“You are not sure of me, are you?” DeCade said suddenly.
Dirk stared for a moment, taken aback. Then he smiled slowly. “No more than you are of me, DeCade—and you aren’t, or you wouldn’t call me ‘Outlander.’ ”
DeCade held his gaze a moment, then nodded slowly. “Yet you would not deny that you are an outlander.”
Dirk shook his head. “I’m a churl born, like the rest of you. From my tenth year I’ve lived among the sky-men, true; but I’m still a churl.”
DeCade shook his head, too. “Not like the rest of us, no. You know the secrets of the sky-men, and you have known freedom. You are apart from us, Dirk Dulain—no matter your birth and your childhood.”
Dirk bit down on his anger. He knew the cause: DeCade was right.
“So much for yourself.” DeCade stared intently into his eyes. “Why do you doubt me?”
“Oh, I don’t. I believe you’re DeCade—but…” He pursed his lips, staring back into the giant’s eyes. “Did you sleep well?”
DeCade shrugged impatiently. “What is a sleep? The light goes; then it comes again and you wake. There were no dreams, Dulain—only three spots of light, down the centuries: Fools—petty, ambitious, grasping fools—who took up my staff in hopes of becoming kings. They were small men, and weak; they could not contain me within them.”
“But this man—Gar—can,” Dirk said softly.
DeCade nodded. “He is truly a man, as great as ever I was.” A shadow of doubt crossed his face. “Perhaps greater …” He shrugged, irritated. “No matter. We are two strong men; we have two sources of strength to guide this people now.” His eyes had become compelling, almost hypnotizing. “We are both here, you see—both in this body. I speak now, my will rules—but only because this fellow—Gar, as you call him—is wholly behind me and with me.”
Dirk heaved a sigh of relief, which surprised him; he hadn’t realized he was that uncertain about Gar’s survival. “Well … I’m glad you two worked things out between you …”
DeCade grinned. “Oh, there was something of trouble at first—a few seconds only, to you, but hours to us. Both of us were startled, alarmed—and very ready to fight. Your friend came boiling out of his hole to crush the invader, and we locked horns almost eagerly, and strained, feinted, countered and struck—till, from the wrangle, he realized whom he was fighting and why I was with him. I shocked him out of a sleep, too, you see; but presently he knew me.”
“Yes,” Dirk said slowly, “he would be good at reading people, wouldn’t he?”
DeCade frowned. “How much did you know of this man?”
“A lot—though I didn’t realize it soon enough. I figured out he was a mindreader, and a man who read minds from their artefacts—but only when it was too late… So you’re both there, both within the same body, both still alive?”
DeCade nodded. “Yes. And because of that, I trust you more than any of these others.”
Dirk frowned. “Would you mind explaining that?” DeCade turned, looking out over the camp. “I know I can trust them, in that they will do whatever I say; the Wizard did his work well—better than he promised me. But they are loyal to a legend, a rumor, to a thing greater than human that the Wizard’s songs have built down the centuries. Theirs is blind, unquestioning obedience and faith—and the part of me that is like them is warm with their love and trusting. But …” His eyes swung back to Dirk. “There is another part of me now, with memories I never lived through; and that part is like you: an outlander.”
Dirk nodded slowly. “And that part knows that I’m loyal not out of faith, but from reason.”
DeCade grinned and clapped him on the shoulder. Dirk picked himself up off the ground and looked up at the giant, whose face had turned grim. “The others will do as I say, blindly, unthinking. But you will question me if I may be wrong.”
Dirk nodded. “Oh yes. You can bet on that. I know a little about the Lords that they don’t, you see.”
DeCade nodded. “Yes. You have studied these Lords from the sky since I died, have you not?” His brows drew down. “Question me indeed, if you think I am wrong—but do not do it at the wrong time.”
Dirk stared up into the burning eyes, and felt a chill down his back.
The Lords and their Gentlemen rode up to Albemarle, their women and children in their center. As they came near the town, they watched the roadsides in fear and suspicion; they trotted their horses, ready to break into a gallop at the first cry of alarm. They clumped together in the center of the highway; the shoulders had become very treacherous.
But they began to mutter to one another as they rode out of the forest; they had ridden through two miles ideal for ambush, and no deadly hail of arrows had come. Only an occasional man disappeared from their fringe. And that made them even more fearful and uncertain; why would the churls let them ride unmolested? The more contemptuous among them put it down to cowardice—the churls would not attack them now, when they were awake, clad in armor, mounted, ready for battle. Others suggested the peasants had sickened of battle already and gone home to their cottages. Only a few of the older, grimmer hearts were seized with foreboding; they knew some excellent military head had planned the assaults on the castles, and if that tactician were letting them gather together all in one place, what did he plan? But there was nothing else to do; if they scattered to strong places, the churls would cut them down one by one.
So they rode to Albemarle.
But these realists were few. Most spirits began to rise as they rode out of the forest, across the river and up the road that wound up the hill to high Albemarle. As they climbed, they began to sing; some began to joke and laugh. This slackened as they rode through the King’s Town, eyeing the shuttered houses and shops warily. Then one man began to sing a battle song; others joined in, and, as they rode through the high gate beneath the grim portcullis, they began to believe they might yet put down this rebellion.
So they came into Albemarle in bands of hundreds, the tattered remnants of thousands; but they came into Albemarle with laughter and song.
But there was song in the forests, too, where renegade Soldiers and freed churls, outlaws and Guildsmen sat around their fires, chanting the Lay of DeCade.
CHAPTER 13
The churls had slept for six hours and come awake as the sun was going down. Most of them brought out biscuits and cheese from their wallets and made a supper. A small army of old men moved among them, distributing food from nearby estates, to those who hadn’t brought any; but they were bitter about being too old to contribute more than food. As they went, they reminded the churls to eat lightly; there was hard work coming.
Hugh, Lapin, and Madelon came pacing up to DeCade, where he sat alone on his log. Dirk looked up, saw, and hurried to join them.
“There are five thousand Lords and their men come into Albemarle,” Lapin was saying as he came up. “There were a thousand before; now there are six.”
DeCade nodded. “What of their churls?”
“They went out when the Bell was rungen,” Hugh reported, “though they longed to stay and turn upon their Lords.”
DeCade shook his head firmly. “No. We must have a baited trap for our rats.”
Hugh shrugged. “Most of them are here among us. We have eleven thousand churls within this wood and spread throughout the fields around and about.”
“Eleven thousand to six?” Dirk frowned. “Not good odds when they’ve got laser cannon.”
DeCade shook his head. “Their cannon cannot shoot straight down, and we shall be beneath their walls before they realize we have come. Indeed, their cannon should be ours before they sound the alarm.”