The Darkness Before the Dawn - By Ryan Hughes Page 0,16

this over with.” She let go of Jedra and stepped to Sahalik’s side.

Jedra nearly fell over, but the chief held him up. “Wha—?” Jedra tried to say, but his throat was still too sore to allow speech. What’s this? he demanded psionically. You’re actually going to… to… with that barbarian?

Don’t get your breechcloth in a knot, she thought back at him. We’ve tried it your way; now let’s try it mine. She reached out and took Sahalik’s hairy hand. “Come on, champion, show me this big tent of yours.”

The elves were totally silent as she led Sahalik away. The only noises Jedra could hear were the scrunch, scrunch, scrunch of their receding footsteps, the soft crackle of the fire, and the pounding of his own heart. Easily visible in the starlight, he could see the elf warrior hold open the flap of his tent for Kayan, and watched her step inside. The tent flap fell down behind Sahalik as he joined her.

Jedra felt a scream of rage building up inside him. He had fought that barbaric bully for this? To stand idly by and watch while Kayan went ahead and gave him what he wanted anyway? It was too much to bear.

For a moment he thought he had screamed, but then he realized that the noise he heard came from another throat. Sahalik’s, by the resonance of it, though terror had raised his usual husky pitch an octave or so. His tent suddenly bulged outward as if a herd of mekillots were trying to escape, first on one side, then the other. Finally with a twang of uprooted stays it collapsed backward. The fabric parted with a loud rip, and Sahalik blundered out, only to collide with the very next tent.

It slowed him for barely a moment. Still screeching like a lost child, he trampled right over the hapless tent and continued straight into the night, his cries receding until they were swallowed by the desert.

Another lump in Sahalik’s tent wiggled a bit more, and a muffled curse came from it, then Kayan found the door and straightened up through it. Standing there amid the deflated fabric, she planted her hands on her hips and said, “Anybody else think I need a protector?”

* * *

The chief—still supporting Jedra—met her halfway between the fire and the tent. “What did you do to him?” he demanded. The rest of the tribe gathered around, and the expressions on their faces were as grim as his.

Kayan shrugged. “I let him see his true nature. I held a mirror to his mind and showed him what a pathetic creature he is.”

“If you have harmed him—”

“I didn’t touch him. I didn’t do any psychic damage, either. I just gave him something to think about. I guess he decided he wanted to do his thinking alone.”

The chief considered for a moment, then turned to the side. “Galar, Ralok, go after him and see that he comes to no harm. Bring him back when he recovers his wits.”

Galar and another elf immediately slipped out of the group and ran out into the darkness in the direction Sahalik had gone.

The chief turned back to Kayan. “You were provoked, but your actions may have endangered a member of the tribe. You do need a protector, if only to guard us from you.” He laughed, but there was little humor in it. “Since I doubt if anyone else cares to dispute Sahalik for the honor, I will take responsibility for you myself.”

Kayan looked as if she were about to protest that, too, but she finally took a deep breath and said, “All right.”

The gathered elves murmured their approval at their chief’s wisdom and began to disperse. The chief said to Kayan, “First I will show you how to erect Sahalik’s tent and the other he knocked down. Then I will show you to your place in mine. You are to stay there when we are in camp, and you will march at my side when we travel. And when Sahalik returns, you will leave him alone.”

“Gladly,” Kayan said, “as long as he does the same for me.”

“I will see that he does.”

Jedra weaved outward, and Kayan reached out to steady him. “What of my companion?” she asked.

The chief sighed. “I suppose he should stay in my tent as well. Here, let us walk him there; I don’t think he would make it on his own.”

Jedra allowed them to drape his arms over their shoulders and carry him to the chief’s tent,