Valdemar Books

by Lackey, Mercedes

  That set up a buzz, as the folk in the front exclaimed in alarm, those in the back asked what had been said, and those nearest Mayor Lutter seized on him, demanding to know why he hadn’t told them about approaching barbarians. This kept him very busy trying to make up an explanation, as Kero had probably intended.

  People continued to collect, as Kero waited patiently. When it appeared that no one else was going to join them, she stood up in her stirrups, surveyed the group with an impassive face, then abruptly signaled for silence.

  Amazingly, she got it; even the increasingly agitated cluster of people around Mayor Lutter quieted down. The Mayor, glad enough for the respite, mopped his sweating face with his other sleeve.

  “I am Herald-Captain Kerowyn, commander of the Skybolts,” Kero announced. As a murmur again rose, she continued, ignoring the sound. “I see some of you recognize me; those of you who do can make your explanations to everyone else later. Apparently your Mayor has not passed on some information he received some time ago, so I’ll repeat it in brief. Northern barbarians have been approaching this area for some time; at first it was unclear whether they were going to stop short or continue until they came to Errold’s Grove, but they show no signs of stopping, so we are assuming they will come here.”

  Interestingly, although Kero’s words were practically guaranteed to cause panic, no one moved or even said anything. It might have been Kero’s stern gaze; it might also have been that she had some rudimentary Empathic control over the crowd. Or, if she didn’t, perhaps Sayvil did. At any rate, no one ran off, or even moved much.

  “There are some significant differences between this group and the last,” Kero continued. “The most important of which is that this group contains women, children, old people, and even cripples. That suggests that they are not a conquering army, but rather migrants, nomads, or even refugees; people of that nature can be negotiated with. Nevertheless, the Crown is taking your safety very seriously, and I am in command of three companies of Guard troops that include some of my own Skybolts, who will make certain that you are protected.”

  A spontaneous, and very relieved, cheer arose, which Kero permitted to continue for a moment before raising her hand again. As before, she got silence.

  “Meanwhile I have advised Lord Breon to let everyone who wants to evacuate Errold’s Grove. I suggest that mothers with infants and small children do so, all children below the age of fourteen, all older folk, and anyone else who doesn’t feel safe. I realize that this will cause some hardship, so since we wanted some troops stationed here anyway, those troopers will help out in the fields to replace people who evacuate.” She allowed her gaze to travel across the crowd, slowly, so that she at least gave the illusion of meeting each and every eye. “There you have it. Lord Breon has agreed to accept the evacuees at Kelmskeep, and whatever you want to bring with you, go ahead and do so. This is not an emergency evacuation, and you can take as much time to pack up and move out as you need to, within reason. I’d say four or five days is within reason.”

  “Do you think the barbarians will come here?” shouted one of the Fellowship folk.

  Kero shook her head. “To be honest, not really. However, I want all possibilities covered, and if my judgment proves to be totally wrong - and it could, the gods know it’s happened before - I don’t want anyone here who is unable to run like a rabbit if trouble shows up. My recommendation is basically that the able-bodied and healthy can stay, but everyone else should go.”

  Keisha chose this moment to speak up. “I’ve been at the Vale, which is where all the news is coming. This is real, and if it were my family that had a grandma or baby, I’d not only tell them to go, I’d help them pack and escort them to Kelmskeep. Since my folks can all not only run like rabbits but can bite when cornered - ” she noted several weak grins in the crowd, and stronger ones from her brothers,” - I’d say it’s safe enough for them to stay until the Herald-Captain tells them otherwise.”

  Anyone who might have been wavering until then was convinced.

  Kero waited a moment, then asked, “Anyone have any questions?”

  “Only of Mayor Lutter,” said one voice, with a decidedly grim note in it. Murmurs of agreement followed.

  “Right. You will have several more chances to ask me things, myself, or one of my lieutenants. There’ll be an officer stationed with the men who come here to help out, and if he or she doesn’t already have orders that cover any question you might have, they’ll have authority to make a decision.” She took a slow, deep breath, and looked satisfied with the results of her speech. “Carry on, decide who’s going, take your time. I’ll send the first batch of men over tomorrow, and if you don’t feel confident about getting to Kelmskeep by yourselves, some of them will provide an armed escort over. This isn’t an emergency. Yet.”

  At this point, the only excited and agitated people were the ones around Mayor Lutter; Keisha felt rather sorry for him, but he had brought his troubles on himself.

  But she saw her mother and father making their way toward her, moving slowly through the crowd with determination on their faces, and she braced herself for what was to come.

  “You are going to Kelmskeep,” stated her mother, as soon as she was close enough, in the tone that warned she would accept no other answer from her daughter.

  But it wasn’t her daughter who sat the back of a dyheli, not here, not now. It was the Errold’s Grove Healer, who knew that there was a perfectly good Healer at Kelmskeep, but if she left, there would be none at Errold’s Grove at a time when one would be needed urgently. Furthermore, the Errold’s Grove Healer knew that if it came to a conflict, her place was with the other Healers caring for injured fighters, not huddling behind walls of stone, far from any conflict.

  So - “No,” said the Healer of Errold’s Grove, just as firmly.

  Her mother and father simply stared at her. No wonder. I may have disobeyed, but never in anything major, and I’ve never refused them to their faces. Keisha hardened her shields as well as her resolution; no matter what they said or did, she had no intention of being dissuaded.

  “What do you mean, no?” demanded Ayver and Sidonie in chorus.

  “I believe it’s my duty to remain either here or at the Vale, where I am needed, and not in Kelmskeep, where I am not,” Keisha replied, in a level and moderate tone. “So I will not be going to Kelmskeep.” She was deeply grateful that Kero told them all to stay mounted; the height-advantage she had gave her an advantage in authority as well.

  Her father began to get a bit red in the face, himself. “No daughter of mine -”

  “I am your daughter only after I am a Healer,” Keisha countered, hoping that she sounded calm and reasonable. “My first and most important duty is as a Healer. Once she’s a full Herald, you wouldn’t even think to tell Shandi to stay out of danger, would you?”

  The trouble is, I’m afraid they would. . . .

  Even through shields, she could tell that she had just set the spark to the tinder. There was going to be a very ugly outburst in a moment; she braced herself, cringing inside.

  “Pardon,” Nightwind said, stepping in before either parent could send down thunder and lightning. “But Keisha is eighteen, is she not?” At Sidonie’s automatic nod, the trondi’irn continued. “Then by your own laws, she is two years past the age when she can legally make her own choices.”

  “That she is,” Kero said cheerfully, bringing her own formidable personality in on Keisha’s side. “She can marry, be apprenticed, take on business or a debt, choose whatsoever profession she wishes, no matter what your desires are.”

  “But she’s a child!” Sidonie wailed. “She can’t possibly make any kind of rational decision!”

  “By your law, she ceased to be a child two years ago,” said Nightwind quietly. “By our law, she ceased to be one four years ago. And by demonstration of responsibility, she ceased to be one at least that long ago.” She smiled, a smile full of pity and sympathy. “Lady, your child is in
no sense a child, and has not been so for years. She was simply too dutiful to remind you of that fact, but now her higher responsibilities have forced her to that point. Don’t force her to hurt you just to prove she’s long since grown up.”

  Suddenly Sidonie’s face crumpled, though at least she didn’t burst into tears. Keisha swallowed, with the revelation of how difficult it must be to let children grow up; it was all there, in her father’s shocked and stricken look, in her mother’s heartsick eyes. She began to waver; was she wrong in standing against them?

  But Kero was not going to let the situation decay. With a wicked gleam in her eye, she stepped in again. “I must remind you,” she said, in a voice as devoid of pity as Nightwind’s expression was full of that emotion, “I am in charge of this situation, and in my opinion you would be seriously interfering with the best interests of Valdemar by trying to persuade one of my Healers to cravenly abandon her post. It could even be construed as treason,” she added thoughtfully.

  “Oh,” Ayver said, his face blank with shock. Sidonie took a few moments more to see what Kero was getting at, but when she did, her expression went just as blank as her husband’s.

  Now it was Kero’s turn to soften, a little. “You’ve been good enough parents to raise not only a child Chosen but another who sees her duty as a Healer as more important than her own wishes. Now be good enough parents to let that child live up to her potential.”

  Ayver was the first to recover. “Just promise that she’ll be taken care of!” he said to Kero, with the fierce glare of any thwarted father.

  “I am Herald-Captain Kerowyn, and I always take care of my people,” Kero told him with supreme dignity. “You have my leave to inquire from any of my people how they are cared for.”

  There seemed nothing more to say at that point, and with that bee in their ears, they beat a hasty retreat. Dusk had faded into darkness, and they were swallowed up by the night before Keisha could call them back.

  Keisha let out the breath she’d been holding in, and looked at both Nightwind and Kero with gratitude. She couldn’t believe how quickly the confrontation had ended, although she wished with all her heart that it had been less painful for her parents. “This isn’t the first time you’ ve held off angry parents, is it?” she asked Kerowyn, who laughed.

  “No, it’s not,” she agreed. “And you should see them when their baby-child is going to go hit people with sharp things, instead of Heal them of the aftermath!” She shook her head reminiscently. “Hate to do it, but a child has to grow up sometime in their parents’ eyes, and better they should blame me than their own flesh and blood.”

  “Well, thank you, thank you both,” Keisha sighed. “I almost gave in to them; I probably would have, if you hadn’t helped.”

  They all turned their mounts away from the dispersing gathering, and headed back toward the Vale just as the full moon appeared above the trees, gilding their path with silver. “I don’t think you would have,” Nightwind said, after a long silence that took them right to the edge of the night-darkened forest. “But don’t feel ashamed that they made you feel as if you were going to.” Now Keisha heard the smile in her voice. “Parents always know what strings control your heart and soul. After all, they are the ones who tied them there.”

  Thirteen

  This was, of course, not the first time that Darian and Snowfire had gone scouting an enemy encampment. The easiest way was the path they had chosen - through the treetops. The easiest way was also the safest; getting themselves into a tree near the barbarian encampment, and letting the owls make overflights while they used their owls’ eyes to observe. Snowfire sent out both of his birds, but Darian only had Kuari to keep track of. This, of course, meant that Snowfire had twice the work of Darian, but Snowfire might have been happier if Darian hadn’t insisted on coming along in the first place.

  He had only agreed because they had a limited time to work in, and needed as much information as they could get.

  Darian put his back up against the curiously smooth bark of his tree, and concentrated on the noncombatants, the women, girls, and young children, who were gathered around their own fire. Snowfire sent Huur and Hweel to single out those who seemed the most important in the clan, and to look for a shaman or mage. Darian didn’t know what Snowfire was seeing, but from his point of view, much as he hated to admit it, these people were nothing like the arrogant barbarians of years ago.

  As Kuari actually perched no more than a few feet above the heads of a gathering of women and children, he took note of a wealth of details through the owl’s sight. For instance, there was one decoration repeated over and over in their clothing and ornaments - a cat. It was some sort of great hunting-cat, and the colors it was portrayed in were whites, grays, and blacks, giving it a ghostlike appearance. Decorations included stylized cats in profile in every conceivable position, cat faces, cat eyes, and cat paw-prints. As ornaments, he counted cat furs, cat teeth, cat skulls, and cat claws. This, then, was probably their totemic animal.

  So much for the decorations of their lives. Now for the substance.

  In this much, this batch of barbarians was similar to the last - the sexes were strictly segregated. Women, girls, and small children below the age of puberty grouped around one campfire, sharing one meal, the adult males crowded around another, sharing a different meal, with more of the choice cuts of meat. Snowfire was concentrating on the adult males, so Kuari and Darian ignored them.

  Whatever dinner the women had was long since eaten, though the men were still chewing away; the only signs of it were the cracked and gnawed bones in the fire, the two pots filled with coals to burn out the residue of food left in them. One thing did surprise him. The women did not seem particularly cowed or slavish; they chattered among themselves, scolded rowdy children, sewed hides into articles of clothing or decorated the finished clothing. If this isolation was an indication that they were considered inferior creatures by the men, there was no sign that they were kept that way with beatings and brutality.

  As Kel had reported, though, there were several people, mostly children, who seemed afflicted with a curious paralysis or wasting disease. These victims lay quietly on furs beside the fire, occasionally rubbing emaciated limbs as if to ease a constant ache. An arm might be afflicted, or a leg - never both legs or both arms.

  On the other hand, how could a child survive long with such a profound affliction in a nomadic clan? Even in Valdemar, people with paralysis had difficulty in simply staying alive. He had the sense, gained mostly from the way that women would look at the afflicted children and sigh, that there had been other children who had been stricken worse than these - and had not survived.

  He gleaned all he could, noting that not all the women were making or decorating new garments. Some were working on weapons, fletching arrows, fitting heads to spears. Yes, those things could be used for hunting, but they could also be used for war. Just how many spears and arrows did the tribe need for hunting, any way?If nomad tribe can’t afford to carry much; why make so many weapons when there are hectares of raw materials all around them? He could understand stockpiling spear tips, arrowheads, but not whole weapons. Spears in particular were clumsy and hard to transport for people who had no wagons; why bother making entire bundles of extras?

  Because they expect conflict, that’s why. Can’t stop to fletch arrows or fit a point to a shaft in the middle of a fight.

  Finally he figured he had gleaned as much information as he could from simple observation, and called Kuari back in. As the great eagle-owl landed on the lirnb beside him, a huge branch wide enough for two people to walk side-by-side on it, he looked over to the next branch to see how Snowfire progressed. Huur was already there, sitting quietly beside her bondmate, and from the look of it, Hweel would not be far behind. Darian began carefully stretching muscles and getting ready to move out.

  It wasn’t long before Snowfire whistled the quiet signal that meant it was time to retreat, and Darian followed the scout�
�s lead through the upper limbs of the trees, moving along the branches of the great trees as surely and silently as if they traveled forest paths. Where limbs crossed, they used their climbing staffs to hook the branch of the next tree, either to pull themselves up, or lower themselves down. Even in Valdemar, Snowfire had drilled his “younger brother” in this tree-walking, and no matter that the trees there were no more than a tenth of the size of those in the Pelagiris. A Hawkbrother was as at home in a tree as any Valdemaran was on the ground. That was the real secret of their ability to move invisibly through the Forest, though to Valdemarans it might as well have been magic.

  They didn’t descend to the earth again until they were far from the encampment. Two dyheli waited impatiently in a clearing to carry them further toward safety. With the moon on the wane, the dyheli were only moving shadows below to Darian’s eyes, but to Kuari’s, the thick darkness made no difference. With Kuari to guide him, Darian followed Snowfire down to the ground; the dyheli (not Tyrsell, but a swift runner all the same) was at his side as his feet touched the moss. Faster than thought, Darian was in the saddle, and the dyheli bounded away, no more than a pace or two behind his herdmate.

  There was neither the time nor the leisure for either of them to talk, not with the dyheli at full gallop. Darian hung on, most of his attention with Kuari, who scouted the back-trail, watchfully making certain that barbarians had not somehow detected them. Huur and Hweel scouted ahead, serving as their guides as the moon set and the darkness thickened further.

  Darian had made so many similar rides in the last four years that his senses were keenly attuned to the signals that meant real danger. He no longer started, hand to weapon, at every little sound. The farther they got from the encampment, the more he relaxed - insofar as it was possible to do so. The mission had only begun; it would be a very long night before it was over.

  We got away with our spy-out; that’s a decent omen. So far, so good.