Kel remained unruffled, fixing the speaker with his unblinking gaze.
:Now he tells us how huge and strong his clan is, how many warriors they have, how many battles they fought.: Tyrsell paused a moment. :This is partly a bluff; something - a disease - drove them out of their own lands, and they ran rather than face a foe they had no hope of beating.:
This time Darian heard Starfall’s reply. :Tell him his own numbers,: the mage said, with grim humor :Let’s see how he reacts to the fact that we know his strength down to the last baby.:
Tyrsell did just that, and Darian had the satisfaction of seeing the barbarian leader shaken. But he recovered quickly, and spoke again. :Now he says that we should know that even the babies of his Clan are fighters, that if we come against them and try to force them out of the place their totem has brought them to, even the babies will take up bows and swords and slay our men.: Tyrsell pawed the ground, roused in spite of himself. :There’s no doubt; he means to stay, and he’ll make it cost us dearly to be rid of him. His people are desperate, and that’s dangerous.:
Darian hadn’t needed that last admonition; he knew for himself just how dangerous a desperate person was.
:We do not need to use the spear or the sword to rid ourselves of pests,: Tyrsell replied loftily, and Darian sensed Firesong’s hand in his phrasing. :As any should know who once had the misfortune to dare the Killing Trees of the north. We had hoped that the foolishly bold and suicidal had learned to keep a wary distance from our lands by now.:
The leader barked an artificial laugh, and made his counter. :He says that the so-called Killing Trees did not prevent his passage, and implies that this means his magic is stronger than ours.:
There was a stirring in the distance, and for a single moment, Kero’s troops showed themselves before blending back into the shadows and undergrowth. This did affect the barbarian leader; he had not gotten long enough to count heads, for Kero had timed the moment so that all he had was an impression - an impression of great numbers.
:You managed to avoid the Killing Trees by passing to the west, and your boast is hollow as an old reed. Magic is not our only weapon,: Tyrsell said with great boredom, :It is only the easiest to use.:
The leader remained silent now, as his underlings whispered urgently in his ear.
Tyrsell did not wait for them to formulate a reply, not when the negotiations had just turned in the favor of the allies. :Here are our fighters, our magic, and our gods barring your way - but we are a generous people, and compassionate to those who are willing to serve. These lands have no current tenant, it is true; what have you to offer us in return for leave to remain?:
If anything, that startled the leader even more than the presence of the troops. His posture full of confusion, he made an abrupt gesture, spoke a few words, and retreated with his party.
:He wants to go discuss this with his people,: Tyrsell said uneccessarily.
Back in camp, with Wintersky spying on the barbarians and Kero’s sentries keeping careful watch, Tyrsell gave them a fuller account of what he had read in the barbarians’ thoughts.
Darian fought back a yawn, clamping his jaws on it. It seemed an eternity since the last time he’d slept, and with his excitement and fear wearing off, he felt a bit lightheaded with weariness.
:You all know, of course, that without taking his mind in such a way that he would know I had done so, I could only read what came to the surface of his mind?: Tyrsell began, as a preamble.
“If we didn’t before, we do now,” Kero replied logically. “So, what information came along with those surface thoughts?”
:This Ghost Cat - I am forced to believe it is either a very powerful hallucination, or it is very reaclass="underline" Tyrsell shook his head in irritation as a fly buzzed around his ears. Darian fought another yawn. :I am quite serious; and I am inclined to think that it would be difficult to hallucinate such a thing during the course of a migration lasting moons.:
Firesong and his father exchanged sharp glances, and Kero and Eldan did the same. “That puts an interesting kink in our plans,” Kerowyn ventured. “But until this Ghost Cat shows itself to me, I’m leaving it out of the calculations for now. What else?”
:The disease I mentioned. The three of us managed to get bits and pieces of the whole story.: Tyrsell sounded proud of himself and his underlings, as well he should be; that would be a difficult proposition to read from the surface thoughts. Darian wondered about this Ghost Cat;
Firesong had told him about the two Avatars that helped his friend An’desha - could this Ghost Cat be something like them? And if so, then what did that mean for the Tayledras and Valdemar? :There was a tradition of an annual gathering of clans and septs of clans every Midsummer, and the last year it ever took place, it was held in Ghost Cat territory. Just as a matter of caution, they always avoided Change-Circles, but as we know, other clans don’t. Someone from Blood Bear Clan found a Circle and went into it - and came out with more than he‘d expected.:
“The disease,” Snowfire stated, without surprise. “We were afraid something like this would happen, and we took precautions against it - ”
“Obviously they didn’t,” Kero said dryly.
:Exactly so. It ran through the assembled clans like a wildfire. They call it “summerfever,” since it disappears in winter, though they don’t know why.:
“Is this disease the cause of the crippled children?” Snowfire asked.
:It is. It begins as coughing, sneezing, chills and fever, then becomes a wasting disease. It kills more often than not, as the chest muscles waste away and breathing becomes impossible, or as full paralysis sets in and the victim is helpless to keep up; only the very lucky survive.: Tyrsell was uncharacteristically sober; evidently he found the images that had come with that knowledge to be disturbing. :Usually death from disease comes to the old and weak or the young and helpless. This death does not pick and choose in that way. Enough fighters died in the first sweep that every clan feud was called off, but new outbreaks have occurred every summer since then.:
Darian wasn’t sleepy anymore; whether he was picking up images from Tyrsell, or his own imagination was working hard, but he had seen those children lying beside the fire. . . .
“All right, but why come here?” Firesong asked.
:Their shaman was one of the victims, but before he died, he told them that a sign would lead them to a place where they would find healing and an end to the sickness. And after he died, the Ghost Cat appeared, and led them south. That was when their lore-keepers recalled that we of the south reputedly have many powerful Healers.: