Chapter Eight #2
“Pack together!” Pel yelled. A number of people startled and turned to him. “Come on people! Prince Torex is one man against a landslide. If we pack together, he can make the shield smaller. Do you want to live to see the dawn? Come on! Move!”
For a moment, nothing happened, and then first one person, then another, then another, sheathed their swords and started to shuffle closer together around Pel and Tor.
The injured were gathered up in the flow, but Pel realized there were bodies and debris, too. Tor’s shield had gone up over everyone.
Swallowing bile, Pel ordered, “Pile the bodies. And the rocks. We don’t have the space.”
Cavun was still with them, Pel realized, when he reached for the first body and scooped it into his arms. Thankfully, his movement spurred others into actions, and with a weird sense of detachment, Pel watched as they made a pile of bodies near one edge of the shield, and people began to pick up or roll the rocks they could move.
Tor’s eyes were still closed, and he was muttering something under his breath.
“Come on, people, pass the message along,” Pel yelled.
They looked stunned and terrified, most people staring up at the glowing barrier that was all that was between them and what seemed like certain death.
“Come on!” Pel snapped. “We need to make this easier for Prince Torex. If the shield goes down, we all die! Bodies and rocks to the edges! Live people in the middle!”
That finally seemed to make an impression, and Pel watched as the message was passed along, and people tried to pack even tighter together.
Pel was practically in Tor’s arms now, although there was a little circle of space between Tor, Pel, and Beluna. Cavun was still helping with moving bodies and rocks.
People were awkwardly pressed right up against one another, most of them craning their heads up to look at the shield or to try to peer beyond it.
On the side that the landslide was coming from, Pel couldn’t see any movement anymore, and he thought that meant that the shield was getting buried in the debris.
But there were still objects crashing into the top of the shield and bounding or sliding off, and Pel could catch only a sense of dark movement on the other side, which he could scarcely see through the throng of people.
Was the top of the shield getting… closer?
Pel squinted. Yes, he was sure it was closer than it had been, and he hoped this was deliberate on Tor’s part.
He could feel his heart begin to beat faster, and he tried to will it to slow down.
This was fine. They didn’t need the shield to be a lot taller than them, after all, though Tor had always constructed shields that arched well over Pel’s head when they were practicing with Larexa.
Pel swallowed thickly. Maybe he really had been showing off. They didn’t need that.
It just felt a little more ominous the closer the shield got to their heads. But the only real worry was Tor and his ability to sustain the shield. It made sense to shrink its height as well as its diameter.
There was a murmur of sound, and Pel looked to see that the rocks and the bodies were gone.
Tor had shrunk the shield, and he’d expelled the things he wasn’t trying to keep alive.
Pel felt his stomach lurch as he realized what was likely happening to those bodies—but that would be all of them if Tor couldn’t maintain the shield.
“I need to be closer to the other shield,” Tor said abruptly.
Pel didn’t question it. He wasn’t Extraordinary, and he still couldn’t really understand how Tor had even made a shield he couldn’t see.
He just put Cavun in front of them, Beluna behind, and yelled at everyone to move.
They did, wide, fearful eyes latched onto Tor as Pel maneuvered him through the mass of people until they were nearer to the shield’s edge and probably past the middle of the clearing.
It was still almost impossible to see beyond the shield, but Pel thought he could make out another glow that indicated the second shield was out there.
Tor swallowed visibly, his face looking wan and washed out in the light of his shield.
“I need to join them,” he told Pel, focusing on him with what looked like difficulty, his blue eyes stark and serious.
“It’s too hard to maintain both, and they don’t have someone in there yelling at them to stand closer together.
” He managed a faint smile at Pel, though lines of strain still bracketed his mouth.
“All right,” Pel said, swallowing his protests, the urge to argue that this was too hard. Tor didn’t need any of that right now. All he needed was support. “What do you need to make that happen?”
“I’m going to push some of the rocks out of the way, then connect the two, and then I need you to be your very efficient self and get them over here and packed in as tightly as possible.”
“I can help direct them, too.”
Pel realized it was the man who’d told Tor where the exiles were.
This close with the light of the shield, Pel could see that he had light hazel eyes, pale skin, and dark hair that was beginning to gray.
He was older than Pel had at first thought, maybe in his fifties.
He must have followed Beluna as they made their way over here.
“Me, too,” Cavun said. “I’m big, and people tend to do what I say.”
“We’re ready,” Pel assured Tor.
Tor took several deep breaths, and then there was a bright burst of light beyond the shield that made people jump, even though at least some of them had probably heard what Tor said. This wasn’t exactly the place for privacy.
Tor made a sound, but when Pel’s expression snapped back to him, he could only see concentration on his face.
“In three,” Tor told them. And then he counted down. “Three, two, one.”
The part of the shield they were standing right next to just… disappeared. It was like it dissolved, but Tor already had another shield up over top of it, so as it disappeared, they were suddenly in one big shield that now had some space in the middle.
And standing startled and fearful across from them were far too many children, some holding babies or clutching the hands of toddlers.
There were some people aged right to be mothers and fathers, but mostly, it looked like grandparents and young children.
Too many of them were crying, and there were shrieks of fear as the lightning flashed and the rocks continued to batter the shield.
“Over here!” Pel called, raising his voice as loud as he could. “We need to pack together so Tor can keep the shield up. We need to make it smaller. Come on! Over here! Tell the person behind you. We’ve got to get closer together.”
The exile added his voice to Pel’s, and Cavun was motioning people along.
After a startled moment, they did as asked, walking and running the distance between them.
It couldn’t have been more than ten yards, maybe not even that, but it felt like an immense distance, knowing Tor was maintaining this space through sheer force of will.
“Come on!” Pel exhorted them. “Everyone, make friends with the person standing next to you. It’ll be all right. We’ve all got to deal with our neighbor’s cold, wet clothes, just like they have to deal with ours!”
The looks of terror eased a little on some of the children. Some of the adults were looking at Pel incredulously, but he’d do whatever worked today.
“Tight as you can!” Cavun was calling.
“Everyone together now!” the exile shouted.
Pel and Tor were now half surrounded by children who were goggling at them with wide eyes.
There was a tug on his tunic, and Pel looked down into the face of a little boy. He was dirty and as wet as the rest of them, with dark hair, eyes, and skin.
“Are you doing that, mister?”
Someone else shushed him.
Pel smiled and squeezed Tor’s arm. “It’s my friend Tor who’s doing it. But it’s really hard to keep up a shield so big, so that’s why everyone’s packing together. It means he can make the shield a bit smaller, and that’s easier for him.”
Tor didn’t appear to notice the exchange. He seemed to be focused on something Pel couldn’t see, maybe his magic deep inside himself. He was too pale, and Pel could see tension in every line of his body.
Everyone in the vicinity was peering anxiously at Tor, and Pel couldn’t really blame them. Most of them would never have seen an Extraordinary shield, certainly not one as big as this, not one that was literally all that was standing between them and certain death.
It was incredible… and also terrifying. Pel had thought he hadn’t liked to be in the shield Tor had constructed around him first when Pel had attacked him over the misunderstanding about Lashuna and then to demonstrate to Larexa.
Pel had been infuriated the first time and distinctly uneasy the second, but he realized now just how little he’d been afraid.
Even once he’d seen the strength of the shield and its ability to crush things, he’d never actually worried that Tor would harm him.
He’d been inconvenienced and irritated, not trapped. Now, though? The top of the shield couldn’t be more than a foot or so above Pel’s head, less than that for Tor and Cavun and the tall people present.
Pel wondered how much everyone wished they’d just stayed in bed tonight.
Pel desperately wished they’d never left the castle.
Quiet conversations had sprung up around them in a few places, impossible to make out over the sound of the rocks and the thunder.
Were those noises getting a little less frequent?
Or maybe that was just wishful thinking on his part.
Many people were quiet and anxious, staring with wary, fearful eyes.
This was probably the weirdest inadvertent gathering Pel had ever been a part of.
Most people were dirty in addition to being soaking wet.
Some were injured, and most had been trying desperately to kill one another not very long ago.