Valdemar Books

by Lackey, Mercedes

Elsewhere hunting down all the escapees on their side of the Border and either conscripting them as bound slaves or making sure no one else ever does—

  "—and," he continued, "If the rescue and evacuation were made quickly, might not know it had been entered at all."

  "And a thousand children?" Selenay gulped.

  "It's not an unmanageable number," the Lord Marshal put in. "It's not as if it would be a thousand captives; most of them couldn't run far."

  Laika snorted. "Show 'em food and smiles, and most of 'em won't run at all. And don't forget—some of them are ours. And if word gets out that we left Valdemaran children to starve or hope for the mercy of the Sunpriests...." she let that particular statement sink in without elaborating. "What's more, they aren't more than a day's march inside Karse! When the Tedrels moved this time, they were preparing the full-on invasion, remember. They thought we were going to go over with just a push, and they had everything and everyone set to move straight across the Border."

  "Surely not," Lord Orthallen said skeptically. "Surely they were not going to put all of that so close to the battle lines."

  Laika smiled grimly. "And what makes you think they were unaware that the moment the fighters left the base camp, the Karsites were likely to grab everything? Believe me, that was the talk all over the camp—everyone wanted to be sure that they didn't get left behind. The last camp they made would be where they left all the non-combatants and the baggage and all. In fact, there was talk about setting it less than a half-day's march from the Border, figuring that the closer it was to Valdemar, the less likely it was that the Karsites would come calling. The campfire glow we saw in the farther sky last night was probably from their full camp, not their battle camp."

  "I thought they looked rather too well-rested," murmured the Lord Marshal.

  "Then that means we won't have to break the Border so much as—bend it a little," Selenay said speculatively. "I suppose one could consider what is in that camp to be legitimate war loot?"

  Now it was the Lord Marshal's turn to smile grimly. "One could, Majesty," the Lord Marshal said, "And in fact, one should. Why, after all, should the Karsites have the benefit of this—war booty—when it is Valdemar that suffered?"

  Alberich merely raised an eyebrow. "How can we, calling ourselves civilized, leave children to suffer? And welcome in Karse, they will not be."

  Now Selenay looked to the rest of her advisers and commanders. "I—honestly, gentlemen, ladies—I think we should do this. I know we can; I think we should."

  "Bringing life out of death?" asked the Chief Healer. "I don't think there is any doubt. Sendar would."

  Selenay smiled wanly. "My father would have been at the head of the expedition," she said softly.

  That seemed to decide them all, and the prospect of having a positive task to organize also seemed to galvanize them, lifting them somewhat out of the slough of depression that most of the encampment had sunk into.

  The mood in the tent suddenly lifted, and even Selenay's voice took on more life than it had held since before the battle.

  "We'll need wagons to carry the children, won't we?" she asked, breathlessly. "How many? Where will we get them?"

  "We already have them, Majesty," said the Chief Healer, catching fire from her enthusiasm. "We were going to send some of the wounded north—leg injuries, not so serious, but needing some recovery—but they'll gladly wait for a little to save these children! The horses are harnessed right now, the wagons are provisioned, we haven't loaded the wounded yet—why, we can be ready to go on the instant!"

  She turned to Alberich. "Would—you—"

  "Of course he would!" the Lord Marshal exclaimed. "Great good gods, who else! You used to patrol here, didn't you, man? And you won't be doing without him for more than a day or two—"

  "What about us?" Laika interjected. "Oh, good gods, not as leaders, but we know the Karsite language and we came across here to get out, and the children know me, at least."

  "Give me a moment, and I'll send a messenger about the wagons," the Chief Healer put in, and they were off with the bit between their teeth. Alberich simply stood there, while all the decisions were made for him. They seemed to accept without question that Alberich should serve as the leader, and that Laika and the other three spies should be in the rescue party, and that it would consist of Heralds, Healers, and wagons. Heralds to act as eyes, ears, and if need be, guards, Healers to soothe the children, and wagons to carry them. The decision to go was made so swiftly that if—as Laika asserted, the camp was no farther than a half-day's march away—Alberich reckoned that they might get there and back by this same time on the morrow.

  And it slowly dawned on him that no one, no one at all, even thought about the question of his loyalty. Of course he would lead the rescue; he was the best person for the job. Of course he would bring these children—some of them Karsite—back to Valdemar. And of course he wouldn't even consider taking the opportunity to defect back to his homeland. He was a Herald, wasn't he? Divided loyalties didn't even come into it.

  Perhaps there were a few who thought differently, but there always would be. There would have been had he come from Hardorn, or Menmellith, or Rethwellan, or anywhere else other than Valdemar.

  Within a candlemark, the whole thing was organized and ready to go, with plenty of volunteers. He hadn't been surprised by the ones among the Heralds or even the Healers, but the fact that the teamsters had lined up to a man had come as a bit of a surprise.

  He was a little uneasy about leaving Selenay on her own, though. Still—

  She was essentially on her own from the moment her father died. She has trained for this for years, hasn't she? If she couldn't handle the reduced Council now, when there was so little opposition and she was the darling of the army, what would she do back in Haven?

  And as for her bodyguards—they were taking their job just as seriously now as they had before the battle. If any true Tedrels had survived, now would be the time for an assassination attempt, for now, whoever still lived had nothing to lose, and such men were the most dangerous of all.

  Selenay saw them off, but she kept things brief. "Go safely and swiftly," she said, and impatient to be off, they took her at her word. She didn't linger to watch them rattle across the little stream at the Border either; when he looked back, she was gone.

  Not only was he not surprised, he was pleased. It wasn't as if she didn't have more than enough on her hands, for the aftermath of a war generally left both sides in shambles. There were hundreds of decisions to be made, and in the end, only the Queen could make them. Then, when one factored in all of the messages and dispatches arriving from Haven moment by moment, every one of them requiring her attention, he was certain she would be getting very little rest between now and when he returned.

  Which might be just as well. It would give her very little time to brood, and might exhaust her enough that she would actually sleep instead of lying awake, staring at the darkness behind her eyelids.

  It was a strange sensation, crossing onto the Karsite lands of the hills, where he had once ridden at the head of a troop of Sunsguard. "A close watch keep, for bandits," he warned everyone when they first set out. "Driven away by the battle, they were perhaps—but like vultures, return to feast upon the slain they shall." He had to wonder, though, as they rode through empty valleys, and over hills bare of the usual flocks of sheep and goats, if the Sunsguard had actually sealed off this area. If that was the case, and bandits had fled the coming conflict, they could easily have run right into the Sunsguard. He hoped so. He truly hoped so. Not only because it meant that they would not encounter any trouble going there and back, but because the scum that had fattened on the misery of the shepherds of these hills for so long well deserved to be cut down like the plague rats they were.

  It was easy enough to know where to go, despite the fact that there was no road to follow. The marching feet of so many thousands of men had left a road across the landscape, the tough and wiry ve
getation hereabouts pounded flat, then into dust. This was a tough country, of scrubby vegetation and endless hilly moors, punctuated (as he used to tell Dethor) by endless rocky hills, yet it had its own beauty. The gorse was in bloom, and the heather, and drifts of purple, white, and yellow spread hazy blotches of color across the face of those hills. The weather elected to smile upon them today—or the Sunlord Himself did—for the sun beamed down upon them, neither too brazenly hot, nor thin and chill, out of a sky whose blue was interrupted only by the occasional white, fluffy cloud like one of those missing sheep. Once or twice, they caught sight of wild goats on the ridges, or heard the bray of an equally wild donkey, but otherwise it was nothing but wind and birdsong.

  He had no idea how low his spirits had been in the wake of the battle until they were well away from the battlefield, and he could allow himself to pretend it had never happened. But the clean wind swept through his heart and soul; he was going to a rescue, not a battle, and he felt as if the wind was carrying away his sadness, a little at a time.

  And this was home... the breeze felt right, the hills smelled right, they were the right color of gray-green, and the right sort of rocks poked up through the thin soil. He might never see these hills again, so he absorbed the changing landscape, stowing it away in his memory to take out on those nights that would surely come, when he felt himself to be entirely alien in an alien land.

  Finally, he had to remind himself to stay alert; this was no pleasure jaunt. Things could still go wrong at any moment. If the Sunsguard wasn't busy picking off former Tedrels, they could be here at any moment....

  :This is a handsome land,: Kantor observed, ears pricked forward to catch every sound. :Hard, but handsome.:

  :I think so,: he agreed, secretly pleased by Kantor's compliment. :Ah—we'll be coming up to a spring here shortly, if my memory of this area is any good. There aren't a lot of good watering places here; warn the others that we'll be stopping for a moment.:

  His memory was good—and interestingly enough, the Tedrels had not made use of the spring he recalled, for they had to deviate from the track and go over a hill to the east to get to the half-hidden water source. When they did, they found no sign that anyone had been there, and the Tedrels would surely have trampled the bank of the stream that the spring fed, and muddied the basin.

  But Alberich was taking no chances. Just to be sure that they hadn't been here and tampered with the water (which would have been entirely like them) he called over one of the Healers.

  "Test this, for fouling or poison, can you?" he asked the green-clad woman.

  "Hmm." She gave him a sidelong glance, but bent to test the water, taking up a single drop on the end of her finger and touching it to her tongue. "That would have been like those bastards, wouldn't it?" she said absently. "Spoil what's behind them so the Karsites couldn't follow."

  "My thought," he agreed gravely.

  "Well, it's clean; you can bring them all in." She stood up; he waved at the wagons, and the teamsters brought their charges in to drink at the stream fed by the spring, while the humans drank at the source. Tooth-achingly cold, the water tasted of minerals. The horses adored it. Fortunately, they were not so thirsty that they were in any danger of hurting themselves by drinking too much, too fast.

  He kept an eye on the crests of the hills around them; the disadvantage of stopping here (or anywhere) for a drink was that doing so made them very vulnerable. But this spring, flowing as it did out of the side of a hill, at least was not as exposed as the stream it fed, that ran along the bottom of the valley. He put a lookout on the crest of the hill, which was all anyone could reasonably do, and trusted also to his Gift and that of the FarSeer that was with them to warn of any danger approaching.

  But all that appeared was a herd of sheep and a dog—and a very brief glimpse of the shepherd, who turned his flock aside and back over the hill when he saw them.

  :At least he'll know the water's safe,: Kantor pointed out, as he rounded everyone up, anxious to be gone now that they had been spotted. :I don't think he's likely to say anything to anyone for a while. Days, probably.:

  Considering the taciturn nature of the lone shepherds here, Alberich was inclined to agree. The Sunpriests hated them, for they could not be controlled as easily as villagers. They thought their own long thoughts alone out here, for moons at a time, and could not be compelled to come for the regular temple services. You could not leave sheep to tend themselves while you hiked to the nearest village for SunDescending, Sun-Rising, Solstice and Equinox, after all, and sheep tended to run astray when they felt like doing so, not on any schedule. If there was to be wool for the wheel and the loom, and mutton and lamb for the table, the shepherds had to be left to their own ways and thoughts. The priests were not amused, but they could do nothing about it.

  On a rock beside the mouth of the spring, he left the thank-token for whoever actually owned the resource. It might even be that shepherd—but whoever laid claim to the water rights would find the proper toll for the use of his water. Alberich had packed several such needful things in Kantor's saddlebags before they'd left. In this case, it was something virtually every hillman would find useful, the more especially since the confiscation of so many weapons by the Sunpriests; a Tedrel crossbow and a quiver of quarrels for it, all wrapped in oiled canvas to keep them safe. There was nothing about any of the tokens Alberich had brought that said "Valdemar" and nothing—such as, for instance, a bit of gold—that would be difficult for a poor hillman to explain.

  These were, after all, his people still. He would have a care to what happened to them when he was gone again.

  And on they went, taking to the pounded track once again, as the sun sank on their right and the light edged into gold, and golden-orange and the shadows of the hills grew long and stretched across their path.

  That was when he sent Laika and a younger Herald out on a long scout ahead. If Laika was right, they should be getting near to the camp. And he began the usual futile attempt to probe at the near-future, like a man probing at an old wound to see if it still hurt. As usual, his Gift was silent.

  Which was, in a way, a good thing, since it wasn't warning him about anything.

  The sun was dropping nearer the horizon now, and the sky to the left had turned a deeper blue, while the sky to the right, with long banks of cloud across the path of the sun, was turning red. It would be sunset soon, and they still hadn't found that camp. He was beginning to be concerned. They would have to decide very shortly whether to go on under the full moon, able to see all right, but risking ambush, or make camp themselves—

  :Alberich!: came a Mindcall; it jerked him out of his preoccupation with scanning the hilltops for trouble, and made his heart race in sudden alarm.

  :Steady on, Chosen. That wasn't trouble—: Kantor said. And in the next moment, he knew that his Companion was right, of course. If it had been trouble, there would have been warning and alarm in that mind-voice.

  It was from the youngster who had gone out with Laika. And the next words that came were excited, not fearful. :Alberich, get up here—you have to see this to believe it!:

  The excitement communicated itself to Kantor, who tossed his head in sudden impatience to be gone, ears pricked forward, muscles tensing.

  "Laika and Kulen, something have seen!" he called to the rest. "Keep to the track—summoned I have been."

  Kantor evidently felt that was enough; he launched from a swift walk into a flat gallop, speeding over the top of the hill, down across the next valley, and over the next hill, and the next, and the next—

  And that was when Alberich saw why there had been so much excitement in Kulen's mind-voice. Because, coming slowly toward them, flowing over the hill like a dusty, moving carpet, was an army.

  An army of children.

  Not just children, he saw, after his first astonished look. There were some adult women among them. But not many, and they were burdened with infants, slung across their backs and their chests, carri
ed in baskets, even.

  It was clearly the children themselves who were in charge here—and it made Alberich's heart leap into his throat to see how carefully they were tending to each other. There were carts pulled by donkeys and ponies full of the very smallest, led by those old enough to control a beast. There were more carts that the tallest and strongest were towing themselves. And those old and strong enough to walk by themselves were doing so, in little groups, each shepherded by one older child.

  And now that Alberich was here, Laika was not going to wait any longer; she and her Companion raced toward the oncoming horde, and after an initial reaction of alarm, several of the children recognized her, and dropped the bundles they were carrying to race toward her, cheering as they went.

  :Kantor—:

  :I've told them,: Kantor replied joyfully. :They're putting on some speed.:

  By the time Alberich and Kantor got to the front of the mob, Laika was engulfed in children, all babbling in that strange polyglot tongue she had told him about. He remembered what else she had told him as they rode on the way—that these poor children were starved for adult attention, that she used to tell them stories, and had made herself a kind of extended grandmother to a great many of them. The dry, bare bones of her narrative did not prepare him for seeing this, and he felt his eyes stinging with tears. At least he had had his mother, lonely though his childhood had been—

  He felt a tugging at his sleeve, and looked down at a little girl who had the features of one of his own hill folk. "Aunty Laika says you were of the people of the Sunlord," the child whispered in Karsite, peering up at him hopefully. "And that you are of the White Riders of the Ghost-Horses now—"

  "I am both," he told her, immediately dropping to the ground to put his eyes on a level with hers. "This is my Ghost-Horse; his name is Kantor."

  :Ghost-Horse? Where did she come up with that? I like that a great deal better than "White-Demon" or "Hellhorse,": Kantor said, lowering his nose to touch the hand she stretched out to him.