Dasie heard it, too. She was at table with us, eating as heartily as any of us. She had, I noted, grown rounder of face since first I had seen her. Her iron bearers, three warriors with swords, were seldom far from us, but did not come close enough for the iron to be painful. One stood by the door flap of the pavilion. As long as he was there, no Great One dared approach it without Dasie’s express permission. Two more stood against the wall of the pavilion, stationed where Dasie could always see them and they could watch her. At any sign of danger to her, all knew, their orders were to attack and slay both Kinrove and me. She lifted her head when the drums first sounded, and held still as the beat grew stronger. After the dancers had begun their circuit, she heaved a great sigh and motioned to one of Kinrove’s feeders to put more meat onto her platter.
“No one can save a man from himself. Or a woman,” she said wearily.
Kinrove set down his cup. “Those men and women are saving us,” he said. There was a touch of defiance in his voice.
“They have protected you for years,” Soldier’s Boy agreed, to Dasie’s annoyance. Then he added, “But their protection of you is not complete, and the intruders have found a way to defeat it. They drug their slaves so that their senses are dulled to the magic you send. That is how they were able to push past the magic and into the forest to cut more ancestor trees this summer. They will use those slaves far more ruthlessly than Kinrove drives his dancers. Unless we stop them before spring frees the forest from snow, they will cut deeply into our ancestral groves this coming summer.” In his mind’s eye, I knew he saw Lisana’s little tree. How vulnerable she was, compared to the forest giants. Her tree’s grip on the forest floor was tentative; it still fed mostly through the root structure of her old tree. He had to protect her.
I shared that goal with him but, unlike Soldier’s Boy, I was not willing to sacrifice every soul in Gettys, and any who might come after them, to guarantee Lisana’s safety. I wondered if Dasie was, and resolved that at some point I would find out.
Dasie set her own cup down with a thud. “Unless we stop them? Did you not say to me that you would stop them? But your words were an empty lie, weren’t they? You don’t know how to stop them. But I do. With iron. With the same iron they have turned against us. Iron is the answer.” She looked around, smiling at the shocked silence that her words had wrought. “Oh, yes.” She nodded to their horror. “Iron. Pistols and long guns. I have traded for some, and I will acquire others. I have a plan. It will require the cooperation of all the kin-clans. All the furs the People take this winter will be traded only for guns. There is one among the intruders, a traitor to them, who will make this trade with us. And when we have the guns, we will turn them on the intruders. They will know what it is to fall when iron balls rip through their flesh. If our magic cannot bring them down, then we will turn on them the very weapons they have used against us. What do you think of that, Intruder Mage?”
Soldier’s Boy set down his mug with a great thump, as if to outdo Dasie’s gesture. “I think you are a fool,” he said deliberately. “You have accused me of mouthing empty lies. Now I accuse you of saying stupid things. Bring iron among the People, and we will not be the People anymore! Bring iron, and we will not need to fear that the intruders will kill our ancestor trees. We will do it ourselves as we walk among them. Bring iron into our villages, and do you think any children will grow to be Great Ones again? Do as you suggest, and we will not have to worry about the intruders anymore. We will have become the intruders, and we will kill ourselves.”
Dasie’s face had reddened as he spoke. By the time he finished, her mouth was pinched white in the middle of her face, but the rest of it was scarlet, save for the dark specks that patterned it. She gripped her glass so tightly I thought it would shatter in her hand. I think it had been a long time since anyone had spoken so harshly to her, let alone told her she was stupid. She had probably thought that no one would dare to speak to her so. I wondered if we would survive Soldier’s Boy’s rudeness. Olikea stood with her breath bated. Likari was frozen in the act of offering more food. I think their thoughts were as mine. But Soldier’s Boy seemed strangely still when I touched his mind, as if he were playing a game and awaiting his opponent’s next move.
For a moment, she was so enraged she could say nothing. When she finally found words, they were the dare of an angered child. “If you think you can offer a better plan, then you should do it now, Intruder Mage! And if you cannot, then I think you should be the first of the intruders to die! I will not wait and wait for you to speak the wisdom you claim to have. Out with it! What is your great magic that you will loose on them?”