Torio was a much better Reader than either Delia or the man trying to contact her. It was easy for him to Read beyond Delia the mile or so to the next relay, another lesser Reader dutifully awake and Reading, easily located when so few minds were alert and active.
//Relay,// Torio announced, and the Reader, a man in his fifties, sat up with interest. //Traitors,// Torio told him. //They left Tiberium by the Northern Way, then turned off cross-country. They should pass to the east of your location. Keep a sharp watch and relay when you Read them.//
//When? Who? How many?//
Lenardo dared not interrupt, but Torio had the sense not to embroider his lie too elaborately. //Three: two men and a girl. The guard is after them. Keep a sharp lookout for the next hour to the east.//
//Where's Delia?// the man asked suspiciously.
//Her baby's sick. We're having to skip over her tonight. Relay both ways if you spot the traitors.// He broke contact.
//Very good,// Lenardo told him. //Close enough to the truth to be thought an honest mistake caused by an overextended relay link.//
For almost an hour, they were able to keep ahead of the relays, planting false messages and distracting the attention of these minor Readers from their true path. It was alarmingly easy until they approached Villa Blanca, a small city mat housed a female Academy. Here there was a direct relay link with Tiberium, and they found the accurate message being transmitted to one of the teachers there.
//A different message has already come through here from Cassius,// she reported. //The traitors left the road just north of Tiberium, riding cross-country to the northeast. If they continued in that direction, they should pass far to the east of here.//
//What? No such message was relayed back to us. Read around you, Magister.//
They were on the open road, close to the city. There was no hope of escaping the Reader's scan. This time they split up in reality as the city guard came pouring out of Southgate on horseback. Torio rode west, Lenardo and Julia east. The guards had no Readers among them; they could not be misled by false images, but they also could not Read exactly where their quarry were.
Villa Blanca was a small city, completely contained behind its walls, and at night only nine men guarded it: two at each gate (for it had gates only at the north and south) and five others prepared for any disturbance. Those five now sought the three fugitives, riding on either side of the road to intercept them.
There were no buildings outside the walls, nothing to hide in. The moon threw long shadows of the moving riders. As three guards bore down on him and Julia, Lenardo had to let Torio take care of himself. They could not hope to outrun the guardsmen's fresh horses.
As they approached, the guards flung their spears, but neither Reader had the least trouble ducking them. Then, swords drawn, they closed. Lenardo held one off with the rusty blade from the inn, while Julia, counting on a grown man's reluctance to harm a child, pulled her horse between his and the guard attempting to attack from the other side. Reading gave Lenardo the advantage of knowing his adversary's moves before they were made. He got a quick thrust in under the first guard's lifted arm, withdrew the blade, and turned to the second while Julia continued to cover his back. The guard on her side gave a vicious slap to her horse's flank, but the child clung to the reins and retained command of the tired animal, keeping it between the soldier and Lenardo.
//Good girl,// he told her, but just then the wounded guardsman came up beside Lenardo's horse and jabbed it with his sword. The animal screamed and reared, unseating Lenardo^ His rusty sword hit the hard ground and broke.
He scrambled to his feet, facing three mounted men. Grasping the wounded man's arm when he tried to thrust again, Lenardo attempted to unseat him. Pain shot down the man's arm, and he dropped his sword. Lenardo retrieved it, Reading that this guard was close to fainting and no danger now. But the other two were oh him, one slashing from his horse, the other dismounting to face him on foot, the two in perfect concert, attacking him on both levels.
The man on foot was a fine swordsman. Lenardo parried his thrusts but was relentlessly driven toward a position where the mounted guard could get in a crippling blow. He tried to draw the swordsman away, but the other fought his horse into position again.
//Julia, if they take me, flee. Take Torio home to Zendi.//
No answer, but the child was Reading him and the guards. The wounded man had passed out. It was only two on one. I've met such odds before.
But he had rarely met such an expert swordsman as the one driving him back, and his foreknowledge of the moves was little help against the skill with which they were executed. He thrust and slashed, trying to keep from being driven like a sheep by a dog. But the aggression was too tiring, and he couldn't keep it up. The horseman was in position behind him, sword ready. Lenardo could not maneuver away.
The horseman screamed as Julia, with every bit of strength in her small body, sank her butcher knife between his ribs.
The man on the ground looked up in astonishment, and in that moment of distraction, Lenardo lunged and skewered him. He sank back, doubly surprised, and fell.
Lenardo turned to Julia, who slid off her horse into his arms, trembling but refusing to cry. "Oh, Julia," he whispered into her hair, "you shouldn't have to do such things. You saved my life again, Daughter."
There was no time, though, for thought or recovery. They Read for Torio and found him just dispatching the second of his pursuers.
//Take the best horse,// Lenardo instructed him as he and Julia took the two best of the three fresh animals the guards had inadvertently provided them and once more galloped off into the night.
Lenardo had not expected to leave a trail of dead and wounded, certainly not provincial guardsmen doing their duty without even knowing what the fight was about.
//They're our enemies,// Julia said as if in answer to his thought. He realized that she was working it out in her own mind. Savage she might be, but she had never before deliberately killed someone. //They're just like those men who tried to sneak in and kill you that time, Father. You were a Reader, so they wanted to kill you. Here we're savages, so they all want to kill us. What can we do but kill them instead?//
//Nothing here, Julia. All we can do is hope to change things in our own land so that people won't go on killing one another.//
Torio kept his thoughts to himself but rode steadily beside them. The teacher from the Academy at Villa Blanca relayed the message ahead of them again, and the next step after that was Adigia.
//Master Lenardo,// Torio suddenly broke his mental silence, //can you Read from here to Adigia?//
//Yes.//
//Who's on relay duty?//
Lenardo took his attention from their immediate surroundings, knowing that Torio was quite adequate to prevent their riding into ambush, and Read far ahead to the town where he had grown up.
A sturdy wooden tower had already replaced the stone one that had fallen in the earthquake, and there above the gate, two guards stretched and yawned, facing the hardest part of their watch, just before dawn. With them was the man Lenardo had Read a few days ago. He didn't even know his name.
Even as he Read, the message that there were fugitives headed their direction was relayed to the Reader. Instantly alert, he told the guards. The alarm was sounded, and the garrison was roused.
Lenardo removed his attention, letting Torio and Julia Read what he had seen. "Now what do we do? We can't fight the whole garrison."
"We'll have to go back to that place where we came through the wall," said Julia.
Lenardo turned his attention there, only to find a troop of soldiers headed in that direction to block them. Why did I have to show that to Portia?