkumai by taking us in."

"Dinte's no match for us."

"He outnumbers us five to one. With odds like that they don't need a competent commander."

We sat in silence. Homarnoch mumbled something about needing to check the horses. And then Harkint came back. The troops were ready. "And what I want to know is, are we going into battle or running from it?"

"Running," Father said. "The question is, which way."

Harkint snorted. "I never thought the day would come when the Mueller would be a coward. I've followed you through everything that's gone wrong, including harboring this Class A bastard" --meaning me-- "but I'll be damned if I'll turn tail and run from a fight. And there's others that feel like me."

If he'd had any sense of the theatrical, he would have stormed off then. But he hadn't. So Father answered. "Go through the troops then, Harkint, and ask for all who want to go with you. But tell them that the Mueller is withdrawing, and asks all men to come with him. You tell them that, and take all those who'll go with you."

Harkint nodded and left. I began scratching out a rough map of Mueller and the surrounding territories.

"South and west is out of the question," Father said. "Everyone in Mueller would kill you, and everyone in Helper, Cramer, and Wizer would kill me."

"And north is impossible," I answered, "because Epson is too weak to protect us, and too strong for us to force them to take us in."

"And we can't reach the East because Nkumai's army is in the way."

"How desperate," said Homarnoch lightly, looking over a sheaf of papers as he returned and stood a few meters off. "We have no hope. Let's throw ourselves in the river and drown."

It was time for me to broach my final, desperate plan. "There is a direction we haven't tried."

Father wasn't slow. "Ku Kuei. But there are too many legends about the forest, Lanik. The men wouldn't go in."

"I've been through the forest. Not just around the edges. Through it."

"And they'll follow you anywhere."

I laughed.

"Even if we got them in there, Lanik, what would we do? Nkumai rules the East, and the Singer armies are ruining the far north. What do we do in Ku Kuei?"

"Survive. Dinte can't last forever."

"You're serious about us going there, aren't you?"

I could see that he was as afraid of Ku Kuei as anyone. Hadn't I been? And hadn't strange things happened in the trees, time seeming not to move, my body wearying beyond all expectation? Still, it was our only hope.

"There are legends about Schwartz, too," I said. "Yet I went in and came out again, alive."

"Do you think there's still a Ku Kuei Family in there? Do you think they might have something valuable to offer?"

"The forest is strange and dangerous, even maddening. I met no one in there, Father, and I don't expect to find anyone to help us this time. But even a faint hope is better than no hope at all."

Father chuckled. "Lanik, I think such mad hope is the way you show despair."

His amusement meant that he was softening. I pushed harder.

"Would Dinte follow us into Ku Kuei?"

"Dinte? He believes all the legends. He closes his windows at night. He won't cross water under a cloudy sky. He sings when the shadow of another man's horse touches him. He's a fool."

"The Nkumai are not fools," I said, "and they don't go into Ku Kuei either. Forests are their native habitat. Ku Kuei scares everybody till their snot freezes. So if we can keep from panicking ourselves, we'll be safe."

More than we had expected chose to follow Harkint into battle. We formed the rest into a double column all the same, and began to march northeast. It was not a pleasant leavetaking. Some of the troops with us called abuse at Harkint's men for abandoning the Mueller. Harkint's men cried coward in return. The march was dismal as we went on our way, only five thousand men or so, with deserters dropping off all along the way. I couldn't blame them, but forced those I caught to get back in line. They didn't mind. They knew they'd get away in an hour or so, when no officer was watching.

We came to the fork in the road where escape to the north would mean following the main way left, while the smaller road east could only take us to Ku Kuei. Father's speech was impressive. But we lost two thousand men right there, just as word reached us that Harkint's forces had been slaughtered within a few hours of our having left. The Nkumai were close behind us, and they had rested for days while waiting for us at Great Bend-- they were fresh and we were not.

We filed hopelessly up the narrow road leading through the rough eastern hills. There was little desertion now; in these hills, the best source of food was our wagons, and deserters would have httle hope of surviving with the enemy so close behind. Besides, the men who were still with us now were the hard core of Father's supporters. The kind, we thought, who would die before they'd abandon him.

"I'm toying with an idea," Father said to me as we headed the column along the twisting road. "My idea is to pick a good spot here and go down fighting."

"That's a stupid idea," I said cheerfully.

Father smiled. But it was a grim smile. "I'm reahzing, the closer we get to Ku Kuei, that I'm a bit superstitious, too. Are you sure you got through there safely?"

"I'm here, aren't I?"

"You're here, but what does that prove? Lanik, my son, I'm a blathering old man, but unless I'm mistaken, you knocked down a wall of my palace without so much as a small rock or a catapult."

"I learned some things in Schwartz."

"Lanik, I don't doubt you. But don't you realize that what is possible for you might not be possible for anyone else? You might be safe enough in Ku Kuei, but what makes you sure any of the rest of us will live?"

"Anything I learned, I learned in Schwartz. I was an ordinary boy when I went into Ku Kuei, and I came out weary but unchanged."

He sighed. "What are we going to do in Ku Kuei?"

"Survive." What other plans did he expect me to have?

The road veered north, and in the distance to the east we could see the trees of Ku Ruei begin. There was not so much as a path leading toward the forest-- it wasn't the usual direction for travelers to go. So I picked out what looked like a reasonably good route, and started overland.

The troops didn't follow.

Not that they said anything, or rebelled. The front ranks just sat there on their horses, watching me, not speaking, not moving.

Then Father left the road and came after me, his horse at a slow walk, and one or two others started, too. But while Father came on until he joined me, the others reined in and stopped a few meters from the road.

Father turned to face them. "I won't command any man to come," he said. "But that's where the Mueller's going, and all the Mueller's true men will come with him. Stay with me and you will live as long as I do."

I don't know whether Father's little speech would have been enough to persuade them by itself. Much more convincing was the flight of arrows that sailed toward our column. The aim was not good-- the distance was too great for accuracy. But the message was clear: the Nkumai had flanked us, and the entire length of our column would soon be exposed to enemy arrows.

Father cried out, "To me, Mueller!" and then whispered loudly to me, "Lead, dammit!" I took off at a totally unwise canter over broken ground; my horse and I were lucky, but others were not, and many horses spilled their riders before they reached the shelter of the woods.

The trees were tall, but the branches were often low, and it was hard to pick a clear path. I had to dismount, and that meant that our forces would also have to pause at the forest edge, exposing themselves to Nkumai archers as they waited for those ahead of them to move under the trees. We lost more than two hundred men there; but when I had led us two hours into the forest, the rearmost men called ahead that the Nkumai pursuit had withdrawn.

The urgency of flight was over, but we couldn't stop there. The trees were so dense that no decent forage for the horses could grow. I decided to lead the men on to the shores of the narrow lake where I had first stopped. There the trees broke into enough meadow to keep the horses for a few days, at least.

Our passage through the forest was silent. I didn't look behind me at the men-- it would have made them even more nervous to know how nervous I was about them. I kept waiting for our strength to fade while time seemed not to pass, as had happened to me before. This time, however, nothing was happening to our endurance, but the very silence of the forest despite the steady tramping of the horses' hooves and the soldiers' boots was unnerving. It was as if the sounds were swallowed up in the silence, a bit of ourselves stolen away by the trees and not reflected back to us.

We spent a hard night in the forest. The ground was soft enough, and there was plenty of food in the saddlepacks, but by morning hundreds of men had disappeared. Gone off into the night or turned away first thing in the morning, but gone. We knew they had merely deserted (and more than a few who had stayed were no doubt wishing they had gone, too), but the feeling that men could simply vanish in the night did little to promote calm.

We lived out of our saddlebags, and it took us more days than I thought possible until at last we found the lake. Hadn't I reached this place-- exhausted, yes-- but after only a single day of running? Sunlight poured down and birds skirted the edge of the water and the horses grazed openly on the meadow and I thought we had made it to safety. I counted the men. Fewer than a thousand. And with this we hoped to return to power in Mueller.

The men bathed in the lake, splashing each other with water like children. They laughed loudly. They were safe now, and had no urgent need, neither men nor horses. Father and I decided to leave Homarnoch in charge of our peaceful, happy troops, and go off searching for a place where we could camp, and build huts, and plant crops. Unspoken was the faint hope that in the process we might also find the Ku Kuei, if any such people lingered here.

Saranna clung to me and told me I mustn't go. But Father and I left her anyway, and went searching through the forest. It seemed wise at the time.