The Far Side Of Forever Part 19

There was nothing but mildly curious questioning to his words, nothing of anger, nothing defensive. His self- a.s.surance was as thick as a stone wall, presented to the world without c.h.i.n.k or crack, so uncaring about belief that belief was the first thing it engendered. He thought he knew where he. stood and thought he was weil-rooted, but that was not going to turn me defensive.

*'I don't think I can do better, 1 know it," I came back, raising my chin just a little. "Magic users are traditional leaders of expeditions, because of the very fact that they are magic users. Are you silly enough to think that having hordes of people following you around makes you special?

Only special abilities can do that, and you don't have any.

This quest means a lot to me, and I'm not about to see it fail because of inadequate leaders.h.i.+p. Don't you think our objective is a little more important than your puffed-up pride? Wouldn't it be better to step aside now, to make sure we don't fail, than to keep a death-grip on what Graythor mistakenly ordered? He may be a very powerful wizard but he's also very old, and age has a way of making you do things you would never do in more clear- headed moments. The best thing you can do now, for everyone's sake, is step quietly and gracefully aside."

"I see," he murmured, folding his arms the way mine were folded, what seemed like real amus.e.m.e.nt beginning to show in his eyes. "You have more special talent than I do, so you should be leader. But as I see it, your special

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talents are already being put to use for the good of the group; do you mean to say you're holding something back, something you'll use only if everyone lets you be leader?"

"No, that's not what I'm saying!" I protested, shocked that he'd suggest I'd do something like that. "1 told you how important this quest is to me! Holding back would be nothing less than sabotage against everything we're trying to accomplis.h.!.+ I could never ..."

"And what about handling the natures of our compan- ions?" he asked, giving me no chance to finish what I'd been saying. "In what way do your special talents give you the ability to calm Kadrim's urge to take on every attacker single-handedly, to hold down Zail's penchant for looking for trouble just for the sake of the lift it gives him, to keep Su from sacrificing herself on behalf of someone she considers a friend, or to let Dranna know she's a full, accepted and acceptable member of this expedition? Would you put a restraining spell on them, limiting the abilities we so desperately need from them?"

"No, 1 wouldn't put a restraining spell on them," I said, beginning to feel confused from everything he was throwing at me. "And how do you know about restraining spells? The others know almostJiothing about ..."

"Then how would you handle them?" he asked, and I suddenly noticed that there was more-firmness-now in his whole att.i.tude. "What would you do if Kadrim and Zail started a fight over you? Wall them off from one another? When they might have to fight to save each other's lives at any given moment? And how would you keep Su from standing in front of you again, the way she did at the fair, without hurting her by saying you don't need her protection? Dranna doesn't trust other women, not after all the times they've turned on her, and she's had a bad experience with magic. How do you plan on putting her at ease? How will you ..."

"Stop it!" I shouted, furious at the way he kept ham- mering at me, refusing to let me think. "You're just trying to confuse me! You know [ can do a better job than you're doing, but stubbornness won't let you admit it! You're trying to talk me out of it , . ."

"And how will you handle me?" he asked, plowing

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calmly on as though I hadn't said a word. "What if I call you cute names, and insult you, and flatly refuse to ac- knowledge your orders, just the way you've been doing with me? How will that make you look in front of the others?"

"You'd do that just to make me look bad?" I de- manded, feeling my hands cur! up into fists at my sides.

"Of all the low, vile, cowardly things to. . . !"

"But that is what you've been doing with me, isn't it?'

he pursued, still held by that maddening calm. "If you can do it, why can't I? All I'd have to do would be to comment on the truth. I could let your nickname be 'lovely legs' or 'cute round-bottom', for instance, and mention that following you is a pleasure, since following is usually done from behind. That sort of disrespect is guaranteed to make trouble at the worst possible time; when one person in a group does it and gets away with it, the others can't help but wonder how far they can go. Wondering usually leads to trying, and the next attack can find everyone doing something different, something that could turn out to be fatally foolish. The wizard said that under no circ.u.m- stances were you to be leader; how would you feel if someone died because you tried it anyway?"

"No!" I whispered, shaking my head, so horribly upset I didn't know what to say or do. How could he say that / would be responsible for the death of one of the others? Just because I'd been calling him fearless leader? Just because I'd- "You're lying! Nothing like that could happen!"

"Couldn't it?" he asked, now more steady and grim man calm. "Five minutes ago, Zail was closer to challeng- ing me than he would have even considered being when this quest first began. He's not only feeling possessive about you, he's starting to lose respect for me, and Kadrim's not far behind him. That's your doing, and one way or another it's going to stop now. I don't want to have to hurt one of them just because it's been too long since the last time somebody took the trouble to teach you about the right and wrong ways of doing things. Sniping from be- hind is not the way to make yourself a leader, especially when you're not qualified for the position. From now on you'll behave yourself, or you'll be very sorry you didn't."

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"Not qualified!" I breathed in true fury as he turned away from me, obviously ending the discussion because he'd said all he wanted to! Everything he'd thrown at me had had the purpose of rattling and distracting me, to push me off balance and keep me from demanding what was mine by right! Old fearless leader certainly did have a way with words, but unfortunately for him some of them had really been the wrong ones. It so happened I did know how to challenge for me leaders.h.i.+p of a group, and the proper time had just presented itself.

I really had very little strength left for magical effort, but I couldn't use magic against Rikkan Addis and didn't even want to. What I wanted was to get a little more personal, not to mention physical, and a single word took care of the requirements for that. I tightened my grip about the hard round stick I'd called into being, seeing my opponent stop short when the second one appeared directly in front of him in the gra.s.s at his feet, then began moving toward him.

"In the packs, that's the weapon used during a chal- lenge," I told his back, starting to feel again the way I had all those long years ago. "1 got to be pretty good at it, but don't let that frighten you. Justpick it up and turn around and fight."

"What do you think I am?" he asked with a snort, starting to turn back to me without even trying to reach for the stick. "I don't fight females, and especially not with a-Oof!"

The air whooshed out of him when I jabbed him side- ways, hard, right in the middle, even before he was com- pletely turned around. He bent over with the pain and surprise of it, wrapping his arms around himself, doing no better than I'd thought he would.

"What I think you are is a fool," I said, remembering how good the taste of victory was. "You don't talk when you're supposed to be fighting, and you don't simply dismiss a challenge. Pick up the stick, fearless leader, or I'll knock you sillier than you are naturally."

He raised his head so those bronze eyes could find me again, his expression full of more mad than had been in it back at the fair. I was certain he would go for the stick

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then. but some people are incapable of doing things right.

Something very like a growl came from his throat, and then he was launching himself directly at me.

When I'd been leader of our pack, no one had ever come at me without the challenge stick. I hesitated no more than a very brief time, but that was more than long enough for that miserable man to reach me- He threw his arms around me and pulled me down to the ground even as 1 beat at his back with the stick, but he ignored the blows in a way no one had ever done before. The gra.s.s was very soft but the weight of his body wasn't, and 1 was gasping for the breath knocked out of me even as I struggled to get loose. I brought up the stick and fried for his head despite being mostly pinned under him, but he ducked that dark- haired head aside and grunted as he took the blow on his shoulder, and then his hands were on my wrist. I cried out as his fingers began twisting my arm, finding it hard to believe he seemed to be using only a fraction of his strength. None of the boys in the pack had been that much stronger than me, not any of them, and 1 couldn't keep my hand from opening and letting the stick slide out of my grip. Once it had slipped to the gra.s.s he took it and threw it away. and then those blazing bronze eyes were looking straight down at me.

"I think you can consider this challenge as having been answered." he said, his voice still very angry despite its evenness, his big hands clamped to my arms to keep me from beating at him with fists- "If you ever raise a weapon like that to me again 1 will answer in kind, no matter what it does to that overblown ego of yours. I'm not a child, I'm a man, and having bested boys doesn't mean you can do the same with me. And you should have listened when 1 told you to behave yourself; now you're going to get what you've been begging for."

"What do you mink you're going to do to me?" I demanded, struggling against the impossible strength in those hands as he began to get up and pull me with him.

"Do you think I've never been beaten up before, that I'll start sniveling and crawling once it's done? If you're smart you'll let me go now, or next time it'll be my turn."

"You've already had all the turns you're going to get,"

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he said, yanking me to my feet by the wrists as though I weighed nothing at all. "And I'm not in the habit of beating up women, no matter how obviously they seem to expect it of me. What I'm going to do is take the wizard's advice and do what he did to civilize you, when you were fresh from the life of a gutter rat. That ought to serve the purpose."

1 don't really know if the blood drained from my cheeks or rushed to them at that, but 1 do know how shocked and embarra.s.sed I felt. Graythor had told him that, an absolute stranger and one I hated? As he began drawing me closer I kicked at him and fought to get loose, but I had never had to fight against strength like this, and the kicking didn't seem to bother him. He was going to do it, he was really going to do it, but if he did I'd die of mortification! ! had to stop him, even if it meant using magic, but I couldn't use magic without activating Graythor's spelt! One of his arms went around my waist as I fought harder and even more wildly-and then suddenly he was standing com- pletely still.

"What in h.e.l.l is that?" he demanded in a low, disbe- lieving voice, one that compelled me to look up. The breath caught in my throat when 1 saw what he had, and I felt a sudden chill in the pleasant warmth of the early evening. We'd been interrupted at the best possible time, but it wasn't likely to turn out to be in the best possible way,

The thing stood in front of the bushes farthest away from us, what would have been to the left as you entered the area and faced the water. Some of the bushes were still vibrating where it had pushed itself through them, under- standable in view of the*size of the thing. Every inch of it was a pure, sparkling white, its skin and fur both, the s.p.a.ce around its madly glaring yellow eyes, the rows of long, sharp teeth showing in its snarling mouth, the needle- pointed talons at the ends of its four feet. It had no tail to speak of but it did have leg spurs, big yellow ones that complimented its claws/and they moved just a little as it flexed its talons into the gra.s.s while staring at Rikkan Addis and me.

"It doesn't matter what it is," I answered after swal-

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lowing just a little, staring back at the thing. "What does matter is where it could have come from. If it had been here when I warded this place, it would have been pushed out by the warding spell. How could it have gotten back in?"

"That's an even better question," he agreed, letting go of my wrists and beginning to slide his arm from around my waist. "And the next one has to be-Look out!"

The thing launched itself at us with such speed that !

was frozen in place by shock, but the attack didn't affect Rikkan Addis in quite the same way. His hand came up and shoved me violently to the right, so hard that 1 went stumbling and sprawling to the gra.s.s, and then he was diving to the left, getting himself out of the way just as he had already done with me. The white intruder raged through the s.p.a.ce where we'd been standing and finally stopped to whirl about with a snarl, furious that its claws hadn't been able to find flesh and blood, its mad yellow eyes glaring all around. It looked at me, and then it looked to where Rikkan Addis had rolled in the gra.s.s and up to one knee, and then it made up its mind. With another snarl of kill-l.u.s.t, it went after the man.

My heart was hammering and my hip hurt from the way I'd fallen, but that didn^ keep me from speaking a spelt designed to smash the thing instantly. The gesture capping the spell threw the beast to one side with a scream of pain, but as far as being smashed goes, it wasn't. I'd been afraid it was that kind of life form, the kind that needs immense power to destroy it, and suddenly 1 felt like trembling- I didn't have that sort of power left, and Rikksn Addis was unarmed. We were helpless before it, and it was going to kill us!