The Valdemar Companion
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Their meeting with Ancar is decisive—the Heralds are determined to get back to Valdemar and stop the match at any cost. Then Talia learns that Ancar plans to kill his father and seize the thrones of Hardorn and Valdemar by force. When the two Heralds try to return to Valdemar with what they have learned, Kris and his Companion are killed and Talia is captured and tortured. Determined to save Valdemar, even if she can’t save herself, Talia knows she must stop Elspeth and Selenay before they near the border with Hardorn. If her royal friends put themselves within Ancar’s reach, they’ll be doomed. Talia, with the help of a trader she rescued while riding her internship circuit, is able to smuggle a package out of her prison to Rolan: broken arrows marked with the secret Heraldic Arrow Code, to take to Queen Selenay. Talia takes comfort in knowing that if Rolan’s mission succeeds, she’ll have saved her country. But what she doesn’t know is just how determined her country is to save her.
Vows And Honor
duology
1988
Oathbound
Tarma shena Tale’sedrin is the last living member of her clan. With the aid of her oath-bound friend and blood-sister, Kethry, a nobly born White Winds Journeyman-level mage, she has delivered richly deserved deaths to every one of the lawless raiders who destroyed her people. Now finally free of that blood-debt, she and Kethry are at the end of their supplies, nearly penniless, and far from the Dhorisha Plains. They must seek their fortunes and make plans for a future that neither ever expected to live to see. Tarma is a sword-sworn Kal’enedral, a celibate warrior dedicated to the Shin’a’in Star-Eyed Goddess. Kethry is soul-bonded to a magical sword known as Need, who in exchange for giving her superb sword-fighting skills and healing her wounds requires her bearer to come to the aid of women in need. As they make their way back to Tarma’s home, they journey through the city where Kethry was born—Mornedealth. Kethry’s past catches up with her there, and she and Tarma must combine their talents to save her from the clutches of her evil former husband and the brother who betrayed her so long ago. After checking in with the Shin’a’in clan who is caring for Clan Tale’sedrin’s assets, Tarma and Kethry go on the road as mercenaries to build a fortune and the kind of reputation that will enable them to found a school for mages and warriors. Their goal in doing so is simple. The two women will need orphans and children from other clans to join them as willing members to rebuild Clan Tale’sedrin. If they can make enough of a name for themselves, they can draw from the best of those volunteers, from their pupils, and from Kethry’s as-yet-unborn children to put together their new clan. If they succeed, Clan Tale’sedrin will rise again, stronger than ever. In order to earn the money and reputation they need to have access to the best recruits, they become professional mercenaries, and seek adventures that Bards can sing about.
In the course of their travels, they defeat the demon Thalhkarsh by breaking his focus-bottle and sending him back to the Abyssal Planes. But an old act of mercy and justice undoes their good deed. A bandit raider they had once left alive, though bespelled to learn a lesson, unleashes the demon again. The bandit and the demon are both bent on terrible revenge, and will stop at nothing to destroy Tarma and Kethry.
1989
Oathbreakers
Tarma and Kethry join a respected mercenary company, Idra’s Sunhawks, whose captain is third in line for the throne of Rethwellan. But when Captain Idra takes a short leave from her company after her father’s death to resolve a dispute between her two royal brothers over the succession to the throne, she vanishes. When the captain stops sending messages, Idra’s second-in-command sends Tarma and Kethry to Rethwellan’s capital city, Petras, to try to find out what has happened to their leader.
In Petras, the women make contact with the Court Archivist, Jadrek, one of the few men in the court Idra trusted. After an assassination attempt on their new friend, the two flee the country with Jadrek, heading north to find the now-exiled Prince Stefansen. The new king, Raschar, has them pursued, but they escape nearly certain death and make it into Valdemar, where they discover Stefan. Sure now that Idra was murdered by Raschar, they make plans to return to Rethwellan. Tarma, Kethry, and Jadrek, with the help of the Sunhawks and the people of Rethwellan, will gamble their lives and their talents in a desperate attempt to overthrow Raschar and place the rightful heir Stefan on the throne.
1998
Oathblood
This collection brings together previously published short stories featuring Tarma and Kethry, along with a new novella.
1985
“Sword-Sworn”
Beginning with the destruction of Clan Tale’sedrin, this story tells of the first meeting of Tarma and Kethry and how they came to be sworn blood-sisters.
1986
“Turnabout”
Tarma and Kethry are hired by a group of merchants to guard their packtrain after a series of ambushes. They join the train in disguise, hoping to learn who is working with the bandits. But they get more than they bargained for when the bandit responsible proves to be a master of disguise.
1990
“The Making of a Legend”
Occurring in the time span between Oathbound and Oathbreakers, this story tells of the bard Leslac, who seeks to make himself famous with tales of Tarma and Kethry, and wants an opportunity to see his idols at work. He gets it—but it isn’t at all what he expected it to be.
1988
“Keys”
Need drives Kethry and Tarma into a small town just in time to stop an innocent young woman from being burned at the stake for killing her husband. While Tarma stalls, risking her life in a trial-by-combat to defend the girl, Kethry works desperately to solve the “locked-door” mystery of the murder and reveal the real killer.
1992
“A Woman’s Weapon”
Tarma and Kethry pass a tannery that is polluting everything around it. When they inquire about the place at a nearby village, they discover that the Guildmaster of the competing tannery there is a good man, but ailing. The women suspect that he is being poisoned, and it’s up to them to save him from the murderous attentions of his rival, a man who will stop at nothing to get what he wants.
1990
“The Talisman”
While Tarma and Kethry are traveling to the Dhorisha Plains, they stop in a small holding. There they find a former schoolmate of Kethry’s, and a strange mystery that is on the verge of becoming a deadly threat. As they investigate, they discover that the power of belief is stronger than any force they can bring to bear on it.
1987
“A Tale of Heroes”
Tarma, Kethry, and Warrl come upon an area that is being terrorized by a strange mage-beast. When it is slain by a hero, they find out that killing the monster was not the only reason Need brought them there. Some monsters come in the guise of heroes…
1993
“Friendly Fire”
True to the Shin’a’in proverb, “friendly fire isn’t.” Tarma receives a cursed coin in her change when she purchases provisions for the road, and the coin brings bad luck down upon all of them until a band of unsuspecting brigands comes to their rescue.
1991
“Wings of Fire”
During summer on the plains with Clan Liha’irden, Kethry’s oldest child, Jadrie, discovers a dying Shin’a’in shaman floating in the river. Tarma and Kethry ride into the Pelagiris Forest to find out what happened. They are trapped there by a mage whose gift is the ability to steal the magical powers of others. But even a clever mage is no match for Tarma and Kethry…
1998
“Spring Plowing at Forst Reach”
This story takes place in Valdemar, where the Ashkevrons are seeking a means to control the ornery descendants of their legendary Gray Stud. Tarma uses the Shin’a’in art of horsetalking on the animals, and is able to tame even the toughest beasts.
1998
“Oathblood”
Kethry’s oldest child, Jadrie, is now twelve and has become fast friends with t
he ten-year-old twin daughters of King Stefansen’s former Horsemaster. Jadrie, Meri, and Kira swear Shin’a’in hand-and-sword friendship to each other, a sacred vow binding them to aid one another. When the twins are kidnapped and their escort slaughtered on the way home from Tarma and Kethry’s school, Jadrie insists on accompanying Tarma and Kethry when they go off in pursuit of the kidnappers. Their leader, a Jkathan fanatic who will do anything to prevent Meri from sullying the Blood Royal by marrying the prince of Jkatha, with whom she has lifebonded, is about to discover the hard way that it doesn’t pay to upset a member of Clan Tale’sedrin.
The Last Herald-Mage
trilogy
1989
Magic’s Pawn
Vanyel Ashkevron is everything his noble father doesn’t want his oldest son to be—slight, fast, smart, far too attractive for his own good, and interested in fashion and music instead of horses and weapons. Vanyel longs to escape from his family home, where he is tormented by his father and his father’s armsmaster Jervis, and go to Haven to become a Bard. Finally, after a practice bout with Jervis goes terribly wrong and leaves Vanyel with a broken arm, his frustrated father sends Vanyel to foster at the Collegium in Haven with his aunt, the powerful Herald-Mage Savil. While there, Vanyel discovers that he does not have the Bardic Gift. But his disappointment is balanced with joy when he becomes lifebonded with one of Savil’s protégés, the talented and Gifted Herald-Trainee Tylendel Frelennye. When Tylendel’s identical twin Staven is assassinated in an ongoing blood-feud between the Felennye family and the Leshara clan, Tylendel becomes obsessed with revenge. He asks Vanyel to help him. Because of their lifebond, Tylendel can pull power from Vanyel to build a magical Gate to the Leshara homestead, then use his own powers to summon a pack of deadly wyrsa to destroy the Leshara family. The disastrous plan works, until Tylendel’s Companion Gala repudiates him and throws herself in front of the magically summoned killers, sacrificing her life to buy time for Savil and the rest of the Heralds to get to the boys and stop the wyrsa before a bloodbath can take place. Savil and another Herald-Mage take down the Gate after they’ve got the wyrsa under control, and the released energy surges through Vanyel, nearly killing him. Driven insane by the terrible consequences of his actions, Tylendel commits suicide. The lost and despairing Vanyel is Chosen by the Companion Yfandes, even though his very survival is in question. The backlash of Gate-energy has opened up all of Vanyel’s many potential Mage, Heraldic, and Bardic Gifts, leaving the channels of his mind raw and the boy in torment. None of the Healers or Mages in the Collegium can help him, so Savil takes him to her friends, the exotic and elusive Tayledras in the wild Pelagir hills. Only their MindHealers and Adept-Mages can help the grieving, suicidal youth, and only they can control him if he refuses to be helped. The frightened boy is torn between reaching out to his new friends or refusing to feel at all so that he can never be hurt again, when a clutch of deadly colddrakes makes his decision clear for him. Vanyel discovers that he must learn to live and perhaps even to love again, and open himself to the feelings of others, but—most importantly—he must learn to use his formidable powers to help save those who cannot save themselves, even at the risk of his own life.
1990
Magic’s Promise
At the age of twenty-eight, Vanyel is the most powerful Herald-Mage in the embattled Heraldic Circle. After an exhausting stint doing the work of four on the Karsite border, Vanyel goes home to Forst Reach to relax, accompanied by his Aunt Savil. Once there, while balancing his family obligations with his desperate need for rest, he learns of tensions across their border in the neighboring lands of Lineas and Baires. Baires is ruled by the Mavelans, a family of mages, while the Lineans are opposed to magic in all its forms.
The trouble between the two lands comes to a head when Vanyel and Yfandes sense a distant mind-cry for help coming from Highjorune, the throne-seat of Lineas. Riding pell-mell through the night, they arrive at the palace in Highjorune the next morning to discover an appalling and amazing sight: an older Herald beating a young Companion bloody, trying to get a newly-Chosen boy off the Companion’s back. The boy, Tashir Remoerdis, is the young heir to the Linean throne, and the only survivor of the previous night’s slaughter by an unknown force of every person in the palace from the highest noble to the lowest servant. The older Herald, Lores, believes that the boy, in a panic, used his new and uncontrolled Gift for Fetching to destroy all of the palace’s occupants. Vanyel offers young Tashir sanctuary at Forst Reach while he and Savil try to find out what really happened in the Highjorune palace. Tashir’s life and the fate of two nations hang in the balance as Vanyel seeks the truth behind the massacre.
1991
Magic’s Price
King Randale is finally dying after a long illness, painfully withering away beyond even the ability of his lifebonded partner, Healer and King’s Own Herald Shavri, to help him. Randale’s heir, his cousin Treven, is being rushed through Heraldic training as a result. Treven has lifebonded with Shavri’s child Jisa, who, though it is not widely known in the court, is actually Vanyel’s daughter—a boon given to Shavri and Randale by the Herald-Mage when it became apparent to them that Randale’s illness had left him sterile. Jisa’s need for a child and Valdemar’s need to have an apparently fertile monarch should a dynastic marriage become necessary had led to Vanyel’s decision to honor their request for his help sixteen long years ago. Now, though Randale’s body is failing him, he is determined to endure as long as he can for the good of Valdemar. Even in the face of unbearable pain, he’s hanging on to life until Treven can be made ready to rule.
Vanyel’s nephew Medren, a Bardic Trainee, tells Vanyel that his roommate at the Collegium, Stefen, has the ability to sing away pain. A test of Stefen’s Gift proves that Medren is right, and Stefen is made a Full Bard and stationed at court to attend the King and keep Randale’s agony at bay for as long as possible. Before too long, Bard Stefan’s determined romantic pursuit of Vanyel is making the Herald-Mage’s life very interesting.
While doing what he can to ease Randale’s royal burdens and avoiding the urge to give in to the almost irresistible temptation provided by the young Bard’s advances, Vanyel throws himself into spell-castings to augment the magical protections of Valdemar and to reduce his country’s dependence on the embattled Herald-Mages, who are being killed much faster than they can be replaced, especially since no children with the Mage-Gift have been Chosen in years. Vanyel, Savil, and two other Herald-Mages alter the magical Web protection-spell that covers all of Valdemar so that it will be a link between all Heralds, and function indefinitely without their direct supervision.
When two Herald-Mages die under suspicious circumstances, Savil becomes convinced that someone outside Valdemar is targeting them, and that she will be the next victim. Vanyel doesn’t believe her until Savil, too, is slain. Grief stricken and desperate to defeat the powerful enemy he now knows is responsible for these deaths and many others, Vanyel insists on going north to carry the fight to the unknown mage, even though visions that have haunted him his whole life lead him to believe he is marching toward his own death. But he knows that the evil he is trying to stop is so unspeakable that it is worth any price, even the ultimate one, if that’s what it takes to destroy this enemy. In the company of Stefan, now lifebonded to him, and his companion Yfandes, Vanyel rides out to meet his destiny—the most dangerous and deadly battle of his life.
Kerowyn’s Tale
1991
By the Sword
With her brother’s marriage taking place the next day, young Kerowyn has her hands full preparing and supervising every detail of the bridal feast. Since her mother’s death, she’s been in charge of the domestic affairs of the family keep, despite her youth and her longing for adventure. The granddaughter of the famous sorceress Kethry, she knows that her destiny has to be for deeds more interesting than saving the bread sculpture meant to accompany the meal from falling to the floor. Then, in the middle of the feast, she get
s her wish for adventure. The keep is attacked by well-armed and organized brigands. The casualties are appalling—her father is slain, her brother is wounded, and the bride-to-be, Deirna, the sheltered niece of a nearby baron, is abducted, stolen along with all of her wedding gifts. Kerowyn, barricaded in the kitchen with her staff, manages to survive the attack.
It’s clear that there was a plan behind the violence. This was no random crime, and if someone doesn’t avenge it, Kero’s family will lose everything to the bride’s avaricious uncle. As the only family member still standing, Kero goes to her grandmother, seeking help to rescue Dierna. Kethry gives Kerowyn the mage-sword Need, which grants the young girl fighting abilities and protection from magical attack in exchange for avenging crimes against women. With the sword’s aid, and with a little help from Kethry’s partner Tarma and the kyree Warn, Kero is able to free Dierna from the mage who abducted her.
But her success leaves her an outcast at home. Her brother and his new wife are uncomfortable with, rather than grateful to, their rescuer. Undaunted, Kero leaves with Tarma and Kethry after the wedding, seeking training to be a mercenary soldier.
After years of training side-by-side with Daren, a prince of Rethwellan, Kero joins the Skybolts, a well-respected unit founded by a former member of Idra’s Sunhawks, the company that Tarma and Kethry had once belonged to. Kerowyn proves herself to be a superb soldier. After the company is nearly decimated fighting against Karse and is left in the hands of someone less than capable of doing the job, Kerowyn is voted captain. Under her leadership, the company more than doubles its size, and becomes the best in the world at their business.
Their reputation leads them to bigger and deadlier wars. As part of an unwritten aid agreement between Rethwellan and Valdemar dating back to the days of King Stefan, Kero and her company are hired by Rethwellan to aid Valdemar in fighting against Ancar of Hardorn. Ancar is destroying his country to rebuild his armies, using blood-magic to bind peasant conscripts to his officers, then sending the resulting mindless troops in large-scale waves against his enemy. Facing nearly certain death at the hands of these unending assaults, Kero and her skybolts volunteer for a suicidal charge against the enemy, a desperate attack that might allow Queen Selenay to escape alive from the battlefield. A last-second cascade of earth-magic and the timely arrival of Prince Daren and the Rethwellan army combine with the Skybolts’ courage to save the day. During the course of the battle, both Kerowyn and Daren are Chosen, and Daren finds himself life-bonded to Valdemar’s Queen. Now Kerowyn has to find a way to balance her conflicting responsibilies—as Captain of the Skybolts, as Companion Sayvel’s Herald, and as a woman in love with Herald Eldan, who met her on a distant battlefield more than a decade ago, and has loved her ever since.