Valdemar Books

by Lackey, Mercedes

  Olias looked at the crossbow in his grip, and at the deadly, sharp, shiny silver tip of the arrow.

  No. He wouldn't hurt this armsman, not in a way that could either kill him or cripple him for life.

  He held his breath, listening to the near-frantic hoof-beats getting closer, and was wrenched from his concentration when the campfire hissed, then snapped loudly, spitting sparks upward, a few of which danced out into the center of the road, all but announcing his presence.

  A careless fool's mistake, not dousing the flames.

  No time to worry about that now.

  Pushing forward on his knees and biting down on his lower lip to fight against the screaming pain of his wounded ankle, Olias scrabbled on his belly like an insect up toward the campsite and grabbed the quiver, slinging it over his shoulder and its strap across his chest, then Sent a silent call to Ranyart, who was at his side in moments, bending low the bulk of his massive body so Olias could snatch a coil of rope from one of the saddle hooks. Craning to see if the rider was yet in sight, Olias quickly disarmed the crossbow, slipping the silver-tipped arrow into the quiver and removing a grapnel arrow in its stead. Tying one end of the rope to its stem, he loaded the grapnel arrow into the crossbow and rearmed the firing mechanism. That done, he took a deep breath, rolled twice to the left, came up on his elbows, aimed at a large stone near the base of a tree across the road, and fired.

  The grapnel caught solidly, and from the middle of the road it would be well-nigh impossible to see it unless one were specifically looking for such a thing, which the armsman most likely would not be, for—gods willing—he must be as tired as those he was pursuing.

  Olias wound the remainder of the rope around his right wrist, making certain that the portion lying across the road was flat in the dirt and would not be seen until rider and horse were right on top of it, and by then it would be too late.

  Slipping back down into the cramped furrow, Olias held his breath as the hoofbeats grew louder, closer, somewhat less fierce and slightly slower than before; he wondered why the armsman wasn't digging heels into the horse, forcing speed.

  Still, it was running swiftly enough that the rope, when he yanked it taut, should trip the horse and cause it to throw its rider without permanently harming either of them.

  The horse's hooves clattered against some stones embedded in the hard-packed ground as it bolted from the forest and neared the campsite. Olias grasped the rope with both hands now, winding it once around his left wrist and threading it through his grip, then rose to his knees and readied himself to pull—

  —when the horse, nearly upon the trap, stopped dead in its tracks, hooves sparking against stones, one front leg in the air and bent at the knee—an almost absurd image, as if some wizard had frozen the beast in mid-motion—then slowly, mist jetting from its nostrils, began cantering backward.

  The armsman had spotted the trap. Damn!

  Disentwining his wrists from the rope as quickly as he was able, Olias pulled another silver-tipped arrow from the quiver and armed the crossbow, then struggled to his feet (Gods, the pain in his ankle was agonizing!) and limped into the road, taking aim at the rider.

  "Let me see your hands, armsman, and may the gods help you if—"

  For the second time that night, the words died in his throat.

  The boy who sat upon the horse was no armsman; he barely looked human. Even from this distance it was obvious to Olias that the boy had been the victim of a brutal beating. Most of his face and chest was covered in blood and wounds, his lower lip looked to have been half-sliced away by a knife's blade, and one side of his face was so horribly swollen that neither his eye nor part of his nose could be seen.

  Olias snapped the crossbow to his side, pointing the arrow toward the ground, and moved slowly forward, one hand extended in a gesture of peace so as not to alarm the horse.

  It was only as he came up beside the gray mare that he saw the rest.

  "Gods," he whispered. "Who did this to you, boy?"

  The rider made no reply.

  Not only had the boy been beaten, not only had he been cut and thrashed and (judging by some of the marks across his exposed stomach) whipped until nearly dead, but someone had burned him, as well. Clumps of ugly, flame-seared hair—looking more like pig's-bed straw than anything that should be part of a human being's body—hung limply from the boy's head, made all the more hideous by the contrast of its color against that of the sickening, glistening, crimson—raw sections where his scalp had been either sheared, pulled, or burned away from his skull.

  Olias swallowed. Twice. Hard and loudly.

  Over the years since his father's death, Olias had worked feverishly toward hardening himself against others' pain and misfortune. None had offered any comfort or sympathy to Father in his time of need—nor to himself or his mother after Father's death—so he vowed that none, no matter how pathetic, dire, or horrifying their circumstances, would ever touch him that deeply again.

  The next thought he blamed on weariness, for this boy whom he had mistaken for an armsman nearly reached into his core to wrest some small measure of tenderness... but Olias, well-practiced in this particular art of self-defense, was able to quash the moment of vulnerability by concentrating on the skill that had gone into securing the boy to his horse.

  His hands had been bound tightly together at the wrists and the bindings tied to the pommel of the saddle; there were no stirrup irons but the stirrup leathers had been left in place, used to tie the boy's calves to the saddle itself; he was belted thrice, two times at the waist—once to the pommel, once to the high cantle, using rings on the saddle meant for that purpose—and a third time around his neck. It was this last that threatened to move something buried deep in Olias' heart, for the opposite end of the leather strap had been split in two and each of the ends tied to the boy's ankles, as if he were a hog being bound for slaughter.

  Olias leaned closer, sniffing the leather.

  Beneath the coppery scent of blood and the charred aroma of flames and smoke, the scent of drenched hide drying was unmistakable. Whoever had bound the boy to this horse had soaked the leather straps, knowing damned well that as it dried it would shrink, tightening itself around the boy's neck and slowly crushing his throat.

  Why didn't you just kill him? thought Olias. What did this boy—barely a boy, more child than boy—what did he do that was so unspeakable as to warrant this kind of sick-making punishment, this... torture?

  Olias was still lost along such paths of thought when the boy turned his head downward—as much as the strap would allow him to—and opened his undamaged eye, which was so startlingly silver Olias felt a moment of awe tinged with fear.

  "Ffrind-iau?" choked the boy. "Caredig ffrind-iau?"

  Olias puzzled over the words. He'd traveled far through Valdemar, and had (or so he thought) encountered all of its various languages—after all, Valdemar was a patchwork quilt of a dozen different peoples escaping from a dozen different unbearable situations, and each of them had their own unique tongue which naturally would undergo changes as the various clans began to intermingle, but this boy was speaking in a language Olias had never heard before. It might have been some kind of primitive hybrid of Tayledras—Hawkbrother tongue (some of the inflections were similar)—but he doubted it; Hawkbrother tongue didn't have so many guttural clicks, nor was it nearly as musical as this boy's language. Under other circumstances, he probably wouldn't have cared at all.

  But despite his defenses, despite his not understanding the words themselves, Olias Felt the pain and loneliness and fear in the boy's plea.

  He unsheathed his dagger and set about cutting the straps, then lifted the boy (who was much, much larger than he first appeared) from off the horse—and nearly collapsed to the ground when the extra weight caused the bones in his wounded ankle to snap.

  :Ranyart!: Olias Called, trying to balance himself on his other leg.

  Ranyart ran up beside him. Olias managed to drape the boy
over Ranyart's saddle, then guided both horses over to the campsite where he promptly collapsed to the ground, clutching at his broken ankle and snarling with pain.

  The boy lifted his head, then pushed himself up and slid slowly from Ranyart's back and stumbled over to Olias.

  "Poen?" he asked, gently placing one of his scarred and bloody hands on Olias's ankle "Cymorth poen?"

  "Don't touch it!" shouted Olias, throwing back his head and wincing. "Gods, please... please don't! I—"

  The boy closed his good eye, then tightened his grip. A strange bluish glow appeared under the boy's hand, quickly spilling outward to encircle Olias' ankle. And before he could further protest or strike out at the boy, Olias felt the broken bones and tendons instantly, painlessly mend themselves. Moments later the boy helped him to his feet and Olias was dumbstruck; the ankle was fine. The boy had healed him.

  Looking up, he watched as the boy set to work on his own wounds, the same bluish light emanating from his hands as he touched first his head, then face, lip, throat, chest, and legs, finally grasping each wrist in turn to remove the bruises and strap burns. Each time his hands brushed over a different area, more of his body glowed with a shimmering soft blue light until, for a moment at the end, he was encased in a spectral luminance; but in an instant the light dissolved into his flesh and he stood there, just a boy, far too large for his age but looking healthy and unharmed... at least outwardly. Only time would tell how much damage had been done to the boy's mind and spirit by whatever filthy, sadistic cowards had unleashed their brutality on him.

  No wonder they tied your hands so tightly, thought Olias. They couldn't chance your healing yourself before the horse had carried you far away from them... that is, if they even knew about your healing powers. Were they afraid of something else, odd one? Were they aware of your powers, at all? Damn! What does it matter and why should I care?

  Still, the thought persisted: Why hadn't they just killed him? Didn't it occur to anyone that some other traveler might chance upon the boy and set him free? Wouldn't they know if that were to happen, the boy might come back to seek vengeance?

  The boy lifted his cherubic, smiling face to Olias.

  Gods, thought Olias, feeling almost silly: That was not the face of one who would go seeking vengeance.

  "Th-thank you," said Olias, pointing down toward his ankle. "It feels... feels fine. It feels wonderful, in fact."

  The boy, his piercing, hypnotic silver gaze never wandering from Olias's eyes, simply smiled more widely and nodded his head.

  "What's your name, child? Have you a name?"

  The boy cocked his head to the side, the expression on his face puzzled.

  Sighing, Olias stood up straight and patted his own chest with both hands. "Olias. I am Olias." He pointed at the boy. "What's your name?"

  The boy grinned, then stood up straight, patting his chest with both hands, and said, quite loudly, "Olias!"

  Olias groaned, shaking his head. "No, no, no! I am Olias. Me. That's my name!" He pointed at the boy once again and raised his eyebrows in silent question.

  The boy looked at him, opened his mouth to speak but didn't, then snapped up his head, eyes widening with understanding as he pointed to his chest and shouted, "L'lewythi!" Pressing his hand against Olias's chest, the boy whispered, somewhat hesitantly: "Ffrind-iau. Chi, ti L'lewythi's ffrind-iau, ydhuch?"

  "Urn... yes," replied Olias, nodding his head (for some reason, he sensed it was important to agree with the boy at this moment). "Yes, of course. L'lewythi's ffrind-iau."

  L'lewythi laughed, then embraced Olias (nearly crushing his rib cage—gods, the child was strong!), patting his back several times in a gesture of thanks and affection.

  "You're... you're welcome. I think," responded Olias, pulling himself away from the boy and checking himself for internal bleeding, then pointing toward the fire where the squirrel-meat was roasting on a spit over the flames. "Are you hungry?"

  The boy furrowed his brow in confusion, obviously no more familiar with Olias' language than Olias was with his.

  Sighing, Olias rubbed a hand over his own stomach. "Hungry? Do you want something to eat?"

  The boy tilted his head to the side, then shrugged.

  His frustration growing, Olias took a calming breath and said, "Rwy'n mynd I gael cinio. Gobeithio mai ty-wydd braf gown ni?"

  Then gasped and promptly covered his mouth with his hand as the boy made a delighted sound, licked his lips, rubbed his stomach, and nodded vigorously.

  Did I just invite him to join me in his own tongue? How in Havens could I do that—I've never heard this language before in my life!

  The boy, perhaps sensing the other's confusion, touched a finger to his own mouth, then his head, then pointed toward Olias.

  "You made me do that, didn't you? You... you gave your language to me for that moment, didn't you?"

  "Ydhuch! L'lewythi cymorth ffrind-iau." He made his way toward the campfire. "Bwuq!" he said, laughing as he pointed to the roasting squirrels.

  "Y-yes," stammered Olias. "Bwuq." It seemed that was the boy's word for food.

  He proved himself to be a most pleasant and courteous meal companion, not taking more than his share of food and making sure that Olias had all that he wanted. Though there had been only two squirrels, it seemed to Olias that the layers of delicious meat on their carcasses were enough to have come from ten squirrels.

  A candlemark later, when both Olias and L'lewythi were so full they couldn't eat another bite, it still looked as if they had barely touched the food.

  Adding more wood to the fire, then crawling into his ground-bedding, Olias looked at L'lewythi and said (in his own language), "I don't know where you came from or what, exactly, you are, but I'm almost glad for your company—and believe me, I've not said that to another human being in a long, long while. You're welcome to stay here with Ranyart and me for the night."

  The boy snuggled up against one of the trees, folded his hands in his lap, and leaned back his head... but did not—or would not, it appeared—close his eyes.

  "I guess that means you're happy to accept the invitation," whispered Olias under his breath, then lay back, lute in hands, and strummed an old tune while staring up at the clear, starry night.

  From time to time, Olias would chance a quick glance at his guest, and always the boy seemed to be fighting against falling asleep.

  Why do you not wish to rest? thought Olias. Are you frightened that your dreams will force you to relive what they did to you? Or is it something else, something you cannot express to me so that I'll understand?

  He held his breath, momentarily opening his senses to the night as the wind changed direction and the stench of fire, smoke, and destruction grew stronger.

  Out there, somewhere in the night, a great violence had taken place. Olias was able to Feel the lingering resonance of the destruction and brutality... and unspeakable terror. Closing his eyes and focusing on the sentient threads, he Sensed the presence of something powerful in slumber, something Otherworldly—no, not Otherworldly at all, but something that came from beyond the Otherworld, something he couldn't quite grasp and bring forward so that he might See and Understand.

  Whatever it was, it was beyond any power he'd ever encountered, and somehow it was connected to this boy.

  What are you, my strange lostling... and what did you do to deserve such a fate?

  Then: You're nothing to me, so why should I care? Each of us must deal alone with our demons. Don't count on anyone's help, lostling, because you'll not get it. Tonight you were lucky, but as far as I am concerned, come the dawn you are on your own.

  As if he had both heard and comprehended Olias' private musings, L'lewythi's face shadowed for an instant with a soul-sick hurt that made him look even more helpless and pathetic and so very, very sad.

  Lest that look reach into his heart, Olias turned his face away, returning his attention to his lute.

  Alone, lostling, we are all alone, from cradle to
grave. Don't share your pain with me; I don't want to see it.

  3

  After a while—and without his being aware of it—Olias had begun to play "My Lady's Eyes", a sentimental song and one that he had always thought to be so much drivel, but it allowed a minstrel to show off his fingering. It had been his parents' favorite song. They had danced to it at their wedding.

  Unexpectedly, Olias felt his throat tightening as unwanted tears began to form in his eyes. Swallowing back the emotions that were trying to surge to the surface, he laid the lute aside and forced himself to think of his blunder earlier tonight in allowing the scullery maid to panic him. He could have easily gotten past her and the others. After all, he'd taken time to walk through the manor-keep and decide upon his escape route, but for some reason, being discovered like that had unnerved him, and that had never happened before. What did it matter, though? That fat, arrogant, disgusting slug the servants called m'Lord was a lot poorer now than he'd been before allowing the minstrel into his home. Though Olias doubted the man would remain poorer for very long, he at least had the satisfaction of knowing that the bastard was stewing in his own juices tonight, cursing everyone and everything because he had been taken in by a common thief.

  He sat up, rummaging around for the bottle of wine, and took three deep swallows, then looked over at his companion.

  L'lewythi, looking exhausted and desperately in need of sleep, was still awake and staring at Olias, his face betraying his concern.

  Olias began speaking to the boy; he couldn't stop himself. It was as if the spirits wandering this Sovvan-night were forcing him to talk.

  "I was thinking about—" No, best not tell him what you were just this moment thinking about. After all, a thief is a thief in any clan.

  "I was thinking about my parents. My mother was employed as an apprentice-seamstress at the manor-keep of Lord Withen Ashkevron of Forst Reach. My father was the village metalworker and blacksmith. I remember... I know this may sound odd to you—assuming you understand a word I'm saying—but of all things, I remember his hands the best. They were so large and powerful that when I was a child, I imagined that I could curl up in either of his palms and sleep there. They were rough hands, hard-callused and scarred, but his touch against my cheek was as gentle as angel's breath. I remember the way he would come home after a day's labors and scrub those hands until I thought he would scrape the flesh right off of them, and whenever my mother would say to him, 'Why do you wash so angrily?' he would show her one of his sad half-grins and say, 'It won't do for you to be touched by anything so dirty and hard,' and my mother would laugh... oh, gods, I miss hearing her laugh. If my father's hand so lightly against my cheek was the touch of angel's breath, then my mother's laugh was their song. And the love in their eyes whenever they would look at each other....