about to do, he rode out ahead to meet the riders from the Fort—Fort Rimon, it has to be. A real channel would stay behind, well defended and safe. A real channel was a non-combatant. A real channel didn’t take stupid risks.
But to Solamar’s Sime senses, it no longer seemed like a risk. What he zlinned now matched what his even more reliable intuition told him. Fort Rimon’s crack combat team was riding out to defend Tanhara’s refugees from the Freebanders chasing them.
The Fort’s stockade lay at one end of a fertile valley, far from the junct village behind the hill at the other end. It was far enough from the steep sides of the valley that attackers couldn’t shoot down into the Fort, and it was on a slight rise that provided both protection from mountain floods and a tactical advantage in defending their walls.
Surrounded by tilled fields, almost completely harvested now, and by terraces on the hillside—orchards, trin tea plants, and, yes, grape arbors, the Fort appeared secure and prosperous.
It looked exactly as it had been described to him when he’d taken on this mission. It zlinned right, too except there were way too many people in that Fort.
As he balanced his weight forward, urging his horse on, he let go of his ordinary senses, letting himself drift into hyperconsciousness, the Sime’s hunting mode. Gen nager flamed bright enough to sense from miles away, if you were sensitive enough and knew how to zlin for greatest distance.
Closer now, the Fort ahead leapt into stark relief to his Sime senses, a towering vortex of powerful selyn fields. Even as he approached the line of riders coming toward him, the vortex over the Fort collapsed in on itself, turning quiet, intense, focused.
The source of that invisible brightness more intense than the sun was to the naked eye had to be the Fort’s Companions, trained to work with the channels. The Companions’ brightness dominated the glow of the higher-field Gens, but as he watched, it all diminished. No doubt the Gens had withdrawn underground, leaving the renSime defenders on the walls. Oddly though, it seemed a number of low-field Gens were still outside the shelters.
No, it wasn’t just a few low-field Gens. It was a lot of low-field Gens plus a few channels who where managing the nageric fields. They had used the Gen nageric power to shape a silent, invisible message to the Sime attackers who could read those fields.
It was a message of supreme confidence, and a total absence of a sense of being threatened.
Solamar had expected that when the last Companion was underground, the channels would follow them into the shelters, joining the children and most of the ordinary Gen donors.
But they hadn’t.
It was drilled into every denizen of the Forts that renSimes are expendable. The Gens, the Companions and the channels are the life of the Fort, just like the children.
That drill was the only reason that Fort Tanhara had any refugees alive to flee the collapse of their defenses. Because the channels and Companions had been safe, they had healed the wounded. Freeband Raiders were only renSime, with maybe a few captive Gens.
Solamar had joined Tanhara only four days after that last devastating battle. Lending his talents to the healing effort, he had been accepted as a channel without question, and he had let them believe he was a refugee from Fort Faraway which had been completely wiped out.
As far as he knew, he was indeed the last survivor of the Fort Faraway refugees who had been heading for Fort Rimon. He wasn’t about to watch Tanhara and Rimon go down too, not after leading these people all the way here.
As one of Fort Tanhara’s channels, Solamar knew he had no business riding ahead like this. But none of the renSimes was mounted on a horse that could make it.
Nearing the oncoming riders, he drew up and let his chestnut mare breathe while they approached. He manipulated the ambient nager to identify himself as a channel and turned his horse to face the Tanhara wagons.
When the lead riders came abreast of him, Solamar leaned forward and whispered into the horse’s flickering ears, “All right, Trilli, time to run again.” His weary mount took heart and, still blowing hard, fell into the pace of the Fort Rimon defenders.
Solamar went duoconscious, so he could see the renSimes around him as well as zlin for their leader. He found the one with the most disciplined and confident nager, a woman mounted on a fine black stallion—good thing Trilli isn’t in season!
Moving in close, he shouted an explanation of the pack of Gen riders now approaching from the lumbering wagons of Fort Tanhara. The renSime gestured her understanding with three tentacles of her left arm and signaled her riders to spread out, leaving a gap in the middle of their line to allow the Fort Tanhara Gens through.
Solamar noted how quickly the gap between Tanhara’s rear wagon and the lead Freeband Raiders pursuing them had narrowed.
Freebanders had no allegiance to any junct town or government, no law governing their actions. All they wanted was to capture plenty of Gens. All they ever did with Gens was Kill them, savagely stripping the Gen of selyn until the Gen died of the shock.
Freebanders craved nothing in life but the massive, fear-magnified deathshock of Gens. They didn’t Kill to live like the town juncts; they lived to Kill.
The Fort Rimon formation split in a very crisp, disciplined drill. The leader yelled at Solamar gesturing, “We’ll delay the Raiders. You circle your wagons around our gate. Our people will cover you from the walls. Get your people inside. Sacrifice the wagons. Got that?”
Solamar gestured his understanding with two tentacles, grazing her nager with an affirmative flick of his field.
The renSime tossed him a ferocious grin that sizzled through his nerves igniting something wondrously warm deep in his belly.
She shouted, “I do love ordering a channel around! Go!”
With a hearty laugh, Solamar went, wafted on a nageric zephyr breeze of acceptance, admiration, and delighted interest. Every cell of his body returned that interest. He cast his eyes to the heavens. A renSime? Isn’t my life complicated enough already?
The first of the Tanhara Gen riders, some with children mounted in front of them, several carrying infants, and one with a newborn, pounded through the gap in the renSime line. His own Companion, Losa, rode in the middle of the group carrying a baby in the crook of her arm, controlling the horse with her knees. His life might well depend on Losa’s survival.
Solamar cleared the Tanhara Gens and pulled out in front of the Fort’s renSime contingent to race flat out for the wagons.
Shouting and gesturing, he explained the plan with nageric emphasis as the wagons roared past him.
Despite it being beyond his authority to give tactical orders, the Tanhara renSimes driving the wagons set to implementing the Fort Rimon plan.
The cattle and sheep were cut loose. Now that they were inside the valley, the exhausted animals wouldn’t stray far, especially with the dogs herding them. That left the chickens, a few goats, more dogs and some cats, and a dozen geese, in the wagons.
Most of their riding stock had gone ahead with the Gens, leaving all the Tanhara renSimes riding in the wagons, driving them, or mounted on the few horses left. The lead wagons with the wounded also carried most of the channels and Companions to care for them.
The
