Being bombarded with the images of all this happening at once was somewhat disconcerting, but Lenardo had become accustomed to assimilating so much sensory data, and helped the other Readers focus.
Torio and Melissa crept up on a man and two women, whose dog raised its hackles and began to growl.
“Wulfston would be able to calm him,” observed Torio.
“Wassa matter, boy?” one of the women asked suspiciously-but the dog turned from growling to whining, wagging its tail and butting her leg with its head. And when she reached down to pat it, she toppled on over, asleep at her post. The man jumped up, but collapsed in his turn, as did the other woman as she turned to flee, caught as she was drawing breath to shout a warning.
By the time Torio and Melissa had secured their prisoners so they would not be able to move when they woke, all the other guards had been similarly dispatched. The party from Zendi moved in on the camp from every side.
They announced their presence with a circle of flame, shooting out of the ground all around the outlaw camp. People shouted and ran, dogs barked, horses reared and screamed.
The flames disappeared as if they had never been-but the moment a hastily loaded wagon bolted, new flames shot up before the horses. They bucked, upsetting the wagon and spilling people and belongings in a tangled heap.
The Readers and Adepts moved in, thunderbolts and sheets of flame preceding them, driving the bandits inexorably into a knot of frightened people in the center of the small valley. They moved between the shelters and wagons, leaving them on the perimeter, while the people were herded like sheep into a cluster where they could all hear what they were told.
“Some of your people,” Lenardo shouted, “came into our lands and attacked two of ours-a Reader and a Lord Adept. They learned what powers we have-and that we will not allow such attacks on ourselves and our people. Now you must learn!”
The smell of fear sweat clogged Torio’s nostrils. Almost two hundred people huddled, prepared to die horribly. Children wailed, parents having no words to comfort them. They were helpless, they knew it, and they were terrified.
All but one boy-no, girl-who turned to face Lenardo defiantly. She said nothing, but her mind spoke resignation rather than fear, standing out clearly against the miasma of sick terror behind her. And there was something else-her resignation was not because she felt she deserved to die, but because she felt that the whole world was like-
Torio could not Read her specific thoughts against the images of horrible pain and death flowing through the minds of all the other people. They were allowed to stew for long moments before Lenardo spoke again.
“You recognize that we can easily kill you?”
Frightened eyes looked all around the circle, as people clung to one another, shivered, and nodded.
“You see how many of us there are? Only ten- but we are both Readers and Adepts. Together, we cannot be defeated!”
Despair settled over the huddled outlaws, as they assumed the delay meant their captors planned to torture them before they killed them. Again that one girl’s resignation stood out from the despair of the rest.
But then Lenardo added, “We do not plan to kill you.”
Heads snapped to attention; minds surged with hope and suspicion.
“We know what you are thinking,” Lenardo continued. “You can no longer plan a sneak attack on a Lord Adept in the Savage Empire-for there will always be Readers to see that no secret plan can be implemented. Nor can you commit crimes against our citizens-your guilt will be Read. If you want to become honest citizens and work for a living, you may return with us to Zendi-but be warned that it will take you a long while to earn our trust.
“But if you wish to remain outside the law, then remain outside our borders! If any of you are caught trying to harm our people in any way, you will be executed-publicly, as an example to others. Do you understand?”
They didn’t quite believe him-Torio Read the usual disbelief that such a powerful Lord could show mercy, which most of these people still regarded as a weakness. Still, relief grew, and he could Read some of them, especially families with children, whispering to one another that this was their chance to leave the outlaw life. Surely whatever work the Lord of Zendi assigned them could not be worse than the short, uncertain lives of outlaws.
To complete the impression, the Readers and
Adepts broke their circle and gathered on either side of Lenardo and Aradia.
The cowed bandits hesitantly left their huddle and returned to their campsites, those closest to the gathered Readers and Adepts last, as if they were afraid moving would attract notice and perhaps arbitrary punishment. But several plucked up their courage and actually came forward to kneel before Lenardo and Aradia. “Me lord, me lady,” said the woman who appeared to lead them, “my man was one o’ them what you killed-please, me lord, lemme work ‘n’ take care o’ me kids!”
“Of course,” Lenardo said gently. “Come back to Zendi. There is plenty of work for willing hands.”
The girl Torio had noticed before watched skeptically. Now she gave a snort of disgust, and spat out something in a language he didn’t know-all he could Read was that it was one of those oaths so vile that the users forget what the words originally meant, passing them from generation to generation as words taboo in themselves.
But Zanos strode forward. “You there-boy! You’re from Madura!”
“She’s a girl,” Torio Read Astra tell her husband.
Only then did Torio really “look” at the girl. She was somewhere about his own age, but because she was dressed as a boy she looked younger. Her hair, dirty and chopped off raggedly, was a slightly darker red than Zanos’, and her eyes were a clear green. The beauty of her sculpted face beneath the dirt and the hair hanging in her eyes showed him at once why she had hidden her sex while living among these ruffians.
“Lass,” Zanos was saying more gently, in his native language. The concepts were concrete, mak-ing it easy for Torio to Read what he was saying even though he did not know Maduran. “Why did you come away from Madura? What are you doing among these outlaws? You are from my homeland, girl-tell me, how long ago were you last there?”
Her green eyes flashed fire as she spat back, “Sorcerer! You think you’ll take me back to Maldek? I’ll kill myself first!”
“What? Who is Maldek? Child, it is more than twenty years since I was stolen away from Madura,”
Zanos told her. “I seek to find out whether any of my kin survived the raid in which I was taken.”
“Why should I believe you?” the girl demanded.
He didn’t have an answer, but his wife did. Astra turned to those bandits who had come forward to indicate willingness to return to Zendi and asked in the savage language, pointing to Zanos, “Is there anyone among you who knows who this man is?”
That drew blank stares from all but one man, who squinted at the red-haired giant and replied in the same language but with an Aventine accent, “I remember-I seen him in the arena oncet. That’s Zanos the Gladiator.”
“And where did you see him?”
“Adigia-afore Drakonius took the last bit o’ land right where we was farmin’. That journey’t’see the games was the last time me an’ my wife had a happy time’t’gether.”
“You see?” Astra said to the girl. “Zanos was inside the Aventine Empire for the past twenty years, just as he told you.”
“So what?” asked the girl.
“So I had nothing to do with what is happening in Madura now,” Zanos replied. “Please, lass, if you were there recently, tell me what is happening in my homeland.”
Zanos and Astra, Torio and Melissa took the girl-who had little to pack in the way of possessions-aside to talk while the rest of the bandits were loading their horses and wagons.