Heralds of Valdemar (A Valdemar Omnibus)

by Lackey, Mercedes

  He paused for a moment at the door, steeled himself against what he was likely to see, and opened it slowly, words of comfort on his tongue.

  To his total amazement, not only was Talia still living—but she was actually clear-eyed and smiling, and trembling on the knife-edge between laughter and tears. And Dirk was sitting on the side of her bed, trying his best to find some way of holding her without hurting her, covering every uninjured inch of her that he could reach with kisses and tears.

  Half stunned, Devan slipped out before either of them noticed him, and signaled a page passing in the hall. He absently noted that it was one whose face he had seen often in this corridor, though he couldn’t imagine why the child should have spent so much time here. When the boy saw who it was that had summoned him and what door he had come out of, he paled.

  Incredible, Devan thought wryly. Is there anyone who isn’t worried to death about her?

  “I need a messenger sent to the Queen, preferably a Herald-courier, since a Herald is the only one likely to be able to find her without looking for hours, and this is fairly urgent,” he said.

  The page’s mouth trembled. “The Lady-Herald, sir,” he said in an unsteady treble. “Is she—dead?”

  “Lord of Lights, no!” Devan suddenly realized that he felt like laughing for the first time in days, and shocked the child with an enormous grin. “In fact, while you’re getting me that messenger, spread the news! She’s very much with us—and she’s going to be very, very well indeed!”

  11

  Dirk’s pure joy could not last for long: all too soon he recalled that there were far more important issues at stake than just his happiness. Talia alone knew what had transpired in Ancar’s capital; might know what they could expect. Surely, surely there was danger to Valdemar, and only she might be able to guess how much.

  He sobered; she caught his mood immediately. “Orthallen isn’t the only enemy,” he said slowly.

  She couldn’t have gotten any paler, but her eyes widened and pupils dilated. “No—how long—was I—”

  “Since we Fetched you? Let me think—” he reckoned it up. He’d been unconscious for two days; then spent six more recovering from backlash. “Just about eight days.” He guessed at what she’d ask next. “We’re in Lord Falthern’s keep, right on the edge of the Border.”

  “Selenay?”

  “Devan’s sent for her. You’re in pain—”

  “No choice, you know that.” She managed a wan smile. “I—”

  She forgot what she was about to say completely as Selenay fairly flew in the open door, face alight with a fierce joy.

  “You see, Majesty.” Alberich was close on her heels. “It is only the truth I told you.” Dirk was astonished to see that the Armsmaster’s face wore a nearly identical expression.

  “Talia, Talia—” Selenay could manage no more before she was overcome with tears of happiness. She took the hand that Dirk had not claimed gently in her own, holding it with every care, lest she cause more pain. Alberich stood beside her, beaming as if it had all been his doing. Never in his entire life had Dirk seen the Armsmaster smile so broadly.

  “Selenay—?”

  The anxiety in Talia’s voice penetrated even their joy, and brought them abruptly back to earth.

  “There’s still danger?”

  Talia nodded wearily. Dirk arranged the bedding so that she was spared as much pain as he could manage, and she cast him a look that made him flush with pleasure. “Ancar—has his own army.”

  “And he may attack with it?”

  “Will attack. Has to, now. He meant to kill you. Then take Elspeth.”

  “God of Light—”

  “Last I knew—planned to take Border. He—has to have—missed me. Can’t guess his reaction—but he has to assume—I lived long enough to talk.”

  “So we’re in as much danger as before, maybe more.” Selenay stood, jaw clenched in anger. “He’ll have a fight on his hands!”

  “Magicians. He has magicians. Old magic. Kept me from Mindcalling—kept Heralds from knowing Kris was dead; don’t know what else they can do. Just know they can block us. And Orthallen—kept him well informed.”

  “Orthallen?” Selenay lost some of her anger; now she looked bewildered. “Orthallen—Lady help me, I still can’t believe it of him—Goddess—he was Kris’ uncle!”

  “He was unpleased that you had sent the lad, Selenay,” Alberich reminded her. “I think that we know the reason, now. And his grief at hearing—that was unfeigned.”

  “But over—perhaps a bit too soon,” the Queen replied, biting her lip. “Though he had never been one for making much of a show of feelings.”

  “He killed your father,” Talia whispered, her eyes closed again, exhausted with the effort of speaking for so long. “During the battle—sent an assassin in the confusion.”

  “He—” Selenay went white. “I never guessed—I trusted him!”

  Silence then; the silence before the tempest.

  * * *

  “Dirk?” Talia opened her eyes very briefly, only to close them quickly, as if she found her vision wavering when she did so.

  He needed no other clue than the dazed way she looked at him; he touched her cheek gently and went looking for Devan himself.

  When he came back, he brought with him not only Devan but three other Healers as well. By then the little room was rather crowded; Kyril was back, and Elspeth with him. The Seneschal had returned and had brought the Lord Marshal. Candles had been brought, lighted and stuck on every available surface; the room was bright and a little warm and stuffy.

  “I hate to ask this of you and of her, Devan,” Selenay said, looking guilty, “But we haven’t got the choice. Can you Healers hold her together long enough for her to tell us what we need to know?”

  Dirk wanted to protest—then his rebellion subsided. He knew what he’d be doing in Talia’s place; using his last breath to gasp out every bit of information he could. Why should she be any different?

  “Majesty.” Devan bowed his head in resignation. “I will say that I do not approve, and we will not let her kill herself with exhaustion.”

  “But you’ll do it?”

  “Like Talia, we have no choice.” The Healers surrounded her, touched her lightly, and went into their Healing trances. She sighed; her pain-twisted expression eased and she opened her eyes, which were alert and clear again.

  “Ask—quickly.”

  “Ancar—what can we expect from him?” the Lord Marshal spoke first. “How large is this private army? What kind of men does he have in it?”

  “Prison scum; about three thousand. No mercenaries I heard of. But they’re trained, well trained.”

  “What about the standing army? Will he use them?”

  “I don’t think yet. He murdered Alessandar; don’t think he controls officers in the regular army yet. Have to put down rebels in the corps before he can use them. Needs to replace all officers with his own puppets.”

  “Do you think—can we expect defections?”

  “I think so. Whole Border Guard may come over when they learn what happened. Welcome them, but Truth Spell them.”

  “Where was his own army last?”

  “Just outside the capital.”

  “Does he know you know about his three thousand?”

  “No.” Her eyes were almost unnaturally bright. “He didn’t ask any questions of me, ever.”

  “The more fool, he. A bit overconfident, wouldn’t you say, Alberich? So,” the Lord Marshal mused, stroking his beard, his black brows knitted in thought. “Twelve to fourteen days of forced marching would get them here. Much cavalry?”

  “I don’t think so; these were prison scum before he recruited them. But they’re trained to work together, been training for at least three years. He also has magicians. Old magic, real magic, like in tales. If he thinks he’ll come up against Heralds, he’ll use them.”

  “How good are they?” asked Kyril.

  “Don’t
know. One of them kept me from Mindspeaking, from probing Ancar, from defending myself, and kept Kris’ passing from reaching you here—but he couldn’t block empathic link with Rolan. Gods—this is important—they can block us, but they can’t read us. Ancar let that slip—said something about ‘damn Heralds and your barriers.’”

  “Which means they can’t possibly use their magic to learn our plans, especially not if we keep shields up?” Kyril asked, with hope in his eyes.

  “Think so. Didn’t even bother to try to read me, and Hulda is a mage, too—taught Ancar; I don’t know how good they are. This isn’t mind-magic; can’t guess how it works.”

  “Orthallen,” said the Seneschal. “How long has he been working against the Queen?”

  “Decades; he had an assassin take the King during battle.”

  “Who was he working with?”

  “Nobody then. Wanted the Throne for himself; just took advantage of Tedrel Wars.”

  “When did he change?”

  “When Hulda contacted him. He thought he was using her.”

  “That was years ago—!”

  “Right. She came to groom Elspeth as Ancar’s consort. She found Orthallen, worked with him. He warned her in time to escape. Later Ancar offered him the Throne in exchange for information and internal help.”

  “The magicians—?” said Kyril, anxiously.

  “Not much I can tell. Told you about the mindblock. Same mage kept Ancar shielded. Hulda shielded herself, I think. She looked physically about twenty-five years old. Could have been illusion, but don’t think so. She’s old enough to have been actually Ancar’s nurse—makes her at least forty. Saw her make a witchlight—” Talia pulled her bandaged hand away from Dirk’s for a moment, and pulled her loose gown away from her shoulder. Selenay and Elspeth gasped, and the Seneschal bit back an exclamation at what was revealed there—a handprint, burned into the flesh of her chest as if with a branding iron. “She did that, while they were—playing with me. Just laid her hand there, casually. Like it was easy as breathing. Rumors were they can do worse; lots worse.”

  The four Healers were beginning to look drawn; even with their aid, Talia was visibly fading.

  “Tired—” she said, begging with her eyes for a rest.

  “We’ve got enough to go on for now,” Selenay looked to each of the others and they nodded in confirmation. “We can get our defenses organized, at least. Rest, my brave one.”

  She led the others out; one by one the Healers disengaged themselves. As they did, Talia seemed to wilt, and more than a little. Devan caught Dirk’s shoulder before he had a chance to panic.

  “She’ll live; she just needs rest and a chance to heal,” he said wearily. “And she’s going to get at least some of both right now—if I have to post guards to keep people out!”

  Dirk nodded, and returned to her side. She opened her eyes with an effort.

  “Love—you—” she whispered.

  “My own—” His throat closed for a moment, and he fought down a renewal of tears. “I’m going to leave you for a while; Devan says you need rest. But I’ll be back as soon as he lets me!”

  “Make it—soon—”

  He left, walking backward; she keeping her eyes on him until the door closed.

  * * *

  As Alberich had suspected would be the case, when dawn came, the bivouac on the Border as well as the smaller collection of Councilors and officials at the Keep were in an uproar. Units of the Guard—heartbreakingly small—arrived every hour. Tales, more or less garbled, of what had occurred the previous night were spreading like oil from a shattered urn, and were just as potentially flammable. Talia slept in an induced Healing-trance, blissfully unaware of the confusion.

  The Guard was easiest to deal with; the Lord Marshal simply called all the officers together, and with Alberich present to verify exactly what had been said and done, related to them the entire true story. The officers of the Guard, for the most part, had never associated closely with Orthallen; thus, while they were shocked by his betrayal, they took the tale at its face value. They were far more worried about the army Ancar would bring against them, for they numbered something around a thousand to Ancar’s three thousand. The magicians they dismissed out of hand.

  “My lord,” one veteran officer said, his face as scar-seamed as Alberich’s. “Begging your pardon, but there’s nothing we can do about mages. We’ll leave that in the hands of those that deal with magic—”

  His gaze flickered to Alberich; the Armsmaster gave him a barely perceptible nod.

  “—we’ve more than enough on our plate with what’s coming at us.”

  And Ancar’s army was on its way; Alberich and the Lord Marshal knew that for a fact. There were two Heralds in Selenay’s entourage gifted with Farsight who had also been in Hardorn on more than one mission. They had bent their talents beyond the Border during the night, at Alberich’s urging. They had seen Ancar’s army, plainly camped for a few hours’ rest. More disturbingly, they had “looked” again for that army with the coming of dawn—and found nothing, nothing but empty countryside.

  “So there’s at least one mage with them,” Kyril deduced, as the warleaders conferred over breakfast. “And he’s concealing their movements from our Farsight somehow.” Knowing what they now knew about mages being in Ancar’s entourage—however little that was—Kyril and Alberich had been made co-equal with the Lord Marshal. Their task was to lead the assembled Heralds in combat—either by steel or by Gift. One of the Heralds’ most important tasks was communications; each officer would have a Mindspeaking Herald with him at all times, and Kyril would be with Selenay to coordinate all of them. That was the trick that had won the Tedrel Wars for them, the one thing no other army could match.

  “Doesn’t matter,” the Lord Marshal replied, “at least not at the moment. We know where they were; we know by that how fast they’ve come, and how soon they’re likely to get here. We also know those mages haven’t been moving ’em somehow—else they wouldn’t have needed all the horses your Heralds ‘saw.’”

  “My lord?” One of his officers had appeared beyond the open tent flap, saluting smartly. He was scarcely old enough to have grown a beard; morning sun gilded his fair hair, and he was having a difficult time repressing a grin. “We’re getting the recruits you warned us of.”

  “Recruits?” Kyril said, puzzled, as Alberich nodded.

  The Lord Marshal gave a brief snort that might have been a laugh. “You’ll see, Herald. Bring them on up here, lad; we’ve got two here that can test them.”

  “All of them, sir?”

  “How many are there?” The Lord Marshal was surprised now.

  “Over a hundred, sir.”

  “Lady Bright—aye, bring them all up. We’ll get them sorted out, somehow.”

  As the three warleaders left the tent to stand in the brilliant sunlight, there was a small dust-cloud in the vicinity of the trade road. As those who made the cloud neared, Kyril and Alberich saw that those at the front of the crowd that approached afoot were wearing the black-and-gold uniforms of Alessandar’s regular army.

  It appeared that the entire force guarding the Border, from officers to Healers and all their dependents, had defected when they had learned of Alessandar’s murder.

  * * *

  Elspeth had the joyous task of breaking the news to the rest of the Council. There was no such accord among the political leaders of Valdemar as there was among her military leaders.

  Lord Gartheser was speechless with outrage and shock; Bard Hyron was dazed. Lady Kester and Lady Cathan, still seething over Orthallen’s accusations of complicity with the slavers, were surprised, but not altogether unhappy. Father Aldon had closeted himself in the tiny chapel of the Keep; Lord Gildas was with him. Healer Myrim made no attempt to conceal the fact that Orthallen’s treachery had not surprised her. Nor did she conceal that his demise gave her a certain grim satisfaction. But then, she might well be forgiven such uncharitable thoughts; she was one
of the four Healers who were tending Talia’s wounds.

  Once the bare bones had been told to the Councilors as a group, Elspeth went to each of these Councilors in turn, privately. She gave a simple explanation of what had occurred, but would answer no questions. Questions, she told them, must wait until Talia had recovered enough to tell them all more.

  Long before then, Ancar’s army arrived.

  * * *

  Alberich was beginning to feel hopeful. The ranks of Valdemar’s forces had been swelled to nearly double the original size by deserters—partisans of Alessandar—from across the Border. The Lord Marshal was fairly dancing with glee; with the exception of the dependents, every one of the men and women who sought sanctuary with them was a well-trained fighter or Healer—and every one burned with hatred and anger for the murder of their beloved King.

  For the true tale had been spread to the countryside, from the capital westward, by a most unexpected source—the members of Trader Evan’s clan.

  Evan, it seemed, had taken to heart Talia’s warning to flee—and done more than that. He had spread the word among the traders of his own clan as he fled; they in turn had carried the tale farther. Close to the capital, the people were cowed and afraid, too frightened to dare even escape; but close to the Border where Ancar’s hand had not yet fallen so heavily, and where Alessandar had been served out of love, feelings ran high. High enough, that when two or three Border officers decided to defect to Valdemar’s side of the Border, nearly the entire contingent of the regular army stationed in the area chose to come with them.

  Ancar surely had not anticipated this, nor would Ancar have any way of knowing they had gone. A small group of volunteers had remained behind at the signal towers and continued to send messages and information—all of it false.

  “They’ll fade into the villages when Ancar has gone by,” the Captain who had hosted Kris and Talia told Alberich. “They’ve got civilian clothing at hand now. If they can, they’ll come across to us, but all the men who volunteered have families, and they won’t leave ’em.”

  “Understandable,” Alberich replied. “If it is that we win this battle, we shall post watchers to guide them here at every likely crossing. If not…”