“She made me eat and took away my weariness and healed the bruises and sprains I had gotten thrashing around during my transition. Then she gave me supplies, put me on a horse, and told me to run. I got out just ahead of the group of Housemasters that had finally?twelve hours too late?realized what was happening.”
Amber stopped talking and they rode along in silence for a while, urging the horses faster as they came to a stretch of level ground, then
slowing to climb another hill.
“She loved you,” said Teray finally.
“It was mutual. She almost lost her House because of me.”
“Only almost?”
“She would have if it hadn’t been for Michael. That’s where I knew him from. She had called for help from Forsyth when I was first charged. Michael was in our area on other business but he had Clayark trouble on his way to us.
“He arrived and looked at my memories?I was allowed to come back into the sector to be heard. He looked at the truths the Housemasters had ignored, then decided in Kai’s favor. He didn’t make them take me back, but at least he made them leave her alone.”
“It was too late anyway. You couldn’t have gone back to her then.”
“I know.”
“With you stronger than she is and possessing so much of her knowledge and experience … I don’t think she would have dared to take you back.”
“I’m glad she didn’t have to decide.”
Teray changed the subject abruptly. “I think I’ve spotted some Clayarks.” He hadn’t had to say it. She was already looking off in the direction of the Clayarks. They were not visible, but there was definitely a group of them ahead, moving toward
Teray and Amber. They were just beyond the next hill.
“Only a small group,” said Amber. “About twenty. They might go around the hill and pass us by.”
“Yes, and then they might notice our trail and follow us while one of them goes for reinforcements. Best to kill them.”
“All right. You take it.”
She opened to him as no one had since school, giving him access to and control over her mental strength. It was the way people who were close in the Pattern fought best. The way Joachim’s House fought, the way everyone fought in war when Rayal used the power that he held. But only Rayal could pull all the people together, funnel all their strength through his own mind, focus it on Clayarks anywhere from Forsyth itself to the northernmost Patternist sector. Lesser people grouped when they could with whomever they trusted not to try to make the control permanent.
Inexpertly, Teray channeled Amber’s strength into his own. Then, almost doubly powerful, he reached out to the Clayarks.
The new strength was exhilarating, intoxicating. He almost had to hold himself back as he reached the Clayarks. Within one of them he located a large artery that led directly from the heart. He memorized its position so that he could find it quickly in the other Clayarks, then he ruptured the artery. The Clayark stumbled to the
ground, clawing its chest.
Instantly the other Clayarks fled, scattering in all directions, but Amber, otherwise inactive, kept track of them, focusing and refocusing Teray on them until all were dead or dying.
Several minutes later they began riding past bodies. Amber was closed again?as closed as she could be while they were linked?and Teray had returned to her control over her mental strength. That strength was temporarily lessened, of course, as was Teray’s, but the lessening was slight. One of the dangers of lending mental strength to another person was that the other person might use too much of it, might drain the lender to exhaustion and death. But neither Teray nor Amber was anywhere near death.
Teray stared at the bodies sprawled over the hillside, saw the expressions of agony on many of the Clayark faces, and did not know whether to feel sick or triumphant. Not one Clayark had had time to fire a shot or even get a look at the enemy who killed him. Still, Clayarks too were known to do their killing from hiding. It was strange fighting, repelling somehow.
“You’ve never done that before, have you?” asked Amber.
“No.” Teray rode past a Clayark female, dead, with arms outstretched toward a smaller, completely naked version of herself. A relative perhaps. A daughter? Clayarks kept their children with them to be raised by the natural parents. Teray looked away from the pair,
frowning. They were Clayarks. They would have killed him if they could have. They were carriers of the Clayark disease.
“I wanted you to handle it because I thought you hadn’t done it before.”
He turned to look at Amber almost angrily.
“I wanted to see you fight in a situation where there was no immediate danger,” she said.
“Did you think I hadn’t learned what to do back in school?”
“No, I was afraid you had. And unfortunately, you have.”
“The Clayarks are dead, aren’t they?” He was letting his disgust over what he had had to do spill over onto her and he didn’t care. What was she complaining about, anyway?
“The last couple of them almost got away.”
“Almost, hell! They’re dead.”
“If there had been just one or two more of them, we would have missed them. They would have been out of range before you could kill them. And sometime tonight or tomorrow, they would be back with all their friends.”
“You’re saying …”
