by Candy Rae
Tara turned a face filled with anguish towards Emily.
“Kolyei says Andei is down.”
“Down?”
“Dead.”
Emily’s face whitened as she realised what must have happened.
“He cannot ‘hear’ him,” sobbed Tara. Her hands shook as she gripped the mapping pen and bile rose in her throat.
Moira and Andei’s duty post had been with a Lindar close to the centre of the allied lines. Andei had been passing regular reports to Kolyei regarding the repeated attacks and then as Kolyei had told her, suddenly there were no more messages.
“Maybe they’re just hurt, or unconscious,” stammered Emily.
“Kolyei says no,” trembled Tara. “What do we do now?”
“We keep going,” answered the fifteen-year-old Emily. “There’s nothing we can do to help them.” She made another annotation on the map in front of her. “Lindar Hanvsei has moved forward. Try to keep calm Tara. Blubbing about it won’t help and you never know, they might still be alive. Don’t go to pieces on me. I can’t do this on my own.”
: Helvetei and Barindya Lindars to advance : sent Kolyei at this point and Tara fumbled as she noted down the advance movement.
: Detach yourself : he ordered. : Concentrate on the map :
Tara took a deep breath. Both Emily and Kolyei were right of course; there was nothing she could do and she mustn’t go to pieces. Jim and Larya were depending on her and Emily to keep the map board up to date so that they could direct the battle. She couldn’t let them and the others down.
She ‘felt’ Kolyei take a moment to shunt her thoughts about Moira and Andei to one side of her brain with a start of surprise. She hadn’t realised he could do that and she found she was able to concentrate again.
As one by one her friends joined in the battle she managed to keep from becoming emotionally involved by the simple expedient of not thinking of her friends fighting for their lives but imagining them as ever-changing marks on the map. It seemed to work.
She and Emily, as they kept at it, realised that Jim was ordering more and more Lindars forward, their friends with them. The Larg were getting desperate and Aoalvaldr was flinging wave after wave up the hill in an effort to overrun the Lindars. The lines were holding but for how long?
The girls’ battle was here, behind the lines, but Tara and Emily were amongst the few who knew what was happening at the settlement. It was their job to pass on updates to Larya. What they passed on did not make good hearing.
“They’re fighting in the streets,” Tara mentioned during a lull in message passing.
“I know,” grimaced Emily. “Jim can’t do much to help them either.” Both girls had attended Jim’s pre-battle conference. They knew that overall victory depended on victory atop the hill.
“Defeat the Larg,” Jim had declared, “and the convicts will be unable to sustain their position.”
Knowing this, both Kolyei and Ilyei were filtering the information sent by Matvei. There was no point worrying Jim about something he could do nothing about.
* * * * *
