He talked to their eyes that reflected their feelings, fighting to recapture their trust, "If the ardth kill me, what hope is left to you? You all say I am a god, your god. Yet you desert me at the first lies of a renegade!"
The men shuffled their feet. Their faces were haggard, and lined with bitterness and distrust. In some eyes, Tyr could read real hate.
"Why have you come back?" whispered Fay, staring up at a distant mountaintop. "To turn us in? To give my back to the floggers? Am I that valuable to the ardth?"
Tyr pleaded, "Should I have returned alone, if my purpose was your capture? If that were the case, the skies would be alive with aircraft! I knew you were on your way to the Barrow. I could have made you all prisoners by now, if such was my intent. Reason it out. Otho tells you lies to turn you away from the one thing that had any chance of helping you!"
Like children, their faces grew hopeful, as their minds absorbed his words. Fay was biting her lip. From under her yellow lashes, her brown eyes studied him.
"But you kissed this Katha, didn't you? You kissed an ardth-woman! The god of the Trylla would never do that."
Tyr could see her illogical reasoning was swaying the others. They were hesitant, reproachful.
He said defiantly, "I kissed her, because she was a woman, and lovely. I—"
Fay turned her back. The others looked from the girl to Tyr and back at the girl again.