“You need to consolidate your own force,” I told him. “You thought your common enemy was the Gernians. Perhaps it is, but neither Kinrove nor Dasie are truly on your side. They both use you, and each has what amounts to a personal guard, a component of your general force that is absolutely true to them. They will care nothing if you are destroyed in the process of serving them. They may even think it to their benefit if you are.

“The majority of the troops you have been training come from Dasie’s kin-clan. In any sort of a pinch, they will look to her for leadership and also to protect her. There are few warriors that belong to you. Even those from Olikea’s kin-clan do not feel a strong loyalty to you; some may still regard you as an outsider, for you have done little to change that perception. You need at least a small body of men who are yours first. You have very little time to establish it. Sempayli seems to put you first. Tell him to stop being one of your feeders and become your lieutenant.”

“But—”

“Quiet. Let me finish.” I had no time for his doubts or objections. His flaw seemed clear to me. “You’ve been thinking like a soldier, or at best a sergeant. You have to become the general, not a lackey for those others. Once you seize command of the full force, neither Dasie nor Kinrove will know how to take it back from you. Taking the loyalty of the troops and making them obey you are necessities if you are to survive and win Likari back.”

He raised a wall of obstinacy between us, then just as swiftly dropped it. “What do you suggest?” he asked stiffly, making it clear that all choices remained with him. Good. He’d have to build on that to develop the honest arrogance of full command.

“I suggest that you look to your own kin-clan first. Care for them, and they’ll care for you. Send Sempayli to the main village to find out who has been summoned. Get a tally of who has been lost to them. Send someone to Firada, to tell her Likari is gone. Ask her to come and comfort her sister. Send word to their father, Kilikurra. He will want to know his grandson has been summoned. Let your concern be known to your kin-clan. Announce your loss of Likari and let them know that you, too, grieve. Shared loss will bond them to you.”

I felt heartless to exploit tragedy this way. When had I become so shallow? It was, I suddenly thought, a tactic my father would have used. I felt Soldier’s Boy seize my suggestion and run off with it. My sole thought had been to guard his back and Olikea’s against the machinations of Dasie and Kinrove. He leapt forward with it and I suddenly realized my deadly error.

“I will let them know that I suffer alongside them. But I must not let that blossom into resentment toward Kinrove. We will sorrow together, but when it starts to fester into hatred for Kinrove’s magic, I will point that hatred toward the intruders instead. I will say to my warriors, as well as my kin-clan, that there is only one way to have our loved ones returned to us, only one path to resuming our lives of peace and safety. To go back to the days when Kinrove’s dance was not needed, we must muster every man who can stand as a warrior, and together fall upon Gettys and annihilate it!”

“No!” I bellowed the word, furious at myself as well as at him, but he suppressed my anger to a sigh. He spoke fiercely at me, arguing over and against my thoughts, trying to mute me with his own desperate logic.

“Care you nothing for the people who took you in when your own tried to kill you and you had to flee? Why do you think you owe the Gernians anything at all? Do you not fear for what will certainly befall Lisana’s tree? I know you recognized the need to protect our ancestor trees. You even went to Colonel Haren to try to persuade him to stop the road. Have you forgotten his arrogance and disrespect for you? I know it is hard for you, Nevare. In some ways, it is hard for me. But you cannot go back and be a Gernian. Even if I ceded the body to you and you returned to Gettys, they would kill you. Why not let go of your foolish loyalty to a folk who spurned you? Let us live where we are loved. But to do so, we must protect the ones who do accept us and care for us. The People must rise up against the intruders and drive them all out. There is no other way. Many will die, but better that many die and the conflict is finally ended than for the deaths and fighting to linger for generations. I hate what we must do, but there is no other path to peace. I know you want as few to die as possible. My way wins that for both of us. And so you must help me.”

“No.” My refusal was dull and deadened. I could refuse to help him, but I could not stop him.

“I need you, Nevare. Don’t fail the People. You know our war is righteous. Think of Olikea, deprived first of her mother and now of her son. That is the doing of the intruders. Shall we let it happen, over and over, generation after generation? We have to stop it.”

“That was Kinrove’s doing.”

“The intruders created Kinrove. Without their depredations, the magic would not have needed him. It all goes back to the intruders. There is only one way to end all of this. We tried to drive them away with the dance. They would not go. So now we must kill them.”

“Epiny,” I said quietly. “Spink. Sem. Kara. Baby Dia. Ebrooks. Kesey. Tiber.” I pushed my emotions at him. My thought was a whispered plea as I added, “Amzil. What about Amzil? I feel for her what you feel for Lisana. Can you be numb to my feelings for her? Despite all, she said she loved me. Would you wish death on her and her children?”

“Olikea!” he countered. “Likari.” And balancing lives on a scale, as if he were Orandula himself, he said, “We both love Lisana. And she loves us. If the intruders are not stopped, we lose her forever, and we lose forever itself.”

I knew what he meant by losing forever. If the road were not stopped, the Valley of the Ancestor Trees would be destroyed. There would be no tree for him when this body died, and hence no second life with Lisana.

“The price is too high,” I said quietly.

“It is,” he agreed. “No matter which side pays it, the price is too high. But there is no bargaining with fate. Deaths must be paid to buy us peace. Balance it, Nevare. A quick massacre, followed by generations of peace, or the continued erosion of years of gradual killing, the complete destruction of a people and their ancestral wisdom. How can it be difficult to choose? Our attack will be like a surgery, a severing of diseased flesh so that the healthy part can go on living. It is what we must do.”

Then he turned away from me. It was not silencing me so much as it was him refusing to allow himself to hear. There was no point to my speaking. Instead, I was a silent witness to all he did that day. My father would have been proud of him. He was efficient and relentless. The only emotions he allowed to show were the ones that were useful to his cause.

He took my suggestions. In the days that followed, I watched him as he silently implemented his plan. He conferred that day with Sempayli, treating him more like a lieutenant and less like a feeder. At first the young man seemed confused by the change, but before their review of the troops was over, he had begun to offer bits of advice and suggestions. He knew the warriors better than Soldier’s Boy did, and before the day was done, he quietly offered to help sort them into those who truly wished to annihilate the intruders and those who merely hoped to win glory and perhaps plunder. Soldier’s Boy consented to that, and further charged him to select a dozen men to be his personal guard, based solely on skills with weaponry rather than on which kin-clan they belonged to. He also listened to Sempayli when the young man suggested that the troops would respond better to being treated as if they were hunting parties rather than troops marching in formation. I was uncertain of the wisdom of that, for it would create many individual leaders rather than a chain of command, but Soldier’s Boy didn’t consult with me on that and I no longer cared to offer him my thoughts on anything. He might be a traitor but I was not.