Valdemar Books

by Lackey, Mercedes

  Talk to her in tactical terms, was what Firesong had advised him. Don’t talk to her in terms of Healer’s Oaths or humanitarian motives. Give her gains versus losses. I’m not saying she won’t see and appreciate the humanitarian motives, just that she’s a commander first, and that’s how she’s going to react. Once she finishes reacting to the insubordination, she’ll move right into thinking and analyzing.

  Firesong was right; as she listened to him, the scowl faded to a mere frown, and the frown to a grimace. Finally she threw her hands in the air.

  “All right,” she acknowledged. “I can see that. I just thank the gods that I don’t have anyone else in my ranks who’s got the curse of thinking for himself.”

  “Yes, you do, Kero,” Firesong said mildly. “You generally make them into officers if they manage not to get themselves or anyone else killed.”

  “You can make yourself useful by finding that dyheli and having him drop that language into Eldan’s skull,” she replied sternly to Firesong. She waited for his nod and withdrawal from the tent, then turned back to Darian. “You are going to stay here and give me every single detail of what you saw, heard, and did.”

  “What about us?” Gentian asked, with a wink for Darian that told him he’d won this round.

  “Back to your Healer business,” she said, making shooing motions with her hands.

  Everyone else spilled out into the gray light of false-dawn, wasting no time in putting some distance between themselves and their commander.

  Nightwind stayed with Darian, and Kerowyn didn’t object. When everyone else had left the tent, she wearily waved at them to sit; there were only three places to do so in her tent and she was already occupying the only chair, still dressed in the old shirt and hose she wore to sleep in, her hair coming undone from its braid. So he took a seat on a small campaign chest, leaving the stool for Nightwind.

  He went back over the night’s events in excruciating detail, leaving out nothing, not even the changes in Hywel’s expression. He also did not leave out the alleged Ghost Cat, although his description was as vague as his own sighting of the thing had been. When he had finished, Kerowyn brooded in silence for some time, her fingers automatically undoing and rebraiding her hair. Despite the fact that Darian knew they had been right to act as they had, the tension in the tent built until he thought he couldn’t bear much more. Granted, he wasn’t under Kerowyn’s direct command, but she could order him back to the Vale, and the Tayledras would probably enforce her orders.

  Finally: “Dammit, you did right,” she growled as she bound up the end of her braid. “I don’t like it one bit, but you did right.”

  The tension snapped, replaced by the feeling that someone had removed the weight of a horse from his back.

  “Captain, if anything had been different, if Hywel had been less cooperative, if the victim hadn’t been a small child, if that ghost - or whatever - hadn’t been leading him out in the first place, we’d never have done what we did,” he replied with feeling. “I swear.”

  “It’s that so-called Ghost Cat,” Kerowyn said, chewing her lower lip. “That’s the thing that’s - Bothering me isn’t the word, it’s a more spooky feeling than that. It’s not like some shaman’s trick or wishful thinking. It seems as it every time it shows up, it guides these people properly, and I have to wonder if it can - and will - do more than that. You say you saw it, Tyrsell says he thinks it’s real - and whenever anybody so much as mentions it, I get a shiver down my spine that I can’t stop. I’ve had that same shiver before. . . .”

  “And?” Nightwind prompted alertly.

  Kerowyn smiled crookedly. “Let’s just say that it’s a sign of one of my Gifts.” She turned back to Darian. “It’s a good thing that you aren’t under my command, because even if you are right, this is way too close to insubordination for my comfort. However, you aren’t, and that lets me out of having to find a way to discipline you for exercising your brains without orders.”

  “Yes, Herald-Captain,” he said, and deemed it wise to say nothing more.

  “Now you go make yourself useful and try not to get into any more trouble,” Kerowyn ordered. “I’d like to talk to this lady for a bit.”

  Darian left, with the distinct impression he’d had a narrow escape indeed - but also with the nagging feeling, which grew with every moment, that there was something of critical importance that he had left undone.

  He got no chance to think about it, for the situation that had been at stalemate just a moment before suddenly avalanched down around their ears, with no prior warning whatsoever.

  “Oh, hellIires” came the exclamation from behind him. Kerowyn suddenly shot out of her tent as if her hair were on fire, followed by Nightwind who was moving just as quickly. She sprinted up the path and grabbed Darian by the elbow, startling him into an undignified yelp.

  “I need you - now!” she said, as Nightwind grabbed his other elbow. Before he could even blink, the white bulk of Kerowyn’s Companion thundered down on them from out of nowhere, and Kero and Nightwind literally threw him up on Sayvil’s bare back. A heartbeat later, Kerowyn was up behind him, and it was a good thing that he had automatically grabbed a handful of mane, because the Companion launched herself into an all-out gallop as soon as the Herald’s rump touched her back.

  He clung with hands and thighs, the wind of their passing whipping through Sayvil’s mane until it lashed his face and eyes unmercifully, leaving tiny, stinging welts. He’d heard of the legendary speed of a Companion, now he got a firsthand experience, which would have been breathtaking, if it hadn’t been so terrifying.

  In a much shorter time than he would have dreamed possible, they were among Kerowyn’s fighters and Kero slid down off Sayvil’s back, leaving him still perched there in confusion. Just beyond the screening of trees and bushes, someone shouted in a voice torn by anguish, fear, and rage.

  “What’s the situation?” she demanded, as one of the fighters separated from the rest and saluted.

  “Things were dead quiet, then all of a sudden there was a ruckus in the camp,” the scarred and weathered veteran reported brusquely. “Lots of shouting, carrying on, women wailing. Then the men started raising hell over there, and the Chief comes tearing through the barricades and starts waving weapons around and shouting at us.”

  “You!” Kerowyn slapped Darian’s leg to get his attention. “We’re looking for Tyrsell - but until then, what’s he saying?”

  Belatedly Darian realized that he understood the shouting perfectly well, and paused to listen to it.

  What he heard made his jaw drop.

  “Well?” Kero demanded. “ What? “

  Darian licked dry lips. “He says we sent child-snatching demons into his camp last night, and he wants us to bring back his sons right now. Or else - ”

  “Never mind. I can guess the ‘or else.’ “ Kerowyn swore softly. “And it’s just our bad luck that your little friends happened to be the Chief’s offspring - which obviously, the older one didn’t bother to mention.” She chewed on her lower lip, then turned her gaze to her Companion. “Sayvil, go take him back to camp, then get your tail back here; this is no place for him. By now Tyrsell’s given Eldan this language, and we’ll see if his silver tongue can lie us out of this mess when he gets here. And we’ll pray that Keisha can come up with a cure, fast”

  Sayvil didn’t wait for Darian to object; she all but launched herself out from underneath him, and only a quick grab for her mane kept him from tumbling over her rump.

  He had the presence of mind to slide over her shoulder as soon as she reached the edge of camp where his first tent still stood and slowed a little; he hit the ground running to absorb his own momentum and it was a good thing that he did. She didn’t stop, not at all; she just pivoted on her hind hooves and galloped away again, leaving him panting in the path behind her, staring after her, absently recognizing that there was another Companion standing behind him.

  Gods - now what do I do ?


  “What in hell is going on?” a voice shrilled behind him.

  He whirled, to find Shandi, clad only in a knee-length shift and barefoot, staring at him out of confused and terrified eyes. Her sleep-tangled hair had fallen half over one of her eyes, and she shoved it out of her face with impatient fingers.

  “The camp’s gone crazy, Karles is frantic, and Keisha’s gone and there’s something I - we - have to do with her!” she exclaimed, sounding more than a little frantic herself. “What’s happening? Where’s my sister? What is it we have to do?”

  As quickly and succinctly as possible, Darian explained the events of the last twelve candlemarks. He got a little shrill toward the end, himself, and Shandi stared at him with a blank expression, while her Companion fidgeted and pranced with anxiety.

  She hit her forehead with the butt of her palm, muttering to herself. “You - me - Keisha. What do we have in common?” Balling both hands into fists and pressing them into her temples, she squeezed her eyes shut and her features contorted with pain. “What in hell do we have in common? Why am I here? Why do I have to be here?”

  Gods! he thought bitterly, thinking that she meant that she didn’t want to be there. Why couldn’t she be another Healer? Then at least she‘d have been of some use to -

  From out of the thin morning air, the answer came to him, in the dryly amused voice of his teacher, Firesong.

  He ran to Shandi and shook her shoulders with impatience. “Can you work with Healers?” he demanded. “Have you?”

  Her eyes sprang open and she gaped at him. “Yes, of course - ”

  As they stared into each others’ eyes, they all but shouted in unison. “That’s it!”

  For the second time that morning, Darian found himself clinging to a Companion’s bare back, this time with Shandi behind him. Karles must have taken directions straight from his memory, for the Companion wove his way through the forest unerringly, and at speeds that would have guaranteed an accident had he been anything but a Companion. He had only time to call to Kuari -

  :Find dyheli! Find Tyrsell! Bring him where we were last night and quickly!:

  Then there was no time for anything but hanging on.

  When they burst into the little glade where the tent was pitched and flung themselves from Karles’ back, Hywel jumped to his feet with his dagger drawn, then stopped himself just short of attacking them. Darian paid the boy no attention. His eyes looked only for Keisha, and when he saw her, he exclaimed in shock.

  “Damn!” Shandi swore. “She’s lost! Darian, link with her, now!”

  He didn’t have to be told. Keisha was a ghostly white, she trembled where she sat, and it looked as if they hadn’t reached her a moment too soon. She was caught, trapped in battling a disease she couldn’t conquer - if she’d had more practice, she would know how to break free, but of course she had never Healed a life-threatening illness before.

  Darian flung himself down beside her and grabbed one hand, as Shandi did the same on her opposite side; they threw their spirits into linkage with hers as swiftly as if they had done so every day for their entire lives.

  There was a rude shock for a moment as they jockeyed for position, and then they melded into a seamless whole. He poured energies spun out of the life all around them into the fading Healer; Shandi did the same, but her energies came, not from around her, but from her Companion. Neither of them saw what Keisha saw and fought, but they felt the battle going on within the boy, and Keisha’s renewed strength as she threw off the intolerable burden of exhaustion, gathered her resources, and flung herself back into the fight.

  And for a moment, Darian felt her soul-tearing fear that even this would not be enough.

  He willed more than energy into her; he willed courage, and the memory of that anguished voice crying out, demanding that his sons be returned to him.

  Whether that was the reason or not, at that moment, the tide of battle turned. Keisha began to gain ground against the fever. Shandi and Darian held steady, and with a last desperate outpouring of power, Keisha broke the fever’s hold!

  Shandi dropped out of the meld; Darian held longer, as she chased down the last traces of the illness and burned them away. Only then did he separate himself from her, and return his focus to the ordinary world.

  “We’re still not done,” Shandi said grimly, as he opened his eyes and caught Keisha as she half-collapsed against him. “There’s a war about to start out there!” She turned to Hywel. “Your father thinks we’ve sent demons to kidnap you and your brother, and he’s got every intention of cutting his way through us to get to you.”

  Hywel’s mouth and eyes went round - and Darian’s estimation of his intelligence took a giant leap upward. “Take Jendey!” he cried. “Take him up before you on the Spirit Horse! We will follow with the Wise One!”

  Hywel placed one hand on Karles’ forehead as Shandi threw herself on the Companion’s back; Karles snorted and nodded vigorously. The young northerner bent and picked up his brother - sleeping deeply, too deeply to stir, but without the hectic flush of fever in his cheeks, and no longer tossing in delirium. Shandi reached down for the child, and cradled him in front of her, seizing a handful of mane to keep herself steady.

  Karles shot off; Hywel leaned down to help Keisha to her feet. She was still coming out of Healing Trance, blinking at them with bewildered eyes, her legs as shaky as a newborn fawn’s.

  “Hywel’s the Chief’s son?” she murmured, proving that although she looked no more than half-aware, there was little wrong with her mind or her ears. Darian draped her arm over his shoulder, as Hywel did the same on her other side. “Why didn’t you tell us?” she asked, turning her gaze on the young northerner.

  “I did not think of it,” was his honest reply. “For us, to be Chief’s son is to be no different from any other man. It does not mean that I will be chosen as Chief. I am just another hunter of Ghost Cat.”

  “Obviously your father doesn’t see things that way,” Darian retorted.

  The call of an eagle-owl rang out above their heads, startling all of them. :Bondmate, they come!: Kuari called in his mind, as the hoof-beats of several dyheli at the gallop reached their ears.

  Tyrsell skidded to a halt on the moss, with Pyreen and Meree right beside him. Darian helped Keisha up onto Meree’s back, then aided the slightly reluctant Hywel onto Pyreen. This was no time to worry about the mere discomfort of naked dyheli spines. “Don’t grab the horns, grab the neck-brush!” Darian ordered, as he clambered onto Tyrsell. “And hang on tight!”

  Dyheli weren’t quite as swift as Companions, but they came a close second; they caught up with Karles and Shandi, who had inexplicably stopped at the edge of the cleared area containing the Ghost Cat encampment.

  Then they saw why the others had stopped.

  There were two heavily armed forces in that clearing, forces who had been about to face off against each other in a battle for blood. Both sides had weapons drawn, and there should have been a fight going on at that very moment.

  The two reasons why that wasn’t happening were planted in the clear space, separating the two groups of fighters and holding them apart.

  Both reasons were white, one glistening in the sunlight, one ephemeral as fog. Both reasons stood side-by-side in unity, holding off the fighters loyal to them by a force of will so strong that it might just as well have been a solid wall a hundred feet high.

  One was Eldan’s Companion.

  The other was a huge shape, faintly glowing, that could have been an enormous feline.

  Just as Darian, Hywel, and Keisha arrived, lining up beside Karles, the ghostly feline turned to face them all. It regarded them with an unwinking gaze, as the faces of the northerners turned to see what it was looking at.

  Stunned silence - then, with a roar of joy, the Chief flung down his ax and shield, and hurtled toward them, arms outstretched, his men a scant pace behind him, cheering themselves hoarse.

  Only Darian continued to watch the Ghost Cat, so
only he saw it wink at him, slowly and deliberately, before it faded entirely from view.

  Three days later, the morning sun overtopped the trees and golden light illuminated a scene that could not possibly have seemed likely the last time Darian had been here.

  Where two armies had faced off, an open-sided pavilion stood; within it, a table and two chairs, one holding Chief Vordon of Ghost Cat Clan, the other Herald Eldan of Valdemar. Around the pavilion, an impromptu festival was going on, as northerners and Valdemarans, Hawkbrothers and Lord Breon’s folk cautiously mingled, slowly learning one another’s languages. Those who had already undergone “torture by Tyrsell” acted as willing translators.

  Darian finally felt as calm as he looked, and had actually managed to catch up on his lost sleep. It hadn’t been easy, though; he’d been much in demand by Ghost Cat and Kero’s forces both, though not nearly as much as Keisha. She was their heroine, their savior, practically their saint - right up until the point where she got tired of it all and tartly informed them that they were an affront to her nose, and if they really wanted to do something for her, they could all take baths, right now.

  The subsequent rush for the stream had been something to behold - as were the newly-scrubbed Northerners, their skin bright red from being scoured so hard.

  They still treated her with respect, but after that with less awe, which was something of a relief to everyone.

  “ - the Wise Ones cannot be disturbed on a whim, or frivolously,” Eldan said as Chief Vordon nodded. “So the Sacred Houses of Healing will be secret.”

  “Of course,” Vordon agreed, as if nothing pleased him better.

  Well, we’re making reasonable demands here. I bet Vordon would show a different face if we demanded all the first-born sons as hostages, say.

  “The Holy dyheli will conduct the Wise Ones from their Sacred Houses to your camp,” Eldan continued, after a glance at Tyrsell. “The Holy dyheli will carry your need to the Wise Ones.”