by Guy Antibes
Trak could see the softening in the woman’s demeanor. Is that what love did to a person? It seems to have made Nullia look younger and less of an imposing, intimidating presence. He felt a bit jealous. Here Nullia had found someone, and looking at Valanna’s expression, he had lost someone.
“I have come for help,” Trak said.
“What more help can I give the General?” Colonel Mirona said.
“I don’t need your help, Colonel. I need Valanna and Nullia to come back with me to fight Master Riotro.”
“You said you didn’t bring any orders.”
Trak took a deep breath. “The General underestimates Master Riotro’s ability to wreak havoc on his army. He thinks Riotro will act like the magicians he is used to. I don’t believe that. Just a few of us turned around a Kandannan army of over five thousand.”
“How many of you?” the Colonel said.
“Five of us on two flyers.”
Neel interrupted. “That’s not bravado, Colonel. My sister was one of the five. Trak did most of the dirty work.”
Mirona eyed Trak. “So? Did the General ignore you?”
Trak felt his forehead bead with sweat. “He did. Santasia can’t afford to let Riotro have his way, so since I’m unattached to the army, I will fight him wherever he shows up.”
“I’m well aware of Adolphus’s attitude towards magic, but he hasn’t seen Valanna and Nullia at work, and I have. If Valanna and Nullia are willing, they can go with you. You’ll have to leave one of the flyers. I have two magicians who Valanna has taught to fly, and I need to know what is going on around me.”
Nullia raised her hand. “I can’t perform magic. Without a good ankle, I can’t even pose, so I have no magic to help.”
“What about you, Valanna?”
Trak didn’t hold out much hope. He had left the main army in good spirits, thinking she would immediately agree to go with him, but now he thought Neel and he had come on a fool’s mission and he’d have to go back empty-handed.
Valanna looked at Nullia. “I’ll make a decision tomorrow morning.”
“Neel and I will stick around until you’re ready to tell us yes or no. If you wish, I’d be happy to go over my strategy with you tonight.”
She looked conflicted and that gave Trak a thread of hope. At least she hadn’t rejected him immediately.
~
Valanna paced, bent over, in her tent. Nullia was out with Sandy somewhere. What was it about Trak that irritated her so? She had, quite literally, dreamed so often about meeting him again. He seemed taller than she remembered and imagined, but her version of him had aged much more. Trak still looked young and the thought of him pushing her around…
She stamped her foot, bringing up a cloud of dust from the dirt floor. At dinner, Nullia pressed her to talk with him. After speaking with Colonel Mirona, Nullia came to the same conclusion that Trak did. Riotro could be a dire threat. Valanna trusted Nullia, but didn’t want to show any weakness towards Trak.
Nullia put her head inside the tent. “Come with me. You need to talk to Neel and Trak.”
Valanna sighed and clenched her fists. Why was she afraid? No, not now. Not after she had done so much to help the Colonel’s forces and before that Lieutenant Navino. Perhaps she didn’t want to desert either man and Nullia and Sandy and the other magicians.
“Stop dithering!” Nullia grabbed Valanna’s hand. “Come on.” She pulled Valanna out of the tent. Sandy supported Nullia from the other side.
Valanna gave up and let Nullia lead her to a spot not far from their tent. Neel and Trak had obviously borrowed some camp chairs.
“What do you want to say?” Valanna said, folding her arms.
Trak looked anxious, but Neel just sat back, trying to keep from smiling. Sandy stood behind a now-seated Nullia, who tapped on the chair next to her.
Nullia looked up at her. “Sit for a moment,” Nullia said. She turned to Trak. “Go ahead.”
“Nullia knows that Riotro is a very powerful magician. He can do things that none other in the Guild can do.”
“I already know that,” Valanna said.
“I don’t believe that he has really exercised his full abilities on the battlefield. Asem thinks he saw him once, but since there are many black-robed magicians running around, who knows?” Neel said.
Valanna looked at Neel. “So, what makes you think he will start to actually fight now?”
“He wants to win. His plans were thwarted when the Kandannans didn’t make it to his battlefield. Now he’ll need to do something to tip the balance in favor of the rebels. Right now, General Niamo is absolutely correct in thinking that he has a large advantage. But that advantage only works if Riotro doesn’t react, and I think he will react—“ Trak said.
“His ego is on the line, Valanna,” Nullia said. “I’ve known him for quite a few years. He lets others do all the work, but if he is the only one capable of getting something done, he acts. I am certain Trak is right.”
Valanna couldn’t argue with Nullia. She had experienced the Black Master, and Valanna had no idea what the man was like. “So why me?”
“Wind. You control the wind better than anyone else I know,” Trak said.
“Better than you?”
Trak colored at her challenge and paused. She had him now.
“I need to do other things,” he said. “I don’t know if you are more powerful than I am or not, but I need to be the pointy end of our strategy.”
“Pointy end?”
Trak cleared his throat. “I will kill Riotro, if I can. I will kill his magicians.”
“Pulses?” Valanna said.
“You’ve used pulses?” Trak said. He seemed excited by her comment.
“Nullia told me about them, and they do work.”
He actually smiled, and that made something turn over within her. Did she still like him? She had tried not to, but that smile…
“Even though I was exhausted, pulses gave me the continued power to…” Trak paused for a second.
Trak’s face blushed, but he didn’t seem embarrassed. What was the cause, Valanna thought?
He cleared his throat again, “The power to destroy the magicians and officers of the Kandannan army.”
“My, my.” Sandy said from behind Valanna. “Cutting off the head of the snake, eh? You used the flyers to get in close, didn’t you?” He laughed. “It wouldn’t even be a fair fight.”
Trak looked very uncomfortable. “It wasn’t, but I had to think of the lives that I saved. Not only Santasian lives, but those of the common soldiers that I flew over.”
Valanna could hardly believe what she heard. Trak had turned into a reluctant warrior in his exile. He didn’t like the killing, yet he acted. Now, he wanted to take the lead and do it all over again. He didn’t laugh like Sandy at the thought of defeating his enemy. Trak saw the necessity of it.
How could he last in a war feeling that way? But then, that was how she really felt. Could they be so much alike? She felt her reservations melt in her mind. If Trak truly believed he acted to shorten the war, to reduce the terrible bloodshed, then how could she stay behind and just float around, finding out where enemy positions were?
Mirona had two magicians capable of moving around for short periods of time, and that’s all he needed for scouting.
“How would you use my capabilities?” She leaned forward, anxious to hear his plans.
Trak grabbed a handful of papers from a bag at the side of his chair and gave them to her. “I have worked on a series of maneuvers. We don’t know what Riotro will do, so I’ve tried to anticipate what he might do. He might try to buckle the earth under the soldiers, or create a flame barrier. I can’t stop him from posing, but I can counteract whatever he does, so I need to move from spot to spot very quickly.”
Valanna nodded.
“I also might need to push rocks to drop from up high. I can lift a boulder like a flyer and move it around. A flyer needs to be nearby so when the rock is read
y to drop, I can step onto it. No one has shown the ability to fly as fast as I, but I think you can.”
“You expect me to be flattered? Am I a cart driver?”
Trak looked like he had been slapped, and that wasn’t quite what Valanna meant. “You may be the best cart driver in the world,” he said
Nullia chuckled. “You know how to flatter a girl,” she said. “Do you understand that he needs your particular talents, Valanna?”
Trak stood. “I wanted Nullia’s expertise as well. Some of my plans call for two flyers, and I wanted Nullia to be on the second one.”
“Alas,” Nullia said. “That’s not going to happen.”
“I know that now.” Trak looked dejected but then brightened. “Look at my plans and see if you can improve on them. Can you do that for me?”
Valanna looked at Nullia for some support.
“Look them over. The boy wants to leave first thing in the morning. If I were able, I’d be there.” She looked up at Sandy, who put out his hand for her to grasp. “Even if it meant leaving you surrounded by Mirona’s creatures.”
Sandy was the only one who laughed at Nullia’s joke.
Valanna gazed at Neel. “And you?”
Neel raised his hands. “I’m the shield man.”
“Who is on the other flyer?”
Neel finally spoke. “Kulara, Honor, and Nullia was to be the third. None of us are Santasian subjects, so no one can accuse us of desertion. I assume your wound has healed sufficiently?”
Valanna nodded her head. “Maybe Ben Nomio can be pressed into service,” she said. “I’ll do it. You must promise to listen to my advice.”
“I do,” he said.
Trak looked like a huge weight had been lifted from his shoulders and Valanna wasn’t sure she liked doing the lifting, but as she shuffled through the papers Trak had given her, she had to admit that he had taken a lot of time to come up with counterstrokes to whatever Riotro might do, and it all appeared to hold together in her eyes.
~
Trak flew by himself, while Neel and Valanna shared the fancy flyer that Sandy had designed. The flyer had some distinct advantages, particularly the foot high sides. The extra weight would tax most magicians, but Valanna claimed it didn’t affect her for most flights. That only made the inclusion of her strength in his team the more valuable.
In some ways, he wanted to be with her, talking, but Trak didn’t sense she was ready to talk about their relationship. He really didn’t know if he was either, but she never left his mind. For him, something was still happening between them. He wasn’t so sure about her.
Trak didn’t want to stew about it, so he kept going over the different scenarios in his mind. What if there were three magicians as powerful as Riotro? Four? What else could they do?
Would the General allow Trak to at least give the magicians some additional offensive training? He might not, given what Trak was about to do. He would ask Niamo when he returne, but he dreaded facing the General again. As muh as he hated to admit, it didn’t make sense for them to operate without the General’s knowledge.
Trak thought the strategies that he had proposed to the General did that, but Neel rejected that assumption. Ben’s inclusion on the second flyer was a weak point. Neel agreed and suggested that he ask for a Purple from the Moziran Guild to provide the shields.
When they stopped for the night, Valanna only wanted to review Trak’s strategies and didn’t appear open to any personal discussion.
“How did it go?” Trak asked Neel after Valanna had retired.
“You really stirred up a hornets’ nest,” he said. “She had just come to terms with her abilities and felt pretty good about herself, and then you came and dragged her away from the place where she wanted to contribute.”
“I didn’t just ‘drag’ her away.”
Neel snorted. “I can understand how she feels, now. How did you feel about being pressed to go on your quest to Bennin?”
“Angry.” Trak rolled around Neel’s words in his head. “Oh. I took away her choices.”
“You did, indeed. Let’s all fly together tomorrow. We can tie up our flyer to hers and go together.”
“I didn’t think of that,” Trak said.
“I did, but I hope I softened her up a bit for you.”
Trak shook his head. “I don’t think of her as needing softening.”
“Youth,” Neel rapped his knuckles against Trak’s forehead. “You both need some softening, in my view.”
~
“I’m sorry,” Trak began lamely. “I didn’t mean to impress you into my service.”
Valanna barked out a laugh. “Impress. It’s not like you cast an Absorption Spell on me.”
Trak had to smile. “What if I did?”
She looked at him sideways from her pose, pushing the wind behind them. “Then I wouldn’t feel so angry, I guess.”
Trak looked back at Neel, who urged him on with a hand gesture. He couldn’t help making a face after making sure Valanna wasn’t watching. “I’m sorry.”
She turned to look at him straight on. “That is the fifth or sixth time you’ve said you are sorry. I get it. You. Are. Sorry.” Valanna went back to gazing at the ground flowing backwards. “I’ve had my army taken from me.” She raised her hand, breaking the spell and making the flyer coast. “I’ve been taken from a mentor, who I’ve grown to love. Now you are placing me very much in peril. I am coming willingly, but I am not coming because of you.”
Trak could feel his face heat up. “I have no right for you to think that way.”
“You don’t. We hardly know the people we have become. The hug on the ship…” she looked away, “was a mistake.”
Trak took her hand in his. He was encouraged by the fact that she didn’t pull it away. “No, it wasn’t. I needed that to keep me going. My life in the past months has not been easy. There are… issues that I’ve had to come to terms with, and the thought of that hug has been one thing that has kept me going. I’m sorry if it doesn’t mean anything to you, but it did to me.”
“Did?”
He shrugged his shoulders. “How can it have any relevance now? You’ve made it plain that there is nothing between us.”
Valanna’s eyes watered a bit, and that alarmed Trak. He couldn’t have her crying in front of him, could he? Trak wouldn’t know what to do.
“I didn’t say it didn’t mean anything, I said it was a mistake.” She cleared her throat and assumed a wind position again. She looked as uncomfortable as Trak felt.
Trak glanced helplessly at Neel, who just shook his head and put his hands over his ears and turned with his back to the pair of them. Then Trak impulsively put his arm around Valanna’s waist, not spoiling her pose.
“We can start to know each other again, you and I.” Trak expected her to throw him off, but she let him stay as he was. “I can’t deny that I have thought of you often. There still must be something between us.” Trak rolled his eyes and grimaced. How could he be saying this? He felt so ill at ease.
Valanna’s mouth turned up in a corner. “Right now, there isn’t anything between us.” She glanced down at his arm and pulled his hand tighter. “Did Madame Barazzi teach you how to hold a woman just right?”
What did she say? Madame Barazzi? He looked at his arm and nearly recoiled in shock. That was one of the proper ways to hold a woman that Misson’s friend had taught him.
“You learn well, Trak Bluntwithe. I will accept your offer to start again. I, too, have thought of you from time to time. We have much to talk about, for our lives have changed quite a bit since Pestledown.”
Trak breathed a sigh of relief. She gently removed his hand, so he could withdraw his arm. He leaned against the railing to look at her. “Why don’t we start by comparing our time in Misson’s mansion?”
Valanna actually laughed. “A wise choice for such a young man. Why don’t you begin?”
~~~
Chapter Twenty-Seven
~
>
After the flyers reached the hills on the western side of the Halgo River valley, Neel suggested that they take them up as high as they could and fly directly over the rebel army. They might as well bring some current intelligence to General Niamo as a peace offering.
As they moved south at thirty stories high, the limit of Trak’s knowledge of Bitrium power words, the rebel army came into view.
Valanna and Trak continued to talk, making Neel the odd man out. He decided to step over to the other flyer and give the pair a bit more privacy. The wind that Valanna produced made the listening rather hard, and that suited Neel’s desire to give them as much privacy as he could.
The rebel army filled one side of the valley as defined by the Halgo River. Trak would shield his flyer, and Neel would do the same on the one that he rode.
From this vantage point, Neel could see the difference between experienced units and the rabble, as Asem called them. However they all moved as an army, marching in order, some groups better than others. Riotro’s generals must have been training the common men as they went.
Neel noticed Trak’s flyer begin to lower just a bit. “Trak, strengthen your shield,” Neel said. He shuffled to the edge of his own and saw a group of riders with a few wagons just on the other side of the river. “Magicians below. Valanna can you fly faster?” He reinforced the shield around his own flyer.
“I certainly can,” she said. “This is what happened to Nullia and me.” Neel could hear the concern in her voice. Both flyers began to move upwards again as they moved out of range.
“Well, that was instructive,” Neel said. “I’m surprised the spell reached all the way up here. Riotro?”
Trak nodded as he relaxed his shield pose. “Maybe. The Kandannans know the spell, but shields totally eliminated the threat. I’m not sure we could be pulled down from this high, but if we were lower…” He shook his head.
“If anything confirms your suspicions about there being more powerful magicians to defeat, this does,” Neel said. “But you never needed to convince me.”
Valanna seemed to start a bit at Neel’s words. She probably didn’t need convincing now. He wondered if she would have agreed to come if Nullia hadn’t been there.
